Anonymous Threatens To Shut Down Internet

Hacker group Anonymous has declared they are shutting the Internet down tomorrow [Mar. 31] to protest the US Stop Online Piracy Act [SOPA], Wall Street and “irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun.”

Anonymous’s threatened Saturday attack is not planning to kill the internet permanently, though. The group only wants to shut it down temporarily by carrying out a massive attack on 13 root DNS servers.

“It may only last one hour, maybe more, maybe even a few days,” Anonymous said in a statement posted to Pastebin. “No matter what, it will be global. It will be known.”

By cutting off the 13 DNS servers, Anonymous will effectively make the Internet unusable.

Users will not be able to perform a domain name look-up, and will instead be greeted with an error page upon entering a familiar site’s URL. Entering the direct IP address into the address bar will be the only way to reach the desired website.

Anonymous members claim they will be using a Reflective DNS Amplification DDoS tool to trigger a rush of DNS queries that will eventually bring all those DNS servers down over some time, if the attack is not stopped.

“The Anonymous hackers can certainly cause local pockets of disruption, but these disruptions are going to be localized to networks where their attack machines are located, or where their ‘reflectors’ are located,” said Robert Graham of Errata Security, cited by bgr.com.

However, if enough people join the attack on the DNS servers – the IP addresses of which Anonymous has deliberately posted to Pastebin – the local pockets of disruption may spread across the whole Internet.

Anonymous, a loose collection of on-line hackers, has routinely announced its targets before mounting attacks. Such was the case with PayPal — which Anonymous targeted in retaliation for the firm’s blocking of donations to WikiLeaks — and with Sony’s PlayStation Network which was hacked after the firm filed lawsuits against PlayStation hackers.

Earlier this year when US authorities shut down Megaupload — a popular file-sharing site charged with copyright infringement — Anonymous took down the Web sites of the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the White House, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the United States Copyright Office, CBS.com, Warner Music and Universal Music in retaliatio

The group, which has grown increasingly active in recent years, once described itself in these terms: “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget.”

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