The BBC are continuing to deny that they voluntarily took their websites off-line on Thursday (31/12/15) morning as part of the UK's competitive New Year's Eve (NYE) celebration.
The BBC is now claiming that they've been contacted by a never before heard of US-based hackers collective "New World Hackers (NWH)." It is being reported that NWH have assured the BBC that the Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attack was a practice run to allow NWH to test the power of their server before they launch a cyberwar against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The purpose of this little fairytale is to promote discussion about the much more well established hacker group "Anonymous." Following the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres Anonymous declared their own cyberwar against ISIL. The concern is that this little effort will cause more problems then it will solve.
After all Anonymous are the type of people who would consider Edward Snowden to be some sort of rebellious hero. The reality is that Snowden's superiors not only gave him permission to run off to China they actually gave him the idea. The purpose being to heap extra pressure first on China then on Russia during Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour by forcing them to decide what to do with him.
The information Snowden leaked had been carefully vetted. The intention being to provide a baseline of what all other intelligence agencies knew about the US' spy programs. That way no foreign intelligence agency could deny that they were in possession of that level of information.
This was actually referenced heavily by the latest, Season 5 of the US TV Show "Homeland." However it wasn't referenced in the hacker to exposed information about the US spy programs nor the annoying, rebellious journalist who was desperate to publish the story.
Instead it was referenced in the offensive, Arabic graffiti hidden in the stage design in the Lebanese refugee camp portrayed in the show. The artists who'd hidden these messages in the background were keen to boast to everyone about how rebellious and subversive they'd been. However they were actually doing exactly what the director wanted them to do.
To see the problems that Anonymous can cause in the fight against ISIL you need to look no further then the case of Emanuel Lutchman who was arrested in Rochester, New York State, US on Thursday (31/12/15) just as he was about to carry out knife attacks against NYE revellers.
Lutchman had been instructed to carry out his attack by members of ISIL over the Internet. However because the social media accounts in question were being monitored the FBI were able to send in undercover agents to befriend Lutchman and prevent the attack. If Anonymous had taken down or otherwise interfered with those accounts they could have wrecked the FBI operation with pretty messy results.
Then of course there was the 7 day Anonymous DDOS attack on Turkey's domestic Internet infrastructure which began on December 14th (14/12/15). Although hilarious Turkey has taken this as permission to launch its own cyberattacks against Russia adding another dimension to an already complex situation.
So while it's nice that Anonymous are prepared to fight ISIL their efforts might be better spent campaigning for national governments to actually fight ISIL properly.
US President Barack Obama in particular needs to learn that his continued support for ISIL is simply not acceptable.
23:30 on 2/1/16 (UK date).
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