How Anonymous' War With Isis Is Actually Harming Counter-Terrorism (metro.co.uk)

retroworks writes: According to a recent tweet from the #OpParis account, Anonymous are delivering on their threat to hack Isis, and are now flooding all pro-Isis hastags with the grandfather of all 2007 memes — Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video. Whenever a targeted Isis account tries to spread a message, the topic will instead be flooded with countless videos of Rick Astley circa 1987. Not all are praising Anonymous methods, however. While Metro UK reports that the attacks have been successful, finding and shutting down 5,500 Twitter accounts, the article also indicates that professional security agencies have seen sources they monitor shut down. Rick Astley drowns out intelligence as well as recruitment.

Comments

Really, Anon?

[excelondevelopment]

So the powerful hacktivist collective anonymous's most powerful thing is rickrolling, which for all we know could be done by hand. Seriously. I was hoping for some active hacking. Classic cavalry manuevers which can be done in cyber - get behind enemy lines and interdict supply, etc. These days that would be intercept email accounts, change the passwords, take down websites, etc. I suppose this move is, in a small way, doing some of that, but it seems like the brute forciest to the lamest of supporters .. Then again perhaps these guys are smart. Actual interfering could get them on watch lists and enemy lists, etc. hmm. I'll have to think on this.

Re:What is this, click bait?

[serviscope_minor]

This is slashdot, it's a poorly coded perl script.

Nah, it's a PhP script. But given that any collection of random characters is executable perl, it runs with interesting results.

If you are serious about killing off ISIS

[fustakrakich]

Tell the damn government to quit giving them money and selling them the fucking weapons! This Anonymous crap is a bullshit charade to divert attention away from the people who are actually sustaining them in the fight against Russia.