Anonymous Takes Down Thousands of ISIS-Related Twitter Accounts In a Day (softpedia.com)

BarbaraHudson writes: Softpedia is reporting that Anonymous, along with social media users, have identified several thousand Twitter accounts allegedly linked to ISIS members. "Besides scanning for ISIS Twitter accounts themselves, the hacking group has also opened access to the [takedown operation] site to those interested. Anyone who comes across ISIS social media accounts can easily search the database and report any new terrorists and supporters. The website is called #opIceISIS [slow right now, but it does load] and will index ISIS members based on their real name, location, picture, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts." Anonymous crowdsourcing their operations... welcome to the brave new world, ISIS. An article at The Independent reminds everyone that this information has not been independently confirmed, and that Anonymous is certainly capable of misidentifying people. It's also worth exploring the question of why Twitter hasn't already disabled these accounts, and why intelligence agencies haven't done anything about them, if they're so easy to find.

Comments

what good will this do ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry that i am posting as anonymous coward, on public pc.
What good would this do ? it wont really hurt isis in any way, they can just create new accounts.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Grishnakh]

It makes it much harder for them to conduct their recruitment and other operations which depend on an online presence.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BitZtream]

Are you seriously so naive to think that they get a lot of recruits from twitter?

Sure they get some, but typically first world whiney brats on twitter aren't the type that can actually survive even being around where ISIS does actual recruiting.

When you make silly comments like this it shows that you really have no idea what motivates these people to be terrorists.

Silly first world issues don't have any effect on people living in places that would call Hell an improvement.

Re:what good will this do ?

[nospam007]

"Sure they get some, but typically first world whiney brats on twitter aren't the type that can actually survive even being around where ISIS does actual recruiting."

Suicide bombers/shooters are known for 'not surviving', it is kind of their thing.

Re:what good will this do ?

[HiThere]

Think military bootcamp.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Anonymous Coward]

ISIS can no longer contribute to discussions on equal pay, micro-aggressions, girls in tech and free trade coffee.

We're saved.

Re:what good will this do ?

[prefec2]

Most recruits of IS are young men, in a life changing situation, which are instable. Life changing situations are when thy end school and train in a profession, move towns for jobs, go to college and university. Therefore, this applies to most likely 1/3 of all slashdotters. I would assume that they use Twitter and Facebook beside all hate about it.

Re:what good will this do ?

[amicusNYCL]

Like these folks.

Re: what good will this do ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the videos Vice News made inside ISIS territory. People are not starving. They even have electricity. It's not Ethiopia in the 80s. (Even Ethiopia wasn't quite how it looked on the news.) They do use social media, mainly for propaganda purposes. And they hate the west because they are taught to, because that hatred serves the needs of the people in power, not for any other reason.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Are you seriously so naive to think that they get a lot of recruits from twitter?

Honestly, maybe. Some of their big accounts are pretty Muslim girls who talk all about jihad and shit. How many are catfish is irrelevant- it speaks to their demographic, which is disenfranchised young men. Many others simply exist to encourage each other.

Here's a better way to look at it- ISIS has thousands of twitter accounts. If that didn't help them in some material way, they would not have thousands of twitter accounts. It's really that simple.

Re:what good will this do ?

[rahvin112]

Their entire PR and recruiting operation works on twitter, facebook and other social network properties. You don't actually think they are calling people do you? Sure they have facilitators on the outside spreading their message but 99% of their propaganda goes out via social networking and based on the people they've caught trying to join daesh they are their primary recruiting tools as well.

What do you think they are holding job fairs or some such nonsense? Their only way to communicate with people is through social media.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Samantha Wright]

There's a group that doesn't need to meet those criteria: women. Example.

Re:what good will this do ?

[tburkhol]

Yea, people who have time to dick around and read Twitter are not the kind of people who are willing to blow themselves up unless it's due to shear boredom.

Bored, idealistic, rich kids have been part of most major revolutions or asymmetric conflicts. "Useful idiots" maybe. Philosophers. Basically, kids angry with the world, looking for ways to improve the plight of some oppressed group. People who can be convinced of a noble sacrifice, however misguided.

I doubt very much that suicide bombers are sitting in their hovels, just waiting for someone to suggest the vest and the 72 virgins. They're cultivated over years. Slowly. Twitter and social media are extremely efficient tools to make first contact with many, many people.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Coren22]

That might finally push them over the edge!

Re:what good will this do ?

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Well, if they're actually putting real names out there, it could help. It will take extra effort to verify most of this, but it could be a good thing.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Coren22]

You may want to read the below Wikipedia article. It likely will give you some insight into some things you may be missing on the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:what good will this do ?

[powerlord]

Think military bootcamp.

Isn't that the Arab distribution of OSX's ability to run Windows 10?

Re:what good will this do ?

[tarlek1234]

I'm tired of seeing zillions of replies to "Score:0" posts, and having to diddle around and lose my place just to see the original post. A top-level post should always be visible if there are responses to it.

Re:what good will this do ?

[kheldan]

What good would this do ?

It's disruptive to their Internet-based propaganda and radicalization/recruiting operations, and hopefully it's making them an embarassment to anyone who is witnessing them being outed and shut down.

Unfortunately in their enthusiasm to do as much damage as possible, they may be disrupting government intelligence operations, that might have been monitoring some of those accounts for intel on ISIL operations. That's something I didn't consider until someone else mentioned it to me.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

They use the accounts, as well as facebook accoiunts, for multiple reasons:

1 Communications between cells using code phrases
2 Distribution of propaganda (fear and terror - after all, they're terrorists)
3.Recruiting

Take down one channel of communication (a twitter for facebook account), and you have to tell people where to look for the next one. Do it often enough, quickly enough, and you've crippled their means of communications to the outside world. Sure, accounts are free - but imagine if you had to buy a new burner phone AND tell everyone your new phone number, every day.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

Seems to me they've been able to give real-life experience on the ground against their enemies for quite some time.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

That's like saying that people have been recruited before movies. Sure - but once movies came out, those patriotic newsreels were a big thing in theaters.

And it's certainly easier to get their propaganda out there when it's searchable and nobody bothers to take it down on the false theory that it's better to listen in ... it's not, because we're not gathering evidence to take them to trial, and it's not like we can go there, knock in their door, and arrest them.

Re:what good will this do ?

[WoOS]

According to newspaper and magazine reports most recruitment happens in personal contact with radical preachers.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

What good would this do ?

It's disruptive to their Internet-based propaganda and radicalization/recruiting operations, and hopefully it's making them an embarassment to anyone who is witnessing them being outed and shut down. Unfortunately in their enthusiasm to do as much damage as possible, they may be disrupting government intelligence operations, that might have been monitoring some of those accounts for intel on ISIL operations. That's something I didn't consider until someone else mentioned it to me.

It's not like the government can use the IP address to go knock on their door with a search warrant. Letting them continue isn't going to be useful if you can't connect the fake account to a real person, and a real location. Have the good guys shut down the account and immediately replace it with a fake new account that imitates ISIS, just to sow confusion. Then shut down the new account, to fuel paranoia.

Re: what good will this do ?

[jsh1972]

mod this guy up, please... No points, or I would.

Re:what good will this do ?

[kheldan]

Letting them continue isn't going to be useful if you can't connect the fake account to a real person, and a real location

I don't necessarily agree with that. Being able to monitor what they're saying could potentially be useful. If they get too comfortable they might let something slip that they might not if they're completely vigilant.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Tharkkun]

You are aware that people have been recruiting since before there was an Internet ... Right?

You too are trapped in this retarded first world view of things and have absolutely no concept of how different their world is from yours. Most of their members have never seen the Internet, how the fuck are they going to be recruited by an entirely first world time sink they don't even know exists.

Just because you once heard a news story about a couple girls who did it via social media doesn't make it common, it just makes you look silly for believing that.

That's where you're wrong. How do you think CNN gets a hold of all their videos? Internet. They have the money to setup and leverage social media. Facebook is the #1 form of communication across the planet. Especially for young recruits. That's how they intercept would be recruits crossing the borders into the middle east. Social media.

Re:what good will this do ?

[SharpFang]

read at -1 you pussy.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

Do you really believe they're going to give their home address or real identity? When people go to ISIS for the first time, they don't meet the catfish who suckered them in - ISIS isn't stupid enough not to use a cut-out.

