4chan hacks Egyptian, Yemen government websites

[Emil]

4Chan's users, who call themselves "Anonymous," hacked Egyptian and Yemen government websites this week. About 500 Anonymous participants took down websites for the Egyptian Ministry of Information and the ruling National Democratic Party in Egypt. For Yemen, the websites targeted included the Yemeni Ministry of Information, the tax office, and the website for Yemen's long-serving president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The weapon of choice for the hackers is the same as it was when the group took down websites belonging to MasterCard, PayPal, and Visa in December 2010, because the payment processors declined to transfer money to WikiLeaks. It's a small program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon that sends out a flood of fake traffic to a selected website, overloading it if it doesn't have enough capacity.

Anonymous is apparently very interested in targeting countries that are very unstable; currently the group is focusing on antigovernment protests that have roiled the Arab world. Last month, the group shut down websites belonging to the Tunisian government and stock exchange in support of the uprising that forced the country's dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee.

A revolution is currently taking place in Egypt, and Yemen is apparently next. Egyptians only recently had their Internet restored, after a five-day blackout. Yemenis, on the other hand, will probably not notice Anonymous' work in their country, given that only about 5 percent of them have access to the Internet.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/42268-4chan-hacks-egyptian-yemen-government-websites.html

 

[andreasf93]

Nice, nice.

 

[TomSEA]

Can't say as I approve. Not debating the where's and why's of the government riots, Wikileaks, whatever. But who appointed 4chan to be judge, jury and executioner? To select whomever their anarchist views fit their ego needs to conduct cyber attacks?

They keep it up and it's only a matter of time where their activities will result in physical harm - if not the death - of innocent people because websites people rely on for their safety and/or livelihood will be gone.

 

[Guest]

When will people learn that 4chan and Anonymous are not interchangeable? Lots of overlap is not the same as being a single group.

 

[princeton]

Guest said:
When will people learn that 4chan and Anonymous are not interchangeable? Lots of overlap is not the same as being a single group.

Actually we don't overlap much anymore. Anyone with technical skills moved to other Chan's. If you think Anonymous is synonymous with 4chan(aka Tom and Emil) then you need to learn more about it.

EDIT: Anonymous is synonymous I swear that rhyme wasn't intentional.

 

[Guest]

Fair enough. I run solo, so I don't know the board dynamics well beyond the facts that they're not at all the same and 99% of 4chan couldn't hack through a chicken with a cleaver, let alone take on the Egyptian gov't.

 

[DokkRokken]

Guest said:
Fair enough. I run solo, so I don't know the board dynamics well beyond the facts that they're not at all the same and 99% of 4chan couldn't hack through a chicken with a cleaver, let alone take on the Egyptian gov't.

It's not really even 'hacking' so much as it's just Denial of Service for Dummies. I wish media organizations would at least differentiate the two, but DoS is just less sensational. LOIC makes it easy for any /b/tard to just copy the necessary parameters from a thread, hit 'CHARGIN' MAH LAZER' and go back to fappin' and F5'n.

I'm on the fence with this sort of thing. All things considered, it is relatively effective at getting media attention which is good, I suppose. But if it gets done too often, it'll probably lose whatever impact it has.

 

[Guest]

Didn't mean to imply this was hacking per se; further noting the difference between the two.

And this is really the wrong kind of media attention to be getting. Great when you expose someone or pay them back - brings more attention to the problem. Egypt has been in the press enough that they didn't need more attention, and the pro-democracy people don't need any associations with people knocking out sites.

 

[DokkRokken]

That is a good point. Actions like this just add gas to an already incendiary situation. I wouldn't be surprised if people who support these regimes would claim that these DDoS attacks are merely the West interfering, and then going on to use the attacks as a rallying cry against the pro-democracy/anti-regime protesters.

 

[Trillionsin]

better call the cyber police because consequences will never be the same.

 

[Obi-Wan Jerkobi]

4chan has always felt the need to take action in any way they can (a really crappy packet flurry).

 

[princeton]

4chan has always felt the need to take action in any way they can (a really crappy packet flurry).

