“ISIS is a virus that Anonymous plans to cure; so far the hacktivist group has put the hurt to the online ISIS terrorist presence by knocking out websites spreading jihadist propaganda and social media accounts that have been used for recruiting new members,” Darlene Storm reports for Computerworld. “In the first wave of a massive cyberattack, the hacker collective managed to ‘destroy months of recruiting work’ for the terrorist network ISIS.”
Storm reports that Operation ISIS (#OpISIS) is underway; Anonymous vowed:
ISIS: We will hunt you, Take down your sites, accounts, emails, and expose you.
From now on, no safe place for you online…
You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure…
We own the internet…
We are Anonymous; we are Legion; we do not forgive, we do not forget, Expect us.
“ISIS has a huge online presence, having accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube Tumblr, Instagram, and lists goes on. Those accounts are used as recruitment tools and to spread the terrorist network’s propaganda. Although the Anonymous collective is working to get those accounts of ‘terrorist scum’ suspended, ISIS supporters released a how-to for avoiding online surveillance and for growing that presence by bypassing the daily Twitter limit on following accounts,” Storm reports. “Anonymous has also been launching DDoS attacks to hammer on ISIS-related websites until they are knocked to their knees and then completely offline.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Anonymous declares cyberwar against Islamic terrorists over Charlie Hebdo attack – January 9, 2015
Apple joins ‘Je Suis Charlie’ solidarity movement after Islamic terror murders in Paris – January 8, 2015
ok, i don’t see how anonymous thinks their agenda will work. you are trying to intimidate a group of people who just don’t care and aren’t scared. ooh, you threaten to take a website offline? they just killed a jordanian fighter pilot by burning him a live in a cage – just because. what a bunch of idiots. egotistical idiots.
Yeah, but hey, wouldn’t it be great if ‘Anonymous’ could record these ISIS leaders when at their computer to get on the web and the thing just won’t work, huh? How many Christians have cursed in the name of God for the utter aggravation? C’mon, can’t say people haven’t been there, said that. Makes me wonder if ISIS leaders at their computers staring into a monitor that doesn’t progress if they don’t under their breather curse “Allah”! Imagine if ‘Anonymous’ had a video recording of that, a Puritanical jihadist Islam follower to the strictness interpretation of the Koran! Now that would be funny.
Just send all the ISIS idiots Samsung Smart TV’s and let ’em plan away.
my point is similar to thelonious – though he said it more eloquently. i just find anonymous is more about seeking publicity than actual change.
if they are truly committed to action and focusing their efforts on disrupting ISIS and their networks to hurt their recruiting efforts, then just do it. don’t act like a child seeking approval from a parent like – “hey, look at me, i am important too and can do things so i will be loud and go after some scary network and take their websites office”
i would like to see them hack their phones, disrupt services like electricity at their camps, hack their financial network and siphon their funds so they can no longer bank roll their campaigns. but publicly trying to embarrass them will not work.
this is not a religious cause. they do not follow the Quran. they do not pray. this is a territorial play and they are killing their way to power. taking a website offline will not effect change. so if anonymous wants me – and society to take them serious, then enact a serious campaign and go for complete disruption. otherwise go back to your 5th grade class.
Really? They actually follow the Quran quite literally that is the problem. It is precisely that tight binding of groups of people that initiated ‘religion’ in the first place and then used it to manipulate through total devotion amongst the foot soldiers sadistic killing for whatever cause the initiators desired. Like the snowball down the mountain the originators have little understanding of where and how big it will be when it reaches the bottom.
If Anonymous can do anything to disrupt ISIS, that’s great! Why all the criticism? At least they’re willing to try to hurt these wackos using the skills they possess. If ISIS’ online presence can be disrupted to a degree that it renders their recruitment and financing much less effective, we all win.
ws – jerk and idiot – give it ONE SECOND’S thought. Your sarcasm in unwarranted. They don’t think ISIS are going to run away going “boo-hoo-hoo” because Anonymous threaten to take down a website. Anonymous thinks, correctly, that they can have an effect by dramatically lessening the organization’s reach on the Internet. Propaganda and recruitment are a lot less effective if you can’t communicate with anyone.
By the way, what the heck is going on in the world that this kind of communication is not immediately shut down by those currently carrying it? Even in the most free of free speech countries, conspiring to commit mass murder is not usually protected. /s
resorting to name calling – by the second word of your response – is a wonderful way to validate your opinion
Just throwing a little back at you, since your first post was both derisive and insulting.
“ooh, you threaten to take a website offline?”
“what a bunch of idiots. egotistical idiots.”
Try making your points without that and other insults such as “don’t act like a child seeking approval from a parent”
“hey, look at me”.
You do NOT know what is going on inside their heads or their motivations.
Your presumptions and characterizations are, in fact, childish.
Glad I’m not the only one to notice the weakness and hypocrisy in his argument.
sigh. the art of satire is completely lost here.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
ws, if you think writing “what a bunch of idiots. egotistical idiots” is satire,
– either you have no clue what satire means
– or you do know what it means, but definitely should not attempt it.
Praise them for trying something, anything FCOL ! I bow to them for doing this ! If this eventually leads to just one less rape, murder, massacre … WHATEVER then fantastic!
I think the idea is to prevent them from recruiting even more idiots online.
This.
Anonymous is trying to stop their influx of new recruits. Which is a major issue and I’m glad there’s an organization doing something about it. Even if it IS Anonymous.
Precisely. This is hitting them where it hurts just as much as dropping bombs would be. The fact that they are permitted to maintain accounts on these networks in the first place is a bit shocking, to be honest. We can’t just be cynical and do nothing and expect anything to change.
