ISIS website taken down. Replaced with Viagra ad.

[Kaleredar]

Anon is pretty legit when all of the sects combine. Most of the time people see false warnings and repost fake "we are taking down facebooks" or "expect us kanye" - that isn't even remotely real. This is the EU division taking down a ton of IS online assets. The real damage isn't even shown. Ddos'ing and taking down sites is just small work compared to backdooring these windows IS users, and rootking the machines. If they haven't already switched to a form of linux (the true elite IS) - they are really at risk off web as well.

And so are the Anonymous police division going to go and raid ISIS terror cells, then?

[Deleted]

Good. Cut off their connections and communication to the West.

Can U imagine a confused teen browsing for an IS all heated up watching some propaganda and suddenly gets rickrolled?

[Very Tired]

Joke's on them. Everyone knows Viagra is just a front for financing ISIS.

[Sykol]

But when it gets down to it all Anonymous can do is take pot-shots at ISIS websites... probably the least lethal of ISIS' outlets.

ISIS uses social media more than a 14 year old girl. This is probably sending a good chunk of them into a Gilmore Girls-and-ice cream binge depression.

[procne]

Pretty okay but...how do ISIS people know where to connect if they don't know about the website's existence in the first place?

Word of mouth?

If you really know website where they share information you should present the info to the NSA to let them track the users.

Because TOR? Users can't be easily tracked. It's even stated in the article.

[Kaleredar]

Word of mouth?

Wouldn't they then just go to communicating in ways that don't involve these specific websites?

[XangXu]

I think a lot of people fail to realize just how much they rely on the internet and its uses to pull of organizations like Isis.

Good for them. It is a consistent target that they never have to let up on.

[ComputerNerd]

Why do we want to arm terrorists with Viagra? :P

Stops them rolling off the side of the bed.

[Kaleredar]

I think a lot of people fail to realize just how much they rely on the internet and its uses to pull of organizations like Isis.

How much, exactly? No one seems to be able to provide numbers.

[ComputerNerd]

How much, exactly? No one seems to be able to provide numbers.

Providing "exact" numbers would require knowing about each and every one of them, at which point it would be an easier process to deal with them.

[procne]

Wouldn't they then just go to communicating in ways that don't involve these specific websites?

They would and they do. It's not like Anon placed a firewall against ISIS. They just make it harder

[Acelius]

Is this what we want though? Anti-terrorism units are monitoring these sites and gathering intel, they can't do that when a website is down. Not to mention that downing a website isn't very effective considering how easy they are to create.

[Deleted]

Rickrolling involves hacking a site and putting a video of singer Rick Astley singing “Never Going to Give You Up” in place of the site’s information.

Poor Saudi Arabia, now they have to oppress Rick Astley fans too.

[Slant]

An interesting maneuver, but... Can't they just continue to recruit from the dustier corners of the middle east they pull most of their members from?

The really juicy recruits are ones with European passes. Nobody cares about a goatherder in the Iraqi desert being a threat to the goatherder next to him... but the 17 yr old French youth just coming back from visiting "family" has access to all kinds of public places. All he needs is a bomb or a weapon.

That's why these online activities, while belittled by some, are worth more than any bombing in Syria. These actually disrupt the flow of information between Iraq/Syria and Europe much better than bombs. The internet is designed to survive a direct attack on it's core infrastructure, a few stray bombs in Syria ain't gonna disrupt their recruitment.

[Yunru]

Taking the ability away to recrut is a better way than just monitoring.

It reduces the chance of bombing by a lot. If you just monitor, you cant stop the kids to go wild.

Real fanatics would use deep web. But if you disable this one to, they will lose a will to fight, since they will think, they dont take them serios.

[Deleted]

I think it's a great move. F*** ISIL.

[Hyve]

It'll help, but it won't be as big of a deal as some are making it out to be.

Those really wanting to join ISIS are still going to, regardless of a website, but it might make that harder, it might make it more difficult and those still searching could be found easier with a longer, more prolonged trail to follow.

There are other things that they could've done though, if they haven't. Trace the server? Monitor the site for their recruitment methods and such.

[Slant]

It'll help, but it won't be as big of a deal as some are making it out to be.

Those really wanting to join ISIS are still going to, regardless of a website, but it might make that harder, it might make it more difficult and those still searching could be found easier with a longer, more prolonged trail to follow.

There are other things that they could've done though, if they haven't. Trace the server? Monitor the site for their recruitment methods and such.

Thing is, other, more traditional recruitment methods are easier to monitor by law enforcement. That's why the rise of the terrorists doesn't just coincide with the rise of the internet and faster information technology. Take that away from them and they're back to personal contacts and using phones or mail. All of those our agencies have centuries of experience in observing and with the recent technology boost, are better at it than ever before.

It's the internet that makes mass recruitment and coordination so easy.

[RickJamesLich]

I think a lot of people are undervaluing Anonymous cyber-war on ISIS, considering the vast majority of ISIS radicalization/recruitment is done over Twitter and other social networking apps.

From everything I've heard, this isn't actually true. Most of the recruiting is done through mosque's, as they typically start off with recruiting people that they already know have strong religious convictions that may be easy to manipulate. This anonymous stuff is interesting, but from what I've heard, some of the members have been pretty much just reporting any site that has an islamic related language as being "linked to ISIS" or in other cases reporting people that have anti west sentiments, but clearly are not affiliated with ISIS at the same time.

[No comment]

First time Anonymous has been useful in a long while.