More likely, whatever they "accidentally let slip" isn't an accident.

Re:what good will this do ?

[JohnnyComeLately]

There's a father in the UK who would disagree with you. His daughter, who was very quiet, introspective and not very religious was introduced to ISIS via Twitter. They carefully groom, have "handlers," who spot the girls and then hand them off. They're then fed a steady stream, similar to what you see on your Twitter and Facebook. With the aim to gradually move you from center and an "entertaining extreme ideas," without any aim to do them yourself. Then one day, "Come check it out for yourself. Here's Twitter accounts of others who are here and having a great time!!" The UK girl hid her trip from her parents who had 0 idea until the police showed up. The sick irony is the police had previously contacted the school, who sent home a letter with the girl for her parents to read. Guess whether parents saw it? Long story still long... It is good that Anon is shutting these down.

For the people asking why intel communities aren't shutting them down: They're intel sources. Why would you shut down accounts when they tell you TTPs, SOPs, areas of influence, capabilities, locations (eg. idiot Twitters a pic of the ISIS HQ, which is then bombed within 24 hours), etc. Besides, no manning for this as there's no DoD or IC requirements to "shut down propaganda accounts."

Re: what good will this do ?

[IBME]

Reminds me of when a teacher catches you passing a note to a girl in class. Is anonymous like 13 or what? Any real damage would entail taking their money or damaging them in a security sensitive fashion. Getting unfriended on facebook aint shit.

Re: what good will this do ?

[Grishnakh]

No, you're missing how powerful social media is for recruiting extremists to their cause.

Re:what good will this do ?

[turbidostato]

"Their entire PR and recruiting operation works on twitter, facebook and other social network properties."

Or they are recruiting them in around their mosques and the society they cultivate, whispering here and there, seeding ideas in early teenagers' minds and nurturing them to grow.

But, who knows, maybe it's twitter after all.

Re:what good will this do ?

[turbidostato]

"That's where you're wrong. How do you think CNN gets a hold of all their videos? Internet. They have the money to setup and leverage social media."

What you may not understand it that what you see in CNN is not meant to gain adepts: it is targeted at you.

Yes, it's difficult to grasp that they may use different marketing tactics and channels to reach different goals but, hey, that's the case.

"That's how they intercept would be recruits crossing the borders into the middle east. Social media."

Yes, and police may use hound dogs to track fugitives. This doesn't mean those fugitives either got in prison or escaped from it because of their particular odor.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

We should start with Saudi Arabia. But we won't. Because MONEY!

Re:what good will this do ?

[Jack Griffin]

There was terrorism before airports, therefore we should not protect airports....
The Paris terrorists were French citizens, they had the Internet.
Communication is the key to coordinating any major operation. The removal of any communication channel can only be a positive.

Re:what good will this do ?

[fustakrakich]

Well exactly, so why is everybody obsessed with this Twitter/Anonymous bullshit? And why would you approve of illegally taking down someone else's account? If it's okay for them, then it's okay to do the same to you. That is your deal with the devil.

Re:what good will this do ?

[Kkloe]

whats the illegally part?, twitter, facebook, isp's have their rules, you dont like them, create your own isp to provide internet, your own hosting to provide servers, your own homepage to provide propaganda, you have the choice and tools to do that

Re:what good will this do ?

[kheldan]

That's your opinion, just like what I'm saying is just my opinion, because neither of us are trained intellgence analysts who work for the NSA or CIA or MIS or any other intelligence organization, we're random anonymous people on the Internet posting on a discussion forum. Neither one of us can definitively say whether or not what these Sunni extremists post on Twitter or Facebook has any intelligence value to the aforementioned trained individuals.

Re:what good will this do ?

[KGIII]

Are you new here? We're experts on EVERY subject and we know better than anyone else. If you did it, you did it wrong. It doesn't even matter what you eat - we know best and we'll tell you how you're wrong.

It's what we do.

Re:what good will this do ?

[KGIII]

Yip. Stop depending on other people to censor/tailor your content. Yes, it means you see shit posts. Oh well... Move on or waste your daily allotment of posts on a reply to them. If you can't handle reading at -1 then, well, you probably don't belong here. The only value in hiding the -1 posts is, from what I can see, is keeping them from being scraped by a search engine.

Re:what good will this do ?

[KGIII]

Or, instead of being embarrassed, they spin it as if they're innocent victims and being oppressed, silenced, and poorly treated minorities who are simply trying to do the work of God. It may actually have the effect of making people more inclined to join them.

Re:what good will this do ?

[GLMDesigns]

Except for those that do. And there have been 1000s from the US, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Spain that have.

Re:what good will this do ?

[fustakrakich]

whats the illegally part?

Sorry, the headline says, "Anonymous takes down... twitter accounts.." It might have been more accurate to say "Twitter takes down thousands of ISIS accounts identified by Anonymous.", if that's the way it happened.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

Fair enough, except for the part about us being anonymous people - using a nym makes me feel like I'm hiding behind anonymity and trying to avoid responsibility for what I say. I've always been that way. Besides, all the good nyms are taken :-).

Funny that, my address, phone number, email address are also on the net, and there haven't been any dire consequences. Then again, I grew up in a time when everyone had a phone book that gave everyones name, address, and phone number, no big deal. I get that other people prefer (or even need) anonymity - it's just not my cup of tea. I try to live by the rule of "Don't do anything that you wouldn't want everyone to see on the front page of the New York Times."

Re:what good will this do ?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Their entire PR and recruiting operation works on twitter, facebook and other social network properties. You don't actually think they are calling people do you?

They don't do in-person recruiting? When a village is overrun and captured by ISIS, they don't just round up and indoctrinate everyone? They do this via twitter and facebook instead?

What?

Re:what good will this do ?

[kheldan]

I try to live by the rule of "Don't do anything that you wouldn't want everyone to see on the front page of the New York Times."

Well, then, I hope that works out for you. There doesn't have to be any rational reason for some Internet nutjobs to decide that you shouldn't keep breathing any longer, or some Internet stalker to decide to fixate on you.

Re:what good will this do ?

[rahvin112]

ISIS comes in two groups. Former Iraqi army officers and foreign fighters. There are occasional local supporters but they are vastly outnumbered by the prior two groups. Every single one of those foreign fighters was recruited through their external public affairs operation which runs entirely on social media sites.

If twitter wasn't a big deal to them they wouldn't have threatened to kill the twitter executives when they banned a thousand of their accounts earlier this year.

Re:what good will this do ?

[BarbaraHudson]

I've already had to deal with a schizophrenic killer when I was a kid (hence the PTSD), and I've had stalkers both online (one became such a nuisance that when I alerted their employer for the nth time (with links), they called in the police and fired the idiot) and in real life (wasn't even aware of that one until someone else told me that they had seen the pictures they were taking of me while following me around). I've also survived a couple of sexual assaults, and I'm still around. My sisters are surprised, and I guess so am I ...

Thank $diety for therapy dogs and anti-depressants :-)

Re: what good will this do ?

[JosephWilliamCarson]

At the very least it's an voluntary initiative to work at cutting off terrorist usage of Twitter and potentially other communication systems that are being used to distribute terrorist related propaganda. I agree that many recruits probably don't come from Twitter, but it's still a distribution network for their own propaganda. Terrorists always win when people are afraid, an audience is still a pretty important factor for them. In addition to fueling the the hatred of those who support them, it still expands their reach of mindshare in the world, to the point of inspiring other nut jobs that this is a serious war that's worth dying for. It's not going to make them go away if we work together to reduce the abuse of social communication systems, but we don't need to sit idle and just allow them to use our systems to advertise their "war".

Re:what good will this do ?

[unicornzvi]

More importantly it makes it much more difficult for anyone who was trying to get the actual terrorists and leaders (not just the idiots "associated with ISIS") to get the connections they need. In other words it makes the hackers feel good, and helps the terrorists.

Re:what good will this do ?

[RespekMyAthorati]

You don't actually think they are calling people do you?

Maybe.

quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[swschrad]

and using what they find for targeting information.

at this point, all civilized nations appear to have decided that since ISIS wants to live in 600 AD, we can help by bombing them there. that does not need pinpoint targeting.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[MachineShedFred]

Exactly. Think of it this way:

A dumb cop that discovers a black market operation's stash house kicks in the door, makes a few arrests, and gets some B-roll on the news with drugs and guns on a table.

