Greetings, fellow Netizens. I write to you anonymously, but not as a
participant (they don't really have members) of the group called
"Anonymous" that has been getting so much media attention lately.
For those of you who don't know, "Anonymous" is the personified
website-raiding culture of English-language imageboards such as 4chan,
7chan, 420chan, and 711chan. Often mistaken for hacking, the
Anonymous "raids" generally involve getting together a large group of
people and tra****ng a target website. This can involve spamming,
trolling, posting shock images, and denial of service attacks. One of
their most famous raids, other than the admittedly deserved DDOS
attack on Scientology, was the series of attacks on Habbo Hotel, an
online children's game. Attackers created black people with afros as
characters, which they refered to as "nigras," and proceeded to block
other characters' movements, spam, and arrange groups of characters
into swastikas. The reason behind these attacks is pure
entertainment, or as they say, "teh lulz."
Recently, Anonymous began its most disturbing raid yet: Invaders went
en masse to the webforums of the Epilepsy Foundation and posted
seizure-inducing fla****ng images. You can read Wired.com's account of
the story here:
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/03/epilepsy
Or you can look at the website they use for planning raids, the /i/
(invasions) board of 420chan. It's hosted on not420chan.com since the
company hosting 420chan wouldn't host it, but they did allow the
website authors to link there from the 420chan.org main page.
http://www.not420chan.com/i/
(Warning: Their background is set to shock images to scare away
unwanted visitors. There's also the possibility they would set it to
fla****ng images. If you go there, you should turn images and other
media off.)
You can find info about these raids on 4chan or 7chan also if you lurk
long enough, but since threads there don't stay on the site for more
than about an hour, they have to go elsewhere for planning purposes.
As can be seen by browsing the above forums, members of Anonymous are
upset that their perception as good guys due to the Scientology
(wordfiltered to "Enkindlers" on the not420chan.com website) attacks
is encouraging legitimate activists to join their group. They were
pleased that this raid upset those activists, and this has encouraged
many of them to go for a second attempt. This may be on the same or
different forum.
Long story short, photosensitive epileptics should be especially
careful about the websites they visit. The risk for a second, or even
a third raid is high.
And to the anti-Scientology activists and Usenet readers in general:
Be careful who you associate with. The /i/ board has been banned from
site after site due to its illegal nature. Someday not420chan.com
will be shut down, and Anonymous will be looking for a new home.
Don't let it be here.
--
Sincerely,
Anonymous
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