Anonymous vs. ISIS: Paris attacks spearhead a cyber war (vid)

Hacker group Anonymous declared war against ISIS after the Paris attacks on Friday. A YouTube video, in French, said it would use its knowledge to “unite humanity” and warned terorrists to expect them. A spokesperson wearing the Anonymous mask said: “Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down.

You should know that we will find you and we will not let you go.

We will launch the biggest operation ever against you.

The French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger.

Who are some of these worldwide hacktivists? 

Bostonian John Chase, aged 25, first decided to enter the hacktivist war when al Qaeda-linked militants gunned down 12 people at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo. Chase was outraged by the triumphant jihadi messages bouncing across Twitter. Though his formal education ended with high school, his knack with computers and a desire to fiddle with them since the age of seven was put to the test as he turned his computer skills to use in the cyber war with the Islamic State.

Working with other hacktivists, he combiled a database of 26,000 Islamic State-linked Twitter accounts. Next, he helped create a website to host the list in public view, taking precautions so that it would be immune to hacking counterattacks by ISIS supporters. That is how Chase briefly became an unofficial spokesman for #OpISIS.

For more than a year, the group of casual volunteers, expert coders and tech-savvy trolls has waged an online war against the Islamic State and its social media supporters. The hacktivists are based around the world, working together to destroy the group’s social media used to generate propaganda and conduct online recruiting. The hacktivists have already torpedoed 149 ISIS-linked websites and have flagged around 101,000 Twitter accounts and 5,900 propaganda videos – not bad for an odd group of volunteers who are part-time hobbyists with a desire to fight the Islamic State from the comfort of their own homes.

From running supicious Twitter accounts through Google Translate to hi-tech hacking attacks, there’s a job for everyone on the team regardless of their computer abilities.