A smart cop that discovers a black market operation's stash house will sit on the location watching who and what goes where, and build cases on all of it and take the whole operation and it's suppliers at the same time.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[tinkerton]

It's mixed indeed. Now if anonymous screens a bit and removes the twitter accounts that are the least interesting, while leaving alone the ones that are too talkative, then maybe there's a value. Not much though. It's more a feelgood operation.

As for bombing them to 600 AD, yeah right. I read somewhere that there are 10 million people living under ISIS rule. Guess who will suffer most. I'm not saying don't do it, but it's nothing to go bragging about.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[khasim]

So at what point does the "smart cop" decide to stop them? After they've killed 129 people?

That makes a good movie plot but it doesn't work in real life.

The problem is that our "intelligence" agencies are more focused on electronics than on intelligence. It's easier. It's cheaper. It can cover a lot more "suspects". And it can be easily abused.

Stopping an attack makes you look good for one day.

Having a fearsome enemy that can attack any where, any time means you have funding for life.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[Anubis IV]

I completely agree. Of course, there's also the case to be made that if a community activist posts a map to all of the drug dens in the neighborhood, it may finally encourage the community to take matters into their own hands, making the neighborhood inhospitable to the criminals. Get enough neighborhoods doing it, and it becomes pretty hard to do illegal business.

If the community actually responds, then great. But if they don't, which is what we'd typically expect, then the smart cop does exactly what you said: use the small fish to find the bigger ones.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[CanadianMacFan]

They've killed a lot more than 129 people (along with many other atrocities). There have been thousands dead already but I guess they don't count since they weren't in a first world country.

Not that the West really has the stomach to stop ISIS. All we want to do is send planes over there to drop bombs and let the smaller countries from the area do the fighting on the ground. Getting rid of them is going to take putting troops over there but the people here don't want to deal with the casualties that would come with that.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[khasim]

They've killed a lot more than 129 people (along with many other atrocities). There have been thousands dead already but I guess they don't count since they weren't in a first world country.

More like it is a bit more difficult to arrest someone who is part of an armed organization in a different country.

Why would they be using social media to communicate with each other when they're bivouacked together?

Not that the West really has the stomach to stop ISIS.

It's not that they do not have the stomach for it.

They see advantages in having a scary enemy to distract from other issues.

All we want to do is send planes over there to drop bombs and let the smaller countries from the area do the fighting on the ground.

Because once a bomb is used, a replacement has to be purchased. Which means a LOT of money flowing from taxes to vendors.

Getting rid of them is going to take putting troops over there but the people here don't want to deal with the casualties that would come with that.

That is what created them the last time.

At this point there is no clean/easy way to deal with the mess we created. And we aren't willing to spend the money/years helping them if our vendors do not see a cash ROI.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[Anonymous Coward]

So at what point does the "smart cop" decide to stop them? After they've killed 129 people?

That's always the tough call to make when receiving intelligence from sources. For instance during WW2 the British received information about German bombing raids in advance through agents but sometimes had to choose not to evacuate civilians near the targets so that the source would not be compromised and could continue to provide intelligence. Hindsight is 20/20 and we don't know what Western intelligence agencies knew before the Paris attacks.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[F.Ultra]

Find what? This is propaganda channels and not secret information channels. It's like the Nazis in WW2 would eagerly collect the British "what your wife is doing at home while you are away to fight this war" pamphlets in order to collect vital intelligence information on the allied war effort. The ISIL Twitter accounts serve no purpose what so ever for intelligence agencies.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[F.Ultra]

It's more like a cop finding pamphlets with "do drugs, it's cool!" written on them and do nothing because he hopes to find vital secret information on them, which he of course never will since it's only propaganda.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[Anubis IV]

It's only a bad analogy if you make the assumption that demand must be supplied from local sources. Your whole statement is predicated on that assumption, but that's not a safe assumption with drugs and it's not a safe assumption with terrorism.

I agree that suppliers will seek to fill demand, generally speaking, but a den may be in a particular neighborhood for any number of reasons, only one of which is to be close to consumers. If all of the neighborhoods in a region make themselves inhospitable to drug dens, criminals will still seek to supply the demand in that region, of course, but they may be incapable of doing so, simply because it would have become too difficult for them to operate there.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[BarbaraHudson]

The governments have already said that their best intelligence is from people, not the internet. You've got to figure that the flow of refugees who have no love of ISIS are going to be primed to give up whatever they know.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[BarbaraHudson]

So at what point does the "smart cop" decide to stop them? After they've killed 129 people?

That's always the tough call to make when receiving intelligence from sources. For instance during WW2 the British received information about German bombing raids in advance through agents but sometimes had to choose not to evacuate civilians near the targets so that the source would not be compromised and could continue to provide intelligence. Hindsight is 20/20 and we don't know what Western intelligence agencies knew before the Paris attacks.

Bullcrap. Turkey warned about one of the Paris attackers by name:

A senior Turkish official provided background information to Al Jazeera on Monday about one of the attackers, 29-year-old Paris native Omar Ismail Mostefai, who died in the attack on the Bataclan concert hall on Friday night.

The official said Mostefai entered Turkey in 2013, and that there was no record of him ever leaving.

In October 2014, France asked for information from Turkish intelligence about four "terror suspects", the official said, adding that during their investigation, Turkish authorities identified Mostefai as a fifth suspect.

Turkish authorities "notified their French counterparts twice - in December 2014 and June 2015 [about Mostefai]," the official said.

"We have, however, not heard back from France on the matter. It was only after the Paris attacks that the Turkish authorities received an information request about Omar Ismail Mostefai from Turkey."

To quote from Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to com-mu-ni-cate".

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[SharpFang]

Where would you find these?

Because the most recent wave exhibited some quite aggressive hostility against the western countries and seemed quite sympathetic towards ISIS.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[SharpFang]

By the time a junkie on a high from a bad batch goes on a killing spree and murders everyone in a local school. The bad batch went through because it would reveal the antenna was compromised if it was stopped.

Not long afterwards the cartel boss begins suspecting the antenna was compromised anyway and moves the communication to different media, vanishing without a trace. Also, drugs are flooding the streets and the smart cop's daughter dies in a drive-by shooting between the cartel's men and some dealer.

All because the smart cop wasted too much time letting it slip, all in hopes of catching the big fish.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[BarbaraHudson]

If they are "quite sympathetic towards ISIS", why are they risking death by running away from them? I'm not buying that millions of refugees are all fleeing the war zones because they want to be ISIS sleeper agents.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[fustakrakich]

Except that drug dens exist to supply a demand.

So does ISIS, and all those other groups out there. They are being paid, by just about everybody. There is a big demand for terrorists. If there wasn't, we wouldn't be hearing so much about them. Business is good.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[mrbester]

If you mean allowing the destruction of Coventry, we destroyed Dresden in revenge for having to keep secret the fact the codes were broken and we knew it was coming. And we were subsequently painted as the bad guys for doing it by revisionist shitheads.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[Cederic]

I'm not buying that millions of people are trying to get into Western Europe because they're refugees from violence.

They could stop in Israel, or Jordan, or Lebanon or even Turkey, and be safe. No, they're either economic migrants or have malicious intent.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[squiggleslash]

They could stop in Israel, or Jordan, or Lebanon or even Turkey

So if they're economic migrants, why not stop in Israel or Turkey? And Barbara has already dealt with the "malicious intent" argument.

It's pretty straightforward. They're trying to get the hell away from danger and horror. The West is one of the few places in the world you can flee to and, if you're accepted be given a chance to recover - not become rich, but not spend the rest of your miserable life in a refugee camp, which you might accept for yourself but you'll never accept for your family.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone fleeing war and a horrific terrorist group that beheads people for expressing any view or making any action deemed bad by one reading of a 1,500 year old book. Where would you go? One of the many countries that literally can't cope with any influx of refugees, a country that treats people like you as the enemy, or Europe and the US?

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[BarbaraHudson]

I'm an atheist, but I think that the last verse of 1 Cor. 13 pretty much sums up what is right in these situations ...

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[dave420]

Or that those places you list have been subjected to massive violence, and they just want the safest lives possible for their families, a desire we all understand. It's almost as if you don't consider them human beings...

