While I agree they are of the well-educated variety, what makes you think they are setup or funded by a terrorist organization or government?
Their objectives don't seem consistent with those of terrorists and if funded by a government, I would think they'd be keeping a much lower profile. They seem to me to be exactly what they advertise to be, hacktivists.
Most of their targets (with any group that hides it's identity, you'll have rogues) have an easily identifiable reason/policy that would draw the ire of reasonably-minded people (PayPay stopping Wikileaks payments, Facebook's privacy practices, and BART's shooting/cell phone blocking come to mind). I just don't see the benefit of terrorists or a foreign government making those topics their focus for covert attacks.