Online ‘Hacktavist’ group who call themselves Anonymous have declared war on terrorist group Islamic State, or ISIS. This emerged just 24 hours after a huge terrorist attack on Paris on Friday the 12^th of November, which claimed the lives of 129 people. The group began action against Isis following the Charlie Hebo attacks in January of this year.

Anonymous are a 12-year old virtual community that have been linked to hacks on everything from the government of Zimbabwe ad Bay Area Rapid Transit, to Visa, Mastercard and the Federal Reserve. They have proven to be plenty capable of following through with their threats. They have also dismantled 149 Islamic State websites so far this year.

In the video above Anonymous threatens Isis with “massive cyberattacks”, uniting humanity using hacking to weaken the terrorist group in an operation named