IN the war against the Islamic State (IS), unlikely heroes have emerged. They are anonymous hacktivists called Anonymous. In #OpISIS, Anonymous hunted down and hacked hundreds of Twitter accounts they suspect to be associated with IS.
Who is Anonymous? Let me allow a 2.12-minute video featuring a computer-generated talking head resembling V, the main character in the movie V for Vendetta, to explain.
“We are: Muslims, Christians, Jews ...
We are hackers, crackers, hacktivists, phishers, agents, spies, or just the guy from next door.
We are students, administrators, workers, clerks, unemployed, rich, poor. We are young, old, gay or straight.
We wear smart clothes or rugs, we are hedonists, ascetics, joy riders or activists.
We come from all races, countries, religions and ethnicity.
UNITED AS ONE, DIVIDED BY ZERO ...
We Are Anonymous.
REMEMBER ... THE TERRORISTS THAT ARE CALLING THEMSELVES ISLAMIC STATE ARE NOT MUSLIMS!!!,” it said.
In 2012, Time magazine named Anonymous The World’s 100 Most Influential People.
“United, if at all, by a taste for shock humour and disdain for authority, this leaderless Internet hive brain is plundering and playing in the electronic networks of an ever shifting enemies list: Arab dictatorships, the Vatican, banking and entertainment firms, the FBI and CIA, the security firm Stratfor and even San Francisco’s BART transport system,” wrote Time.
In a nutshell, Anonymous is a worldwide vigilante hacking collective which attack websites they believe to have infringed on human rights. They have attacked governments (such as the United States, Israel, Tunisia), child porn websites and corporations such as PayPal and Visa.
Those who are against Anonymous have called them a “cyber lynch-mob” or “cyber terrorists” while those supporting them have described them as “freedom fighters” and “digital Robin Hoods”.
Last month, following the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, Anonymous declared war on IS and al-Qaeda.
In the same video, the computer-generated talking head wearing a Guy Fawkes mask warned: “ISIS; We will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, e-mails and expose you ...
“From now on, no safe place for you online ...
You will be treated like a virus, And we are the cure ...
We Own The Internet ...
We are Anonymous, We are Legion, We do not forgive, We do not forget, Expect us.”
Yesterday, as I was typing this story, my laptop hung. I did what most computer illiterates do. I switched it off and switched it on and clicked on the text file where this article was written. The article had disappeared.
My heart sank as I had about 90 minutes before deadline to submit my column. Don’t tell me Anonymous hacked my laptop, I told myself. I prayed to the Cyber God and I switched my laptop on and off.
The article reappeared. I was not targeted by Anonymous.
There are Malaysians whom the hacktivists have targeted. The video also revealed: “The following Facebook accounts suspected to have been keeping contact with the terrorists (IS) in Syria & Iraq. Won’t hurt to keep an eye on them.”
If you go to the 12 Facebook accounts that Anonymous are keeping watch on, you would find this message “This content is currently unavailable” or “Sorry, this page isn’t available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed.”
However, if you did the search on Monday, some of the Facebook account holders were from Perak, Negri Sembilan and Penang, according to a China Press front-page report on Tuesday.
“These account holders are believed to be supporters of IS as they have uploaded its flag and leaders’ photos,” the Chinese-language newspaper reported. “Some uploaded photos of children as well as women wearing burqa.”
When The Star Online team went through the Facebook accounts on Monday, we found that some of the account holders were (allegedly) hard-core PAS supporters.
However, we could not find concrete links that the Facebook pages were connected to IS.
“The flags are not of IS although they look similar,” my colleague Dina Murad told me.
“It’s the Saudi Arabia flag but coloured black.”
Using Facebook and other social media networks such as Twitter are one of the ways IS targets recruits.
Take the example of three would-be Malaysian militants who were arrested at KLIA in September before they could fly to their eventual destination, Syria. The three men from Klang, Kota Baru and Arau respectively were recruited via Facebook.
A senior Malaysian militant used social media to lure potential IS members.
“The police have already identified the recruiter. The suspects are considered still ‘fresh’ but willing to join IS,” a source told The Star.
It is still questionable whether Anonymous’ hackings have helped in the war against IS.
According to Guardian.com on Monday, “it is not yet clear whether Anonymous’ actions have had any wider effect on IS’ ability to organise using social media. While Anonymous says there will be ‘more to come’, IS members continue to create accounts as fast as they are taken down”.
“IS already has to contend with Twitter trying to remove accounts it identifies as promoting terrorism; in August 2014 there were reports that it was considering abandoning mainstream social networks.”
At the end of the video, the talking head wearing a Guy Fawkes mask warned that there would be “more to come”.