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[mrbester]

Like no USian ever uses "we" to denote a people of whom they are a member. You might not have dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, but "we the people" did.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[losfromla]

Yeah, except that criminalizing drugs was the first mistake. All arguments that take drugs being illegal as somehow morally superior as their foundation are flawed.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[losfromla]

Really? They are being paid? Are you really, truly, and seriously suggesting that terrorists are not idealists and instead are mercenaries for hire? This is indeed a novel notion that no one I've heard of has put forth before. Please provide some base for your statements as I cannot imagine what drove a person who can apparently put words together into sentences to come up with such ideas.

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[fustakrakich]

Yes, they ARE being paid...

  "Abu Khaled,like other ISIS members, was paid $100 per month, in U.S. greenbacks, not Syrian lira, despite the latter being the coin of the realm in al-Bab. Currency exchange houses exist in the city where ISIS employees can take their salaries for conversion, although they scarcely need to, given the freebies that come with ISIS employment.

"I rented a house, which was paid for by ISIS," Abu Khaled told me. "It cost $50 per month. They paid for the house, the electricity. Plus, I was married, so I got an additional $50 per month for my wife. If you have kids, you get $35 for each. If you have parents, they pay $50 for each parent. This is a welfare state."

"This is why a lot of people are joining," said Abu Khaled. "I knew a mason who worked construction. He used to get 1,000 lira per day. That's nothing. Now he's joined ISIS and gets 35,000 lira---$100 for himself, $50 for his wife, $35 for his kids. He makes $600 to $700 per month. He gave up masonry. He's just a fighter now, but he joined for the income."

Sorry to run your little bandwagon off the cliff there, honey. Do try to cope the best you can. Ever think of moonlighting? I'm sure they're hiring...

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[fustakrakich]

Damn! I forgot to mention, they got some good drugs, too, in case you're into that sort of thing. Now, if you have any further doubts, feel free to ask, thankyouverymuch

Re:quite likely "intelligence" is monitoring

[Anubis IV]

I disagree with your assertion that those arguments are necessarily flawed, but regardless of our disagreement over that subject, that's immaterial to the discussion here, since if you have an issue with the analogy introduced by the previous poster, you can easily swap it out for most other forms of illegal business activity with which you have no such qualms (e.g. gun running? sex trafficking?) without changing the core of the arguments. Drugs were a convenient analogy that are familiar to most here, but if they don't work for you, the arguments hold up just fine with any number of other illegal business ventures being substituted in their place.

Why they haven't taken them down

[chuckymonkey]

It's pretty easy actually, better to keep tabs on the enemy by letting them continue to use accounts that we know about rather than drive them to ones that we don't.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[lurker412]

Taking them down seems like a futile approach, as they'll only reappear with a different identity. Clever trolling would be more effective--poison the well instead. Problem is, to be effective requires considerable language skills and cultural expertise, which one wouldn't necessarily expect from a hacker community.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[prefec2]

If you only fight them in a war like scenario then this is correct. However, we can only win when we stop to produce young people who become willingly the tools of IS. Therefore, we have to cut the communication links of IS. And we must help those young men in school, university, and society to find another way to get recognition in life.

See also: http://www.theguardian.com/pro...

Re: Why they haven't taken them down

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, eliminating your enemy is bad for you if you need its presence to excuse your policy and spending.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[AmiMoJo]

Problem is you push people on to the dark web. The people reading this stuff will quickly get instructions to download Tails and their reading habits will become much harder to monitor.

Actually, that may be a good thing. Force GCHQ/NSA to target individuals instead of relying on bulk collection. Oh man, what a moral dilemma, which bad guys do we help?

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[prefec2]

France has also a bulk monitoring and collecting of meta data, like the UK. And you can be sure that thy also monitor Internet traffic. However, they were not able to find anything. This is also one of the biggest problems. They have so much data, but they do not know what to do with it.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[fustakrakich]

Twitter, BAH! If you want to be effective, follow their finances and arms deals, but be careful, you will find out things you don't want to know. Or you could file an FOIA request for the receipts at the state department. There you will find what makes this ride go 'round and 'round.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[Jack Griffin]

It seems Anonymous haven't learnt from the whole RIAA/MPAA debacle.
As you say, you can't win at whack-a-mole, you need to give the moles Ebola and let them do your work for you.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[Cederic]

I think it's very reasonable to assume that the French did not want an attack to take place, and that they would have acted had they known it was being initiated.

There's no leniency, just communication and resource challenges, and (even in France) a dogged insistence on mostly obeying the law by not (e.g.) rounding up all muslims and feeding them to pigs.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[king neckbeard]

The French were apparently warned by Turkey. Given that governments have been warned about at least 9/11, the Boston bombings, and these Paris attacks. They are NOT obeying the law, and they STILL can't catch anyone that they didn't groom themselves. They are useless.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[Cederic]

Ok, they were warned by Turkey. Was the warning the only one the Turks have ever given, or is this one of sixty a day? Are the Turks reliable or do they give a warning for anything? Did the warning includes the names of the attackers, including the names they were using in France or Belgium? Did the warning include a date? Did the warning include a location? Was the location 'France', 'Paris' or actually useful? Did the warning include the time of the attacks? Did the warning include anything fucking actionable at all?

Or would you like to assume that everybody in France is malicious and/or incompetent, on the grounds it's easier than thinking?

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[sociocapitalist]

If you only fight them in a war like scenario then this is correct. However, we can only win when we stop to produce young people who become willingly the tools of IS. Therefore, we have to cut the communication links of IS. And we must help those young men in school, university, and society to find another way to get recognition in life.

See also: http://www.theguardian.com/pro...

You say young men but it isn't only men.

Has to be both methods - monitor the known communications channels to identify 'at risk' youth and then help them find a different path or if they choose to stay on that path, help them meet their god face to face.

Re:Why they haven't taken them down

[king neckbeard]

We've got global monitoring of basically all eletronic communications, and we can't catch jack shit. At this point, I don't care the reason or reasons, they've merely shown that they won't get the job done.

Re: Why they haven't taken them down

[prefec2]

Absolutely.

Find one

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

and why intelligence agencies haven't done anything about them, if they're so easy to find.

One likes to think they are finding and tracking whoever logs in to them, and sorting the hot air people from the real networked folks.

Re:Find one

[BarbaraHudson]

and why intelligence agencies haven't done anything about them, if they're so easy to find.

One likes to think they are finding and tracking whoever logs in to them, and sorting the hot air people from the real networked folks.

In that case, it's clearly not working. Twitter and Facebook (and youtube) are propaganda. It's the easy way for them to find people who are disillusioned, depressed, prey to dogma, as well as build up their "brand."

Maybe intelligence agencies were running them

[Anonymous Coward]

these accounts might have been well known to intelligence agencies, and maybe Anonymous just screwed up a bunch of important sources of intelligence gathering and monitoring.

if Anonymous declared war on ISIS after JeSuisCharlie, why didn't Anonymous take these down before the latest incident.

none of it makes sense as part of a bigger picture without more information. As a smaller picture, perhaps Anonymous is some teenagers with short attentions spans

Re:Maybe intelligence agencies were running them

[HiThere]

You seem to be under the impression that just because some group uses the name Anonymous, they are the same as other groups that use the same name. I don't believe this is correct.

ISIS don't use followers

[Anonymous Coward]

They use trending hashtags from their own region and the odd word. This effort isn't doing anything other than disabling a few obviously trolls/sympathisers. Don't you think the world's govt wouldn't already be monitory such obvious twatter accounts?

Come back with they do something useful like dox the money trail. Don't hold your breath.

Re:ISIS don't use followers

[BarbaraHudson]

We already know that they got hundreds of millions by robbing an Iraqi bank. Then there's the black market oil they sell, the contributions from Arabs living elsewhere, hostage ransoms, taxing those inhabitants who are still living there ...

Heck, they even pay pensions to the wives of fighters KIA.

Re:ISIS don't use followers

[fustakrakich]

The money trail is "hidden" in plain sight. Just like in Men in Black...

Re:ISIS don't use followers

[fustakrakich]

We already know that they got hundreds of millions by robbing an Iraqi bank.

Huh, so that where all those missing billions ended up? "Robbery"? Most likely staged... It's a neat way of transferring funds without having to deal with the paperwork. Just like when we hear about weapons depots being "raided", for instance that time in Libya that everybody is always talking about.