As far as maintaining accounts, I think it’s more a problem of identifying and shutting down current accounts quickly enough. And for every account shut down, they open several others. ISIS appears to have a very thorough understanding of just how much activity it can use on an account to keep it under the radar, and how to open new accounts without raising suspicions.
It’s not just recruitment, it involves how ISIS is financed as well. While ISIS took hundreds of millions of dollars from banks and other captured entities, that money only lasts so long when you’re fighting a multi-front war and you need ammunition, food and other supplies. ISIS may have captured oil fields, but it is finding very few buyers for its oil. Even Iran is scared of these nut jobs, so who wants to be in business with them?
At least they’re doing something…which is more than I can say about our government.
no kidding,
for all the money that goes to the nsa then they get totally chumped by anonymous… goes to show how well nsa is spending our taxes while eroding our freedoms.
so, who do they work for, anyhow?
The NSA is busy spying on its allies and the American people. It doesn’t have time to be bothered with the likes of ISIS/ISIL.
Nothing with this much at stake to the western world can be considered futile. It’s NOT futile or pointless. This religion-as-an-excuse threat is getting out of hand and using the very technology it would probably make illegal if it managed to take over the world. Which ain’t gonna happen.
ISIS mistake is the same mistake the Japanese made attacking the U.S. & Pearl Harbor. All they managed to do was “awaken the sleeping giant.” Oh, we’re wide awake all right and on to you.
And like Patton said “the object is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for HIS country” or in this case religious zealotry that manages to defy it’s own tenets and kill it’s own more rational Islamic believers.
Where ISIS really screwed up is by burning the Jordanian pilot alive. As depraved as the beheadings are, burning a man alive is simply horrific. I have a great deal of respect for the Jordanians for essentially declaring war against an evil force right in its backyard, then going all out to accomplish it. I hope we fully support the Jordanians, as this may be what the world really needed to get rid of ISIS.
Next we need the world to stop ignoring Boco Haram and put the resources in to wipe out that bunch of mass murderers.
I think the government’s done enough. Bomb and embargo a place into unbearable impoverished shit holes, give the hatred and desperation enough time to simmer until all political power is handed over to most extremist militants, and there you have it – a nation ruled by extremists bent on global destruction and vengeance. The same recipe for creating Nazi Germany and the Afghan Taliban also produces ISIS.
This reminds me of “gamergate.” Just as with all the “threats” against Anita Sarkeesian, I suspect this “Anonymous” threat came from the laptop of some snot nosed 12 year old.
I mean who writes “…ISIS: We will hunt you, Take down your sites, accounts, emails, and expose you.
From now on, no safe place for you online….”
No one but someone with the mind of a child, reading comic books.
Any real organized effort to thwart ISIS efforts on the Internet would not seek publicity.
The same logic would imply ISIS are 8 years olds by that argument, if ones given all sorts of murderous toys.
You’d be surprised how many adults actually communicate this way. More importantly, it is quite possible that majority of those who consider themselves members of the “Anonymous” collective are not native English speakers, and their written English is a product of various online forums.
Also, the type of person involved in this kind of activity (illegal hacking) is usually someone with intelligence above the average, but who has for various reasons been excluded from the mainstream society and has the need to prove himself to others, as well as to himself.
The efficiency and effectiveness of the “Anonymous” is questionable, but if their prior efforts are any indication, whatever they end up doing will help disrupt communications a bit.
We can’t stop them from beheading people unless our governments send ground troups to hunt them down. If nothing, this can at least slow down the recruitment process a bit.
Every little helps.
(Tesco)
And how do we know that Anonymous, or part of it, is not simply a cover for the NSA?
I wish they could capture ISIS members. I’d buy one.
I think it’s great that they are disrupting ISIS. The U.S. and other governments should attack there networks.
A good start would be if American (mostly) companies would stop providing them the tools to use and then turn their backs on the consequences claiming it’s not their concern. Total hypocrites that will sow the seeds of our own destruction if we aren’t careful.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend…,,,
You would think just using a computer would be punishable by death. I know they executed a group of teens for watching a soccer match
Facebook, Twitter, etc should have shut down all these accounts.
Easier said than done. They don’t exactly open accounts under “Isis Recruitment 2015”.
All online jihadi sites and those who interact them are monitored by the NSA. That is why they are allowed to exist. Disrupting those sites only serves to hamper the governments ability to keep an eye on their activities and possibly identify the people behind them.
‘We own the internet’?
That’s odd; I thought Berners-Lee gave it ‘to everyone’.
Cough cough.
I’d have thought that when (laudably) trying to take down arrogant totalitarian extremists it might be a good idea not to sound like one?
Oh, gawd… “I disapprove of the precise way they word their declaration”. Let’s stick to what ISIS are doing… and what Anonymous are doing in response. A helluva lot more than you and me, I think.
they are fighting with the tools that they know and have. What I would like to tell them, is share the information they accumulate with intelligence services of France, Israel, Germany and other European countries to coordinate any additional forms of retaliation. Our muslim-in-chief should definitely be kept OUT of the loop.
I am a military vet,son of a military vet and I am fed up with Odrama and his bullshit foreign “lack of”policy,he won’t even call a damned terrorist a terrorist, and he sits and waits on whatever a closet-Muslim waits on,he attacks Israel our only ally in the ME and brokers nuke deals with Iran?I am fed up reading how ISIS is going crazy kidnapping Christians and assassinating them I say let’s show those bastards what the Old Testament means by “An eye-for-an eye”,we should round them up on live TV,cut off their hands and feet and feed them to the pigs,I was in Iraq supporting our military and I am ready and geared to go to the ME and erase a few ISIS terrorists before they decide to start attacking us in our country,it’s a sure beat that poor excuse for a President won’t do what needs to be done..”SIGN ME UP!”
Appreciation for the direct you’ve led below. What’s interesting yours amazin blog looks exactly like my personal former 1!