I give up. You all are so convinced that Anon and 4chan are the same that I won't even bother again explaining why that isn't correct.

Stop acting like a bunch of people who post porn and hit F5 are the ones organizing this.

 

[Guest]

Organization and participation are not the same thing. So what if the anons coordinating the specifics of the attack on IRC are not self-professed /b/tards? Most of the kids charging their lazers probably heard about the raid on a chan. Anonymous still relies on the crowdsourcing power of 4chan and /b/ to get things done.

 

[Guest]

Anonymous is not a group
Anonymous has no body
Anonymous is anybody

 

[princeton]

Guest said:
Organization and participation are not the same thing. So what if the anons coordinating the specifics of the attack on IRC are not self-professed /b/tards? Most of the kids charging their lazers probably heard about the raid on a chan. Anonymous still relies on the crowdsourcing power of 4chan and /b/ to get things done.

So? If anonymous is the puppet master employing teenagers to DDoS sites then that keeps them out of the line of fire. That's unbelievably intelligent orchestration of a DDoS attack.

 

[jmjsquared]

Who decides?

Isn't the whole Egyptian "revolution" about the abuse of power?
Isn't any group which operates in the shadows under its own mandate, is answerable to no one and attacks any other person or entity to be repudiated? Isn't that the same hubris and arrogance that the Egyptian people are challenging?

Resistance, sometimes even violent (cyber or physical) resistance, is justified and just. But, who decides? I submit that choice is not for outsiders to make.

I'm just saying.

 

[Trillionsin]

I could see that some people may actually LOG OUT of techspot.com to post as a guest to be anonymous in this discussion. lolol.

Read a good point here though.

princeton said:

4chan has always felt the need to take action in any way they can (a really crappy packet flurry).

I give up. You all are so convinced that Anon and 4chan are the same that I won't even bother again explaining why that isn't correct.

Stop acting like a bunch of people who post porn and hit F5 are the ones organizing this.

 

[MaXtor]

Let the kids play.

 

[Trillionsin]

maxtor said:
Let the kids play.

Dont you think that repeated attacks, as silly as they are, will just cause more awareness, ultimately causing more control, changing laws, and restricting our freedom of speak via internet, just cause kids want to play?

I could be way off... but I do know that things change after repeated attacks, and this is no different.

Anon wont be so Anon when you cant proxy anymore. So, I did just pull that out of my ***, but the point is still valid whether or not you can still use a proxy, or whether or not your ISP tracks everything you go, download, upload, and so on.

This is why we cant have nice things. LOL

Please feel free to attack and criticize my comment guys. This is only opinion, I'm not highly educated in this area.

 

[Guest]

script kiddies

 

[Guest]

Why does 4chan always get the blame for everything?

 

[hexdontae]

The French helped us in our revolution, why can't anonymous help Egypt? Last I checked, they weren't complaining, they were rejoicing. Because their leader has resigned. So despite your opinions, the actions of Anonymous supported what has now happened. End of story.

 

[Guest]

Yeah and the lastest news i heard is that they have Trolololol on their iPod playlist

 

[Guest]

' Who decides?

Isn't the whole Egyptian "revolution" about the abuse of power?
Isn't any group which operates in the shadows under its own mandate, is answerable to no one and attacks any other person or entity to be repudiated? Isn't that the same hubris and arrogance that the Egyptian people are challenging?

Resistance, sometimes even violent (cyber or physical) resistance, is justified and just. But, who decides? I submit that choice is not for outsiders to make.

I'm just saying.
'

On one hand that is true but, on the other hand that completely ignores the fact that if ANYONE would do something about it that wouldn't really harm the regular people on the street it'd be Anon. I think their bits of vigilantism is a nice change from America going to storm countries in the name of 'justice'. It's sort of as if people have **** to say about them ****ing with the REAL bullies of the world and using their resources for that rather than the usual. That in my mind is not the same hubris and arrogance the Egyptian people are challenging. That if anything is raising your fist over the oceans in support of their cause.