And Kissinger goes to a dinner party and sips champagne.

Re:ISIS don't use followers

[king neckbeard]

I think you misspelled Reptilian home planet.

Just making the job harder

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Anonymous thought that perhaps taking out these ISIS sites they are making the job harder for the intelligence community. If ISIS is pushed underground it just means governments will employ more tactics like the ones used by the NSA.

I say leave the sites open but connect the data and hand it over to the NSA or CIA etc so they can run with it and hunt these people down.

Re:Just making the job harder

[hesiod]

I wonder if Anonymous thought

You can stop right there and be sure the answer is "no, they did not."

Great Work Kids!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is literally nothing in the world harder than creating a Twitter account. I know, I tried. Couldn't read the damn CAPTCHA without my spectacles.

Anonymous has completely ruined the infrastructure of terror. It will take centuries to rebuild.

Great work kids. I hope you all get medals for you bravery.

From Someone in the CIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for fucking up the accounts we've been monitoring you goddamned Asperger kids.

Re:From Someone in the CIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever CIA is doing it doesn't work. Let Anonymous have their fun, even if they are inefficient they are not less efficient than CIA.

Oh, BTW, guess what organization usually creates terrorist networks to use against their opponent until the terrorists turns against them?
You think that CIA just sat on their asses in that war against al Qaida and then suddenly ISIS that happens to oppose al Qaida magically grew strong after the war?

RE:Why intelligence agencies haven't done anything

[extranatural]

It could easily be the case that U.S. intelligence agencies are too incompetent to catch these terrorist affiliated social media accounts.

U.S. intelligence agencies haven't exactly demonstrated a capacity to really make effective use of the big data they collect.

Yes, they are quite good at intercepting and collecting data, but there are many indications that the NSA in particular doesn't really have the data intelligence necessary to effectively sift through what they capture.

In the 'proud' tradition of the TSA, our intelligence agency's anti-terror data collection operations may be more security theater than actual security.

That said I'm not sure a bunch of anons are likely to do much better.

Call me stupid but...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Anonymous Takes Down Thousands of ISIS-Related Twitter Accounts

Call me stupid but why doesn't Twitter shut off terrorist/childporn/etc. accounts regularly? Isn't there a TOS for that? Is there ANY way to get kicked off of Twitter?

Re:Call me stupid but...

[freeze128]

You say that like there is an infinite number of moderators at twitter that are reading every single feed. There isn't, and they're not.

Re:Call me stupid but...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> You say that like there is an infinite number of moderators at twitter

No, I say that like there are a FINITE number of anonymous members who were able to make the necessary distinctions.

Re:Call me stupid but...

[gstoddart]

Yes, well, and what was the accuracy rate of anonymous?

It's all well and good to say they've done something ... it's another to know how good of a job they've done at it.

If they shut down thousands of accounts, and 99% of them had nothing to do with ISIS, that's hardly some great success now is it?

Those "necessary distinctions" have yet to be validated as anything other than Anonymous saying they've done so.

The proof is in the proof, not in the press release.

Re:Call me stupid but...

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

No, I say that like there are a FINITE number of anonymous members who were able to make the necessary distinctions.

The crucial difference is, Twitter didn't have to pay them anything.

ISIS has help desk to aid terrorists w/encryption

[JoeyRox]

http://thehill.com/policy/cybe...

I was able to infiltrate this ISIS help desk and here is the prompt I heard when calling into it (translated from Arabic):

Welcome to the Daesh hotline. Please listen carefully to the following message as our options have changed.
Press 1 for information on how to encrypt messages sent to members of your terrorist cell
Press 2 if you're a suicidal bomber and are having trouble detonating your device
Press 3 if you're an oppressed female who would like to sign up for our next Perl Programming Bootmap
Press 4 for tips on how to write terror and/or hate messages in 140 characters or less
Press 5 to voice your displeasure with systemd
Or Press 0 to speak with a member of the Bush family for further assistance

teh reaperening

[Thud457]

I thought ISIS recruitment was a good thing because it removed the stupid fuckups from our society to a location where we can safely dispose of them by bombing them from a drone.

Re:teh reaperening

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> it removed the stupid fuckups from our society to a location where we can safely dispose of them by bombing

That was kind of the point behind invading Iraq, if you listen to certain neo-cons. Unfortunately, it turns out that 1) the supply of stupid fuckups is nearly inexhaustible, 2) they start hiding among the civilians (which we then bomb) and 3) some are happy to "play ISIS" in their own backyards (like this fuckup).

Re:teh reaperening

[TooManyNames]

Great plan... until that drone misidentifies someone else for the stupid fuckup (creating more anti-whoever sent the drone sentiment), and that stupid fuckup lives to take out a dozen or so non-fuckups before they finally go.

Re:teh reaperening

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

It could be - but some of them wouldn't be (quite as) stupid fuckups if they had better options available. The more refugees we take in, and the more we treat them like normal people, the less they're going to want to attack us. We absolutely cannot afford to make it a "West vs. Islam" fight, because that's how they get more recruits. It's playing right into their hands.

Re:teh reaperening

[publiclurker]

Not to mention that when this happens friends and relatives of the misidentified decide to join the fuckups.

Re:teh reaperening

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot 2.5 ) when you bomb innocent civilians, you actually create more terrorists than you just killed, because now those innocent people and their families hate you, with reason.

Re:teh reaperening

[SharpFang]

One simple way around that: leave no survivors.

Re:teh reaperening

[SharpFang]

The "refugees" adamantly refuse to behave like normal people though. They aren't trying to escape the hell in their home country - they are bringing that hell with them in attempt to leech the West for welfare support. Their desire to attack us doesn't seem to wane any over time, just opposite - they grow increasingly angry that WE don't adapt THEIR ways, that countries don't agree to create districts with sharia law, that they shun inhumane treatment of women, that they demand tolerance to other religions.

We've given that strategy a try and it has failed. You just lack enough first-hand info on how badly it failed and keeps failing. These people simply don't accept compromises. Their way or highway. And if the infidel suckers are willing to give them money for free, all the better, but that only means the infidel suckers deserve even less respect.

Re:teh reaperening

[cold fjord]

That was kind of the point behind invading Iraq, if you listen to certain neo-cons. Unfortunately, it turns out that 1) the supply of stupid fuckups is nearly inexhaustible...

That isn't quite correct. Most of Al Qaeda eventually fled Iraq because things had turned so bad for them. Iraq continued to grow more peaceful as the extremists were captured, killed, forced into hiding, or fled. Where did they go? Afghanistan. Guess what happened in Afghanistan at that time? It started heating up, violence started spiking. After President Obama declined to negotiate an agreement for US troops to remain in Iraq the reverse started happening. Militants eventually started traveling to Iraq and Syria, melding into ISIS.

When things were especially bloody in Iraq, say 2005-2007, al Qaeda was able to recruit suicide bombers. But eventually as the war started to go against them and recruiting became more difficult the supply of "good" candidates for suicide bombers started to dry up and they had to make do. They did things like coerce people (drive this car here or we'll kill you and your family), and use children and the mentally infirm or grief stricken.

Re:teh reaperening

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

No, a lot of them do behave like normal people would, if they were in that situation. If you're forced to leave your home and travel across a continent, arrive in a land that mostly speaks a different language than you, and the people there don't treat you well, how much would you like them and want to get along? To be sure, there are cultural differences, but those can be overcome, with effort. There are certainly some who try to take advantage, but they're no different from the people who already take advantage of the system. You lack a sufficient timescale to appreciate the strategy - it worked in America for pretty much every immigrant group that showed up. Xenophobia at first, sure, but by the first or second generation they're mostly just normal Americans.

Re:teh reaperening

[SharpFang]

Yeah, the Native Americans have quite seamlessly blended with the society. There are certainly no more racial/cultural issues with the Black, the ghetto districts just don't exist. And the peaceful Amishes have embraced the progress and are indistinguishable from any common American.

Re:teh reaperening

[jp10558]

The US isn't really a melting pot, it's a bunch of groups sort of working together. There are issues - but they're not regularly committing terrorism against other countries either. They're not recruiting people in other countries to come and fight here. They're not even often attacking others inside their communities in the way ISIS / Taliban / etc have.

I'll take the US level of getting along, as low as it is, over the Middle East level of exporting terrorism.

