back to article Speaking in Tech: Anonymous’s ‘total war’ on ISIS – how effective can it be?

speaking_in_tech Greg Knieriemen podcast enterprise Hosted by Greg Knieriemen, Ed Saipetch and Sarah Vela. This week, Eddie and Greg (with Sarah taking a well-earned rest) talk Netflix, net neutrality, Anonymous, Open Source and more. Our special guest this week is Justin Warren of PivotNine. And here are the details: (1: …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anonymous’s ‘total war’ on ISIS – how effective can it be?

    I'll tell you next week...

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: Anonymous’s ‘total war’ on ISIS – how effective can it be?

      I think we'll be here...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Anonymous’s ‘total war’ on ISIS – how effective can it be?

      I actually gave some thought to joining in. Call me maybe.

  2. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

    Probably really peeing off the spooks who will lose their best source of intel.

  3. Charles Manning

    Anonymous’s ‘total war’ on ISIS

    So suddenly the West isn't Anonymous' Great Evil anymore?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Considering how effectively they obliterated Scientology I can't wait to see all of the pamphlets they manage to leak and the tenuously linked (or unrelated but similarly-named) web sites they briefly deface.

    1. Christoph

      I wonder how many of them read enough Arabic to know whether they are attacking a terrorist website or a totally innocent and unrelated site?

      And if a site can be conclusively identified as terrorist-run by a bunch of amateurs, how come it hasn't already been taken down/subverted/bugged by the professionals?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I am putting money down right now that one of them confuses the gay pride flag (you know the one) with arabic, like the CNN did a while back.

      2. Teiwaz

        You mean the when in doubt, attack any site with 'squiggly writing' strategy?

    2. Suricou Raven

      That campaign actually worked fairly well. The church is still around, true - but their name is mud. They are a laughing-stock. It's so impaired their ability to recruit that they have had to refocus their expansion on less-developed and non-english-speaking countries where the campaign was not able to reach.

  5. a_yank_lurker

    Any Disruption

    Any disruption of ISIS' online activities will be of some benefit. Only if Anonymous causes ISIS to spend more resources on protecting cyber assets is a useful diversion of resources. The resources are not being used as planned or desired.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Any Disruption

      Any disruption of ISIS' online activities will be of some benefit.

      Don't be daft. Digital vigilantes will prove as effective as real world vigilantes.

      One of the major sources of intelligence on any enemy in this day and age is the digital footprint of that group/country. If the amateurs of Anonymous go round vandalising the digital assets and communications of IS, they merely cause IS to adopt new communications strategies that the professionals have to unravel and then penetrate or monitor. And they will probably even be destroying evidence and usable intelligence in their casual attacks, making the job of the security services even harder (noting that the warrantless mass data scooping by the security services is one particular way they make their own job harder).

      If Anonymous want to fight IS, they need to grow up and sign up to their various countries' security services. Competent hackers will be more than welcome, script kiddies less so.

    2. DrXym

      Re: Any Disruption

      "Any disruption of ISIS' online activities will be of some benefit. "

      Not necessarily. Disrupting their public sites and feeds might be detrimental to any security services who happen to be monitoring them. I expect the UK, France, Germany, USA, Australia etc. all have their eyes on these things already and would be fully capable of taking them down if it served their interest to do it. Perhaps they get more information from leaving them up - IP traffic, chatter etc.

    3. Dr Dan Holdsworth
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Any Disruption

      Oh don't be so bloody daft!

      Most of what ISIS is doing is via big media companies like Twitter and Facebook. Some spotty git doing dictionary attacks on the accounts of other similarly sad religious nitwits' pages is not going to discomfit ISIS in the least, though it will piss the media companies off royally.

      The way to shut down ISIS accounts on big media companies' sites is very simple. As most are American, you simply ask the CIA if they could possibly go and have a little chat with the chief executives of these companies. I would expect that the chat would go something like this:

      "Ah, good morning ladies and gentlemen, thank you for agreeing to see me so promptly. Now, my superiors tell me that your company seems to be hosting quite a few propaganda sites for various sworn enemies of the United States. As I'm sure you all know, we have quite a few laws forbidding this, and should we suspect that you were not doing your utmost to prevent this abuse we would have no alternative but to investigate.

      Now, in order to preserve evidence, our usual means of investigation of these sorts of things is to seize the servers upon which the material is hosted while we check to see what is hosted where; obviously you would have to make alternative arrangements to keep your business running whilst we investigated, but as I say we only do this if there is clear evidence of wrongdoing. So, folks, would you mind awfully just checking to see that our fears are unfounded, before we have to investigate these matters more fully?"

      That is how you shut down terrorist propaganda sites.

  6. FlamingDeath Silver badge
    Pirate

    Insecurity Services

    I know I am going to get shot down for saying this because lets face it, groupthink isn't known for its sound analysis of a situation, and people put too much faith in their ruling class / government.

    ***NEWSFLASH***

    ISIS™ is funded, armed and trained by the CIA™ & Saudi Arabia™

    I feel the assaination of JFK, is somehow connected by butterfly effect.

    A quick read up on the Bay of Pigs invasion, kind of reinforces my analysis.

    Skull & Crossbones icon, cos, you know?

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

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