Anonymous at the forefront of 'OccupyWallStreet' protests

Cyber activists associated with Anonymous remain at the forefront of the rapidly growingOccupyWallStreet (OWS) protests as the movement goes global.

Demonstrators wearing Guy Fawkes masks have been spotted at key rallies in various cities around the world, including New York City, Rome, Madrid, Oakland, London, Frankfurt and San Francisco.



Rallying under the banner of #OCCUPYWALLSTREET, the demonstrators say they want to change the world's financial system for the better.

Even WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wore the now famous mask before police ordered him to remove it at a protestoutside of London's St Paul's Cathedral.

Fortunately, Assange was not arrested, despite the fact that he broke through a police "kettle" enclosing the Cathedral to address the masses.

Human rights lawyer Jen Robinson reacted to Assange's treatment by tweeting: "Says we can't wear masks and be anonymous but [apparently] Swiss banks accounts can be."

Anonymous has been at  the forefront of helping to organize protests against the current financial regime on Wall Street and other economic capitals.

Indeed, the group was one of the first to promote the nascent OWS flag on various websites, forums and IRC (chat) channels back in August.

Obviously, OccupyWallStreet has evolved and grown since then, but as organizer Nicole Carty, 23, says the (now international) movement is determined to remain leaderless.

"It's so important for it to be leaderless... As soon as you allow someone to speak for you, you're giving up your freedom and your individual voice."

Meanwhile, Jack Goldstone, professor of public policy at George Mason University in Washington D.C., says that the OWS protests "could be with us" for a long time.

"You have a generation who are fed up being told what to do by rich western countries or rich western people. It's going to be a difficult period. It makes politics very unpredictable.

"You can get paralysis, but you can also see dramatic shifts in policy to left or right. You can see the rise of ideologues as we saw in the 1930s. We are very much at the beginning of this," he added.