Re:teh reaperening

[dave420]

Your understanding of recent history is laughable. It amazes me that you didn't choke to death on your keyboard while attempting to type that. Wow. Simply incredible.

Re:teh reaperening

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Well, those groups were (and still are) treated differently by the government and populace, and some of their isolation is self-enforced. And while the Amish are somewhat insular, they are peaceful. However, as jp10558 said, even though the US has issues with different groups, it is a lot better than Western Europe or the Middle East. Look at how well the different East and South Asian immigrants have done here. There are tensions between groups, but things are getting better over time.

Re:teh reaperening

[SharpFang]

Note how none of them have in their tenets of faith how death while killing infidels will bring them paradise.

They didn't adapt because their culture shuns yours. But they don't commit terrorist acts because their culture doesn't encourage doing so.

Re:teh reaperening

[SharpFang]

Do any of the adapting immigrant groups having Jihad/Holy War as a part of their culture? Did they reject it due to cultural adaptation or did they rather arrive without that concept in the first place?

Re:teh reaperening

[jp10558]

So you think that only cultural encouragement lends people to committing acts of terror? There's no other reason someone might engage in asymmetric warfare? More to the point, did the IRAs culture encourage them to carry out bombings? There have been terrorists at different times, including organized groups, that to my limited knowledge are not muslim, and don't have any "tenets of faith [that] death while killing infidels will bring them paradise".

Re:teh reaperening

[SharpFang]

So, IRA terrorists immigrated to Belfast from some country 2000km away?

Re:teh reaperening

[Grishnakh]

You lack a sufficient timescale to appreciate the strategy - it worked in America for pretty much every immigrant group that showed up.

No, it didn't. A century ago, there was no such thing as welfare. Irish and Italians who came here either worked their asses off, or they starved to death. Many of those who did work died on the job; there was no such thing as workers' rights, weekends off, OSHA, safety rules, ESL classes, etc. A lot of people seem to laud immigration as having built America, but what it really did was *exploit* immigrants. It worked out well for the capitalists, but it didn't work out all that well for many of the immigrants. For those lucky ones who survived the horrific work conditions and economic climate with no safety net, their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids got pretty good lives out of the deal I guess.

These days, much of that stuff doesn't apply any more. We have welfare, safety nets, etc., so the whole dynamic is changed. Immigrants no longer are forced to integrate and go to work. Do you really want to go back to the days before OSHA and social programs?

Re:teh reaperening

[Grishnakh]

The IRA, despicable as their acts were, were fighting for their homeland against people they saw as invaders: the British. They were not immigrant in any way, shape, or form. The British were the newcomers.

It's not that different from Israel vs. Palestine. The Palestinians have been there for centuries so of course they're pissed at Israel coming in and pushing them around, since Israel is a very new country, and many Israelis are pretty new to the region (and there's even more Jews immigrating there now from Europe).

The terrorism is Europe is being done by people who are the kids of Muslim immigrants from far away. They have nothing valid to fight about: they're basically newcomers, plus they get all kinds of social welfare benefits there. But they're still pissed for various stupid reasons: Europeans don't accept them (whine whine), they don't have good jobs, their religion isn't accepted/dominant, etc. It's nothing at all like the IRA or even Palestinians. They're just a bunch of spoiled brats.

If anything, it shows that Muslim immigration is more of a long-term problem than a short-term one. The new arrivals really don't seem to cause problems, but then they pop out some kids and those kids do everything they can to destroy the society that took in their parents. Maybe Muslim immigrants should just be sterilized; that would solve the problem.

accomplished what?

[iggymanz]

So the will stop ISIL from sawing off people's heads, raping, slaughtering, stealing, being pedophiles, vandals, shooting up discos in foreign countries etc.?

It will keep the really stupid ones, such as certain known ones from the USA for instance, from bragging as much I suppose.

Re:accomplished what?

[iggymanz]

You are so funny. They have and can recruit in person, on radio, on tv, via newspaper, to the neighboring towns as they expand. you can't remove their ability to communicate. they don't need facebook, twitter nor anything else.

you can kill them, then they will die whether they wither or not.

but imagining taking away some social media accounts will matter is just a delusion by ignorant kids

Dumb

[poity]

So they just reported them and drove them to new accounts or more obscure platforms?
Why not infiltrate them, honeypot them, phish them, throw in some trojans, etc? They could have caused a lot more trouble. Are these even the 4chan Anons from yesteryear? Where is the chaotic element?

Re:Dumb

[Krishnoid]

It's also worth exploring the question of why Twitter hasn't already disabled these accounts, and why intelligence agencies haven't done anything about them, if they're so easy to find.

...

Why not infiltrate them, honeypot them ... ?

Maybe that's why the accounts weren't actively shut down before -- they're something like low-hanging fruit when it comes to surveillance.

Re:Dumb

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

They could have caused a lot more trouble. Are these even the 4chan Anons from yesteryear? Where is the chaotic element?

They largely aren't. 4chan is a shell of its former self. Don't get me wrong, it can still be a terrible place, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. I'd guess a lot of the former members either grew up, got busy with other stuff in life, or moved to other sites.

Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[mi]

Did they really have to wait for ISIS to strike in Paris? The group's earlier:

• Killing of POWs ...
• ... and Christians
• Selling women to slavery
• Destroying ancient relics

was not enough? If Anonymous had this capability of hurting ISIS' (impressive) online propaganda, why did they not use it before the attack on Paris?

Re:Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[tnk1]

Its not really racism, it's mostly that no one feels invested in it unless it happens to them. Sure, they may think to themselves, "let the brown people blow each other up," but what they are really saying is, "no bombings here, not my problem."

Re:Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[PPH]

We have drawn a line in the sand.

Cross it and we shall draw another.

Re:Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[Jason Levine]

We have drawn a line in the sand.

Cross it and we shall draw another.

If only we could make it work like this.

Re:Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[mi]

it's mostly that no one feels invested in it unless it happens to them

Given the wide scope of their earlier attacks — from Sarah Palin to Tunisian government — they do "feel invested" in whole lot of locations and happenings. It is just that the ISIS — easily the most evil organisation of the 21st century so far — that avoided their wrath despite having a large collection of very juicy online targets.

Whether it is racism or whatever, that Anonymous hasn't done anything until now — despite, evidently, having the necessary capabilities — is not showing them in good light. Better late than never, of course...

Re:Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[Tharkkun]

Did they really have to wait for ISIS to strike in Paris? The group's earlier:

• Killing of POWs ...
• ... and Christians
• Selling women to slavery
• Destroying ancient relics

was not enough? If Anonymous had this capability of hurting ISIS' (impressive) online propaganda, why did they not use it before the attack on Paris?

Before Paris it was the responsibility of the countries in the middle east to police their own. Now it's clear they can't contain it, even with aid so the rest of the world will be dragged into it.

Re:Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[Tharkkun]

Did they really have to wait for ISIS to strike in Paris? The group's earlier:

• Killing of POWs ...
• ... and Christians
• Selling women to slavery
• Destroying ancient relics

was not enough? If Anonymous had this capability of hurting ISIS' (impressive) online propaganda, why did they not use it before the attack on Paris?

I just want to add the the USA doesn't sit here and beg other countries for help. We deal with our problems.

Re:Racists waited for Westerners to get killed

[Jack Griffin]

It's not racism, it's the monkeysphere!
No-one wants to admit it, but the monkeysphere is the reason for a lot of these types of problems. It really should be part of the school curriculum.

Re:Why intelligence agencies haven't done anything

[matbury]

Intelligence agencies aren't supposed to do anything that you or I should hear about. They're supposed to collect intelligence, in this case signals intelligence (SIGINT) secretly, analyse it, compile reports, and quietly hand it on to the people who are supposed to act upon it.
 
But you're probably right that this traditional role of intelligence has likely been usurped by indiscreet politicians and civil servants looking for media attention and not really bothered about the effect of their actions.

Where was Anonymous a year ago?

[chubs]

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad for anyone willing to take on ISIS. My question is why did it take the Paris attacks clue in Anonymous and the rest of the world to how bad ISIS is? Hundreds are now dead or injured in Paris, but thousands of civilians have been tortured, raped, beheaded and crucified by ISIS in the middle east. Paris was absolutely a tragedy, and I don't mean to make it out to be any less so, but let's not claim it's the most brutal thing they have done in the last year and a half. I fully realize that state players like the countries making up N.A.T.O. can only have limited involvement in a crisis that doesn't directly involve a member state, but that's not what Anonymous is. They could have responded to the atrocities that have been committed against Yazidis and Shiites? It just feels to me that so many people finally taking action, Anonymous included, are sending the message that western lives are worth more than others.

