Parmy Olson, the bureau chief for Forbes in London, tries to unravel and give meaning to the anonymous network of hackers that has eluded law enforcement for many years, in her new book.

"We are Anonymous" bills itself as the first book to go deep into the mysterious world of the hackers. Olson got access to hundreds of hackers around the world and through those interviews she is able to give some shape to the amorphous entity.

The starting point for the book is the 2008 attack of the Church Of Scientology and then the 2010 assault of big corporations such as Visa and Paypal for their treatment of WikiLeaks. The attacks jeopardized the integrity of customer passwords. They also leaked the pornography user accounts of prominent political officials and they defaced the Vaticans' website.

In a description of the book on Amazon, it says that the book also proves that "Although some attacks were perpetrated by masses of users who were rallied on the message boards of 4Chan, many others were masterminded by a small, tight-knit group of hackers who formed a splinter group of Anonymous called LulzSec. The legend of Anonymous and LulzSec grew in the wake of each ambitious hack. But how were they penetrating intricate corporate security systems? Were they anarchists or activists? Teams or lone wolves? A cabal of skilled hackers or a disorganized bunch of kids?"

But not everything that the hackers told Olson is to be believed as she tells the New York Times."Did supporters of Anonymous lie to me in some interviews?  Yes, though admittedly not always to start with. Over time, if I was not sure about a key point, I would seek to corroborate it with others.  Such is the case with statements presented as fact in this book.  My approach to Anons who were lying to me was simply to go along with their stories, acting as if I were impressed with what they were saying in the hope of teasing out more information that I could later confirm."

The New York Times review of the book says Olson has succeeded in giving "a clear timeline" to a "complicated and winding history."