What about the widespread awareness of encryption and the necessity of secure cryptographic communications? In many laypeople's minds Anonymous and the "deep web" or "darknet" are synonymous, they all occupy the same zone in the cultural consciousness. Popular culture is culture.
> What about the widespread awareness of encryption and the necessity of secure cryptographic communications?
I think Wikileaks and Snowden should get some credit for this as well. Also, I think the silk road guy should get most of the credit for "darknet" being a thing.
> Popular culture is culture.
Yup. But it doesn't necessarily affect other popular culture (which is how I defined "cultural impact").
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Doom is a good example: It both made it into popular culture (sold lots of copies, the Doom movie, etc.), but also hat cultural impact in the sense that it pushed 3D graphics. L0pht, the CCC, etc. had cultural impact in the same sense but never really made it into popular culture. Anonymous on the other hand did make it into popular culture but had no cultural impact (that I can think of right now).