Anonymous v IS

The twitter group Anonymous have ‘declared war’ again on IS after the atrocities on the 13th of November.

In a YouTube video, a spokesman wearing their signature Guy Fawkes mask said they wanted to use their knowledge to “unite humanity”. Speaking French, the spokesman warned IS members to “expect [them]”, saying “Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down”.

The group made similar threats after the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier this year, and has since then claimed and disabled thousands of IS-linked accounts on social media.

But what now? The BBC asked tech expert Dan Simmons from BBC Click and Charlie Winter, a security analyst specializing in IS, to shed some light on the situation.

In terms of ‘declaring war’, Dan said “It means we’re likely to see attacks on the IS website, any related websites, recruitment sites, social media and, if Anonymous goes down the hacking route this time, it could mean communications disrupted too.”

He also said that they would be “reporting accounts sympathetic to IS to social media firms”.

“In the past it’s been limited to getting accounts suspended, getting content taken down, identifying IP addresses,” he says.

“But it’s disruption rather than meaningful challenge. It won’t solve the problem. It’ll be interesting to see if it goes further than they have before.”

They have already begun leaking personal information of IS sympathizers (as of 11am 17/11); at least one post seen by The Independent contains details including the physical address of a person it claims is an Isis recruiter in Europe.

The group has appeared to have stepped up its ‘biggest operation’ in a matter of days, in response to the attacks which left 129 people dead.

Charlie Winter shed some light on how this will hurt IS, saying “It won’t solve the problem, but as a disruptive influence, it does help close down some of the IS publicity machine.”

“These accounts are very important for IS.”

But Dan thinks Anonymous has the potential to cause more disruption than it has in the past.

“It depends how much time IS members have got. Are they going to be putting up their website again and are they going to be putting up their social media again?”

“If so, who is more resilient, them or Anonymous?” he asks.

“The hackers have said in their statement they will vigorously attack and they will attack without end. So yes, they can put their sites back up but it’s a huge amount of disruption.”

It’s a small light after a very dark weekend, even if it is from anarchists.