Re:Where was Anonymous a year ago?

[BarbaraHudson]

Unfortunately, much of the world still doesn't have a clue - they don't want to take in refugees who are fleeing ISIS because "terr'rists." Look o further than Chris Christie saying that he wouldn't even let in an orphaned toddler. That's beyond messed up.

They haven't taken them down...

[GeekBoy]

Because intelligence agencies use them to infiltrate terrorist groups and to network through terrorist organizations to the guys calling the shots. By shutting down these channels they are actually making the job harder for intelligence groups as they push terrorists to use more obscure forms of communications like the PSN which are harder for analysts to track. Not that terrorists aren't getting wise and doing this already but not all terrorists are as clever and we certainly want to keep them and their communication mechanisms lazy.

Re:Having followed their exploits for a while now.

[tnk1]

That way they will effectively pissed off 80-90% of the worlds population against them.

That's exactly what they want. You think that is a suicidal tactic, but they believe God is on their side. They're trying to act to bring about the apocalypse. Why would they want any enemy to feel safe?

They believe that the little quagmire they have in Syria and Iraq will allow them to draw their enemies into a battle that they can't win.

The truth is, they may be right, especially if our answer is to keep bombing them without challenging their hold on the ground. You can't win a war without infantry. It doesn't have to be *our* infantry, but it seems that the fighters that are there have not been up to the task so far.

It comes down to the old adage...

[Myria]

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

The spy agencies...

[gurps_npc]

do not want to close them down, they want to monitor them and cross reference them till they can identify the ISIS members. We care far more about that than the minor PR advantages they gain from their existence.

Twitter, etc have financial concerns and will not put that much money into identifying them, especially when the governments don't push it. But they will be happy to take them down if we do the work of identifying the bad actors.

Re:Why?

[prefec2]

There is nothing "left" about Twitter. Twitter is a tech company selling your information to the highest bidder just like Facebook. However, as far as I noticed, every reasonable person only tweets something public and no private stuff (exceptions are people who marketeer a personality which they claim is theirs).

Re:They recruit through SJW networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats, you've completely lost your mind.

Re:Having followed their exploits for a while now.

[Killall -9 Bash]

China already has a muslim problem. You don't hear about it because it's more or less contained. China is not very gentle or apologetic in how they use their military to handle Jihadists.

Fuck it guys, let the hostages go

[Rinikusu]

Anonymous is on the job now. Man, they really showed us.

Re:pointless and potentially negative effect

[PPH]

This isn't Ultra vs Coventry. ISIS knows we know about their Twitter accounts. They are public, and therefore known for a reason: these are the recruiting contacts for new fighters. The actual tactical command and control is done elsewhere.

Sure, ISIS can just create some new accounts. But while they are doing that and rebuilding their contact lists, they can't get their propaganda stuff out as easily. If Anonymous wants to screw with them, fine.

"Know to intelligence" - why is this a theme?

[gilgongo]

FTA "It's also worth exploring the question of why Twitter hasn't already disabled these accounts, and why intelligence agencies haven't done anything about them, if they're so easy to find."

It's not just Twitter accounts, it seems to be a common pattern whenever most perpetrators of hate or terrorist attacks are analysed - at least some of the those involved have been under surveillance, known to law enforcement, or otherwise under suspicion already. I can understand this being the case once in a while, but it seems like pretty much every time.

Why is this? It is fear of false positives? Wanting to use known suspicious actors to reveal accomplices? Lack of police resources on the ground? What?

Re:"Know to intelligence" - why is this a theme?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I can understand this being the case once in a while, but it seems like pretty much every time.

Because hindsight is 20/20. Intelligence agencies almost always own the information about an attack before it is committed. But they don't have enough reason to believe that attack is real vs. teh 300 other ones they also have indications of.

CIA created ISIS

[tekrat]

Dude;

When you consider that the CIA created Osama Bin Laden (by training him, and providing weapons when he was fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan); and the CIA created ISIS (by creating false intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq), the CIA is simply a terrorist organization that pretends to be working for American interests.

We're better off without you frankly. The world would be a lot healthier without your meddling. Stop trying to make Dick Cheney even richer than he is.

Thanks!

Re:Hackers as police

[king neckbeard]

You assume that allowing the NSA/CIA to work is GOOD for national security, when their track record suggests the opposite.

Re:Having followed their exploits for a while now.

[powerlord]

... You can't win a war without infantry. ...

You CAN ... but you have to be prepared to take a very scorched earth policy.

If you're ready to just Glass the country, and prepared for the Fallout that will entail (pun intended), then Infantry becomes irrelevant.

I am not in any way suggesting that this is either advisable, or something that any sane person would do, but it IS a position where bombing does not require infantry to win.

Please do not post the following

[Marginal Coward]

If any of you happen to have taken over an ISIS Twitter account, please do not post the following to it:

\_( `.`)_/
    |
_ /\_

Although it is not - I repeat NOT - a cartoon of The Prophet Muhammad, some folks might accidentally mistake it for one and become deeply offended. So let's have a little respect and consideration for the religious beliefs of others - after all, wouldn't the ISIS folks do the same for you?

Taking down accounts a bad idea

[Applehu Akbar]

"...why Twitter hasn't already disabled these accounts, and why intelligence agencies haven't done anything about them...."

Because NSA analysis - and possible hexing with fake tweets - of working Daesh accounts is better strategy?

Proxy War

[Etherwalk]

So it turns out "Proxy War" doesn't mean what Anonymous thought...

Re:Help please

[easyTree]

Three decades of covert war with the rest of the world got you into this.

Re:Correction

[Etherwalk]

There are plenty of intelligent, educated conservatives who just happen to have been taught some lessons that are really, really wrong. It's kind of like racist kids--they can still be bright, intelligent kids, they were just taught to be an asshole by their parents and haven't learned better yet.

Well, the prophecy came true....

[shocking]

Daesh is about to get screwed by 72 virgins...

Don't call it "ISIS" or ISIL"

[Kargan]

That legitimizes them. They should be referred to as "Daesh".

http://www.ibtimes.com/isil-is...

Re:Don't call it "ISIS" or ISIL"

[Jack Griffin]

Don't even call them that. Call them The Tiny Penises, and every time you see them on TV, or someone mentions them at a dinner party, laugh out loud and say "It's the tiny penises!". Then make lots of tiny penis jokes.
Being tough guys with a tough sounding name is working in their favour. I suspect ridicule will assist in reducing possible future recruitment.
Akbal: "Hey Ahmed, I'm thinking of joining ISIS".
Ahmed "Haha you want to join The Tiny Penises?! Why do you have a tiny penis?"
Akbal reconsiders and joins goes back to playing Counterstrike instead.

Re:Don't call it "ISIS" or ISIL"

[Big Hairy Ian]

You spelled "douche" wrong!

Re:Don't call it "ISIS" or ISIL"

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Daesh: This is a term the militant group hates. French President François Hollande has used it since the attacks Friday, and first used it in September 2014. It’s an Arabic acronym for “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham.” It can sometimes be spelled DAIISH, Da'esh or Daech, a popular French version. The hacktivist group Anonymous and President Barack Obama have used the term since the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.

Can you explain to me how “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham” turns into "Daesh" (and not DIIS or ADAIFAIWAS)? Specifically, where do the "a", "e", and "h" in "Daesh" come from (especially the e)? Additionally, can you explain why "Daesh" is capitalized the way it is, and not as acronyms typically are (i.e. DAESH)? Furthermore, since Slashdot is a predominantly English-speaking site, can you explain why you're encouraging people to use an acronym for an Arabic name that most people are not familiar with? Shouldn't you at least be encouraging the readers to learn Arabic before expecting them to embrace Arabic acronyms?

Re:Don't call it "ISIS" or ISIL"

[Kargan]

I can. It's actually pretty interesting, IMO.

http://www.pri.org/stories/201...

Re:Don't call it "ISIS" or ISIL"

[NoImNotNineVolt]

You can, but you choose not to?

I followed your link, but it didn't really answer any of my questions. It did, however, provide an audio recording (14m33s in length!), so I gave you the benefit of the doubt and wasted some more time listening to it. It didn't answer any of my questions either, so perhaps I can clarify them by repeating myself.

How does “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham” turns into "Daesh"? An acronym is generally composed of the a concatenation of the initial letters of a phrase or sequence of words. That would result in either "DIIS" or "ADAIFAIWAS", depending on whether or not the initial letters of definite/indefinite articles are included in the acronym. It would not result in "Daesh" based on any common system of generating acronyms. Indeed, the "a", "e", and "h" in "Daesh" don't correspond to the initial letter of any words in the original name of the group, and there is no explanation of why they are found in this supposed acronym.

Why is "Daesh" capitalized the way it is, and not as acronyms typically are? For example, let's look at other acronyms. ISIS, ISIL and NASA, but not Isis, Isil, or Nasa. A key property of acronyms is that they are expressed in all-capitals. If Daesh is an acronym, why is it always written as Daesh and never as DAESH (as we'd expect an acronym to be written)?

Why should people use a foreign language to refer to a concept which is adequately represented using their native language? Since Slashdot is an English-speaking site, it seems unreasonable to support conversation in other languages, including Arabic. Learning Arabic in order to participate in discussions about this organization is an unreasonable burden, and communicating in a language in which one is not conversational doesn't seem reasonable either. When English-speakers are discussing this group among each other, is there any benefit from using a foreign language instead of English? Does this benefit outweigh the benefit of using the native English instead?

[I'd also mention something about the inherent absurdity in trying to create a Latin acronym from Arabic script, but Slashdot doesn't care for my non-Latin character set]

FB propaganda = The division bell.

[TapeCutter]

Well said, We need to stop letting the enemy define this war as "us vs Islam" and make it crystal clear that it is "us vs death cults".

Catholics in England were not ostracized when the IRA were blowing people up, Christians in the US were not attacked in the street by strangers because of the behaviour of the KKK. ISIS are religious extremists whose victims are mainly other muslims. Muslims are our allies against ISIS in the same way Christians were our allies against the IRA and KKK. The refugees pouring out of ISIS territory collectively know more about ISIS operations than the Pentagon, they have lost everything to ISIS, we are at a crossroad, we can welcome them as "citizens the free world", or we can allow ISIS to kill the brave, enslave the weak, and indoctrinate the youth.

The 35 million refugees represent the "human intel" that the west has so dismally failed to cultivate in the arab world. Why are we treating our most valuable allies as a liability? - These are the very people who want to (and can) help us dismantle ISIS from the ground up, yet western social media is littered with calls to close our borders and push our natural allies back into enemy territory "where they belong".

ISIS territory is unstable and surrounded by a standing army of 5 million muslims who want them dead. They desperately needs the rest of the Islamic world on board before they have a hope in hell of achieving their stated aim of a global caliphate. Sadly, at least a third of my FB friends cannot contain the xenophobic instincts that we all have. They are doing exactly what the enemy's strategy predicted they would do, spreading anti-muslim propaganda that seeks to divide the world into "rednecks vs muslims".

Re:FB propaganda = The division bell.

[Critical Facilities]

Wish I had mod points. Very well stated.

Re:FB propaganda = The division bell.

[voodoobettie]

So much this. I don't really understand how people equate refugees as being somehow linked to terrorists, other than running away from them and when I see Republican hopefuls saying to close their borders it makes me want to scream at them for their lack of compassion. ISIS don't have a hope in hell of building their 'global caliphate' but they are going to make life miserable for as many people as possible for as long as they can. What you said about the death cult is spot on, and I think it's a poor reflection of the state of our own society that we'd have fellow citizens thinking that it's a good idea to go and join up with a group that condones such brutality in the guise of righteousness. I hope that in taking down those accounts that Anonymous would at least make it hard for them to coordinate attacks and recruit new people to their ranks. (I don't have mod points either or I'd give you some.)

Re:Why intelligence agencies haven't done anything

[Tharkkun]

It could easily be the case that U.S. intelligence agencies are too incompetent to catch these terrorist affiliated social media accounts. U.S. intelligence agencies haven't exactly demonstrated a capacity to really make effective use of the big data they collect. Yes, they are quite good at intercepting and collecting data, but there are many indications that the NSA in particular doesn't really have the data intelligence necessary to effectively sift through what they capture. In the 'proud' tradition of the TSA, our intelligence agency's anti-terror data collection operations may be more security theater than actual security. That said I'm not sure a bunch of anons are likely to do much better.

How do you know? It's not like they share any of this information with the public? It takes years to infiltrate the enemy yet we just found and killed Jihadi John. If anything, it proves our intelligence is working. Nothing happens overnight.

Re:Having followed their exploits for a while now.

[Tharkkun]

... You can't win a war without infantry. ...

You CAN ... but you have to be prepared to take a very scorched earth policy.

If you're ready to just Glass the country, and prepared for the Fallout that will entail (pun intended), then Infantry becomes irrelevant.

I am not in any way suggesting that this is either advisable, or something that any sane person would do, but it IS a position where bombing does not require infantry to win.

Free glass for everyone? No more free steak giveaways! Imagine the price of all computer devices if the screens can be scooped out of the desert.

No mistakes, right?

[Tony Isaac]

I'm sure Anonymous made no mistakes, taking down ONLY accounts that were truly connected to ISIS. The problem with vigilantes is that they shoot first and ask questions later.

Re:No mistakes, right?

[hyades1]

They've done an excellent job on other occasions when they published names. Case in point, outing the KKK. Another group tried to claim credit and defuse their work with false accusations, but it got shot down pretty fast.

Were you just too lazy to find out a little about the situation before you shot off your mouth, or do you just like to throw around the term "vigilante"?

Re:No mistakes, right?

[Gibgezr]

They've done an excellent job on other occasions when they published names. Case in point, outing the KKK.

No, I'm pretty sure they got that one totally wrong in the first take, and then partially wrong and just full of outdated info and bad geusses in the second attempt.
Recent article, one of many that explain this: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US...

Too Little, Too Late?

[dave562]

It is interesting that Anonymous is taking this on at the same time that the group is moving their operations to the dark net.

http://motherboard.vice.com/re...

It all seems all too convenient to the larger narrative that is shaping up around the need to crack down on encryption, Tor and other privacy measures. Here we have Anonymous serving as a tool of the powers that be, driving the "bad guys" to encryption through their vigilantism.

In an effort to do something good, they are inadvertently making things worse.

The fact that anyone serious about their trade craft has already been using encryption and stenography and other means for concealing their communications is not going to affect the narrative fed to the masses by the mainstream media. All they are going to hear is "Terrorists are going dark via encryption." and "If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't need to be using encryption."

Re:Too Little, Too Late?

[cs96and]

Outlawing encryption will solve nothing. The terrorists are not suddenly going to say "oh shit, we have to use un-encypted protocols now!"

Re:Having followed their exploits for a while now.

[Gryle]

The Kurdish forces have been doing well enough. They lost some ground early on, but have managed to retake most of it. They've taken some other urban areas from Daesh as well.

Seems pretty obvious to me

[tehcyder]

From TFS:

It's also worth exploring the question of why Twitter hasn't already disabled these accounts, and why intelligence agencies haven't done anything about them, if they're so easy to find.

I imagine intelligence agencies are quite happy for ISIS supporters to identify themselves on the internet, and wouldn't want Twitter to disable them.

vs..

[sociocapitalist]

It's probably more useful overall to leave such things alone and monitor them for intel rather than shutting them down.

Re:Why intelligence agencies haven't done anything

[extranatural]

Well we can't know. Ultimately it's speculation, but speculation informed by what little information we does become public. Via leaks, congressional hearings, info-sec researchers, etc.

Edward Snowden and other's have made statements alluding to deficiencies in the NSA's capacity to make the most of the data that's already in front of them.

Bottom line, given the size and scope of the U.S. intelligence gathering machine, why have we not thwarted any large terror attacks?
https://theintercept.com/2015/...

Truth

[NewYork]

If you're not from my caste, you're non-human to me;
http://wh.gov/iyhMK

Digital pitchforks?

[marcelfilm2109]

Ssooooo...this is the ominous power of Annonymous?