Anonymous Declares War On ISIS!!!

After claiming responsibility for the Paris terrorist attacks last week, ISIS has a new foe.
Hacker collective Anonymous posted a video Saturday on YouTube in which it declared a cyber war on ISIS. In the nearly two-and-a-half-minute video, a person wearing the group’s signature Guy Fawkes mask read a statement in French promising that the hacktivist organization would attack ISIS in cyberspace with the ultimate goal of weakening the terrorist organization.
“Expect massive cyber attacks,” the person said. “War is declared. Get prepared. 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.”
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the horrific attacks that killed nearly 140 people and left hundreds more injured on Friday. The attacks prompted the French government to go on the offensive against the group. Prime Minister Manuel Valls confirmed on Monday that French authorities had conducted more than 150 raids and completed a bombing campaign against suspected ISIS encampments in Syria.
Anonymous, however, has its own plans. And as history has shown that it is not one to be taken lightly.
Anonymous, made up of an unknown number of loosely connected individuals, is believed to have been founded more than a decade ago on the online forum 4chan. The organization was firmly principled when it was founded and remains so, says Ben FitzGerald, cybersecurity expert and technology director for the national security program at the Center for a New American Security.
“Anonymous has its own set of values and it’s going to defend those things aggressively regardless of whether it disagrees with the CIA or ISIS,” FitzGerald says. “It doesn’t align itself around familiar paths.”
Anonymous gained notoriety in 2008 following its cyberattack on the Church of Scientology. Soon after, the group went on to attack any organization or issue that it believed had wronged others. Indeed, the organization’s attacks have targeted everything from governments to illegal pornography sites. Anonymous has also been credited with attacking the Vatican, the CIA, and San Francisco’s BART transport system.
“Whether you agree or not, they have a clear set of principles,” FitzGerald says. “They’re not nihilists; they believe in things and take action on those beliefs.”

By 2012, Anonymous had become a household name in the technology world. It also built up a track record for impact. In 2012, Time, which owns Fortune, named Anonymous to its list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2012, saying that its attacks on networks had “earned its place on the list.”
While several similar hacktivist organizations have cropped up in recent years, few have been able to achieve the same level of notoriety as Anonymous. It is also among the more divisive of hacking groups, with some saying that it’s working in the best interests of the greatest number of people, and others arguing that it’s an illegal organization that must be stopped. Indeed, many law-enforcement officials around the world have targeted Anonymous and arrested dozens of alleged members.
Still, Anonymous has pressed on with no signs of slowing down. Just last year, after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, Anonymous reportedly launched attacks on the city that took down e-mail servers and the phone system. The group last year also declared cyber war on the Ku Klux Klan.
“Anonymous is absolutely not slowing down,” says FitzGerald. “As they often say, they are ‘legion and they are hydra.’ They are based in multiple countries. They don’t have a directory of who everyone is. It would be very hard to track all of those people down.”
Anonymous, in other words, is fully capable of launching successful attacks—and ISIS knows it.
After the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January, Anonymous posted a video that said it would attack terrorists in connection with the killings. Soon after, it brought down sites allegedly connected with terrorism (including a dating site for ISIS members) and claims to have taken down tens of thousands of Twitter accounts of people suspected of having ISIS connections.
This, though, is different, Anonymous says. It warned ISIS after the latest attacks to “get ready,” adding that it doesn’t “forgive and we don’t forget.” While Anonymous did not reveal any details about planned attacks, the threat could be serious. Given its history.
“We should expect Anonymous to target ISIS members online and make ISIS member information publicly available,” FitzGerald says. “Anonymous will go after online personas and ISIS websites.”
Ultimately, however, it’s unknown how big of an impact the attacks will have on ISIS. FitzGerald argues that while ISIS is an Internet-savvy organization, Anonymous’ efforts may prove more of “a nuisance rather than a threat.” Regardless, he says ISIS needs to watch out.
“I think Anonymous will absolutely make good on those threats,” he says.

An ISIS-affiliated account on the messaging app Telegram has sent out a message about Anonymous' threat to launch its "biggest operation ever" against the terrorist group.
After the Paris terror attacks on Friday that left at least 129 people dead and hundreds more injured, the hacking collective Anonymous posted a video in which a person who claims to represent the group said, "Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down."
"We will launch the biggest operation ever against you," the masked person said. "Expect massive cyberattacks. War is declared. Get prepared."
A Telegram channel that's believed to be affiliated with ISIS hackers then sent out a message to its followers instructing them how to prevent getting hacked by Anonymous.
"The #Anonymous hackers threatened in new video release that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots)," the statement read in part.
ISIS then asks: "what they gonna hack?," noting that so far Anonymous has just hacked ISIS-affiliated Twitter accounts and emails.
The message goes on to provide "instructions" on how to avoid potential hacks: Don't open any links unless sure of the source. Change Internet Protocol addresses "constantly." And "do not talk to people [you] don't know on Telegram" or through Twitter direct messaging.
The message, which was posted in both Arabic and English, was then forwarded around to various other ISIS-affiliated Telegram channels.
Anonymous started targeting extremists in January after the terror attacks on the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. The hackers worked to identify ISIS-linked social media accounts and take down extremist websites.
ISIS supporters also used Telegram channels affiliated with the group to coordinate a social media response to the Paris attacks on Friday:

Charlie Winter

Charlie Winter @charliewinter

#IS Twitter storm on #Paris attacks is being coordinated on @telegram: tweet translations & templates, top accounts circulated, verified. 

Read more at: http://fortune.com/2015/11/16/anonymous-cyber-war-isis/ 
and at: http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-anonymous-response-paris-attacks-2015-11

Paris Under Siege! Over 100 Dead In Multiple Attacks!!!

PARIS — The Paris area reeled Friday night from a shooting rampage, explosions and mass hostage-taking that President François Hollande called an unprecedented terrorist attack on France. He closed the borders and mobilized the military in a national emergency.

French television and news services quoted the police as saying around 100 people had been killed at a concert venue where hostages had been taken, and dozens more killed in apparently coordinated attacks outside the country’s main sports stadium and at least five other popular locations in the city.

Witnesses on French television said the scene at the concert was a massacre. Ambulances were seen racing back and forth in the area into the early hours of Saturday morning.

The casualties eclipsed the deaths and mayhem that roiled Paris in the Charlie Hebdo massacre and related assaults around the French capital by Islamic militant extremists less than a year ago.

An explosion near the sports stadium, which French news services said may have been a suicide bombing, came as Germany and France were playing a soccer match, forcing a hasty evacuation of Mr. Hollande. As the scope of the assaults quickly became clear, he convened an emergency cabinet meeting and announced that France was closing its borders.

“As I speak, terrorist attacks of an unprecedented scale are taking place in the Paris region,” he said in a nationally televised address. “There are several dozen dead, lots more wounded, it’s horrific.”

Mr. Hollande said that on his orders the government had “mobilized all the forces we can muster to neutralize the threats and secure all of the areas.”

President Obama in Washington came to the White House Briefing room to express solidarity and offer aid and condolences. “Once again, we’ve seen an outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians,” he said. “This is an attack not just on Paris, it’s an attack not just on the people of France, but this is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Twitter erupted with celebratory messages by members and sympathizers of the Islamic State, the extremist group based in Syria and Iraq that is under assault by major powers including the United States, France and Russia.

The main shooting appeared to have broken out at a popular music venue, The Bataclan, where the American band Eagles of Death Metal was among those playing, and French news services said as many as 100 hostages may have been taken there — many of whom apparently were killed later. Some accounts said grenades had been lobbed inside the music hall.

A witness quoted by BFM television said he heard rounds of automatic rifle fire and someone shouting “Allahu akbar!” at The Bataclan.

Another witness who escaped the concert hall told BFM: “When they started shooting we just saw flashes. People got down on the ground right away.”

French news media reported that Kalashnikov rifles had been involved in the shootings — a favored weapon of militants who have attacked targets in France — and that many rounds had been fired.

Police sirens sounded throughout central Paris on Friday night.

American and European counterterrorism officials were reviewing wiretaps and other electronic surveillance records, but a senior American security official said there was no immediate indication that there had been suspicious chatter or other warning signs ahead of the attack.

Unlike the attacks against Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in January, terrorism experts said the targets of the Friday attacks had no apparent rationale. Instead, assailants appeared to strike at random in hip neighborhoods on a Friday night when many people would be starting to enjoy the weekend.

“It’s a Friday night and there’s a lot of people out, a lot of tourists out,” said a senior European counterterrorism official. “If you want maximum exposure you do it like this, in the dark when it’s scarier and more difficult for police to act.” 

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/world/europe/paris-shooting-attacks.html?_r=0