Members of the Anonymous hacker collective have been waging a long campaign against sympathizers of Islamic State on Twitter, but now there’s a new effort to shame and humiliate them with porn.
One Anonymous member, WauchulaGhost, has spent the past few weeks hijacking Twitter accounts of loyalists to Islamic State (aka, ISIS or Daesh), defacing their profiles with porn images and exposing their IP addresses.
In the wake of the horrific mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, carried out by a loyalist of Islamic State, WauchulaGhost has been targeting the Twitter accounts of Islamic State sympathizers tweeting about the Orlando massacre.
If anyone is making a list of #Daesh accs that are tweeting the Orlando attack please send to me. I'm going after those accounts. đź‘»
— WauchulaGhost đź‘» (@WauchulaGhost) June 12, 2016
WauchulaGhost claims to have hijacked “hundreds” of Twitter profiles, littering them with graphic messages and pornographic images.
The Anonymous member told Softpedia that the porn operation targeting Islamic State accounts is intended to strike fear into Islamic State members, and show them “we are in control.”
Hijacking the accounts also allows Anonymous to communicate with and monitor other accounts, WauchulaGhost told Softpedia:
There are a few reasons for jacking their accounts. One is exposing their information (IP, phone records) to the public. Second is defacing the account. Adding our own images and basically showing them “We are in control.” Third reason is we use some of the jacked accounts to actually communicate and monitor other accounts from the inside as there are a lot of protected accounts that the public can’t see.
WauchulaGhost wouldn’t say how the accounts were hijacked, only that “everything has a vulnerability.”
On Sunday, 12 June, WauchulaGhost said that Twitter had suspended all the hijacked accounts.
In the past year, Anonymous members have made claims of shutting down thousands of Islamic State affiliated accounts under the banner of operations such as #OpISIS, #OpParis and #OpCharlieHebdo.
In response to criticism that Anonymous’s hacking attacks are potentially interfering with the work of law enforcement or intelligence agencies, WauchulaGhost said “we are simply helping by exposing locations etc.”
Image of Anonymous mask courtesy of NeydtStock / Shutterstock.com.
Cliff
I know we’re supposed to hate Anonymous because they’re evil black hats, but you have to give them credit as tenacious hackers who generally go after evil groups (subjectively speaking). My understanding is that as a collective they pick their targets by consensus. I don’t agree with everything they do, and they are vigilantes. One issue is whether they are impeding law enforcement by their activities. The other question that follows is how much governments are really doing. I don’t know about other countries but in the US the NSA is probably still intercepting Internet traffic. I don’t think any government has ever guaranteed privacy in Internet communications. If you how the Internet works, there really isn’t much privacy. I’m always surprised by the information that is available when you look beyond search engine results.
Mary jo monte
Anonymous are a joke, seriously
J A Miller
At last, someone has found some redeeming social value in porn. Bravo, Anonymous. Keep up the good work.
Art Zamora
Love it!!
Dave
Total COOL!
Radicals of any stripe have no place in my world!
sidney
woooooow!!!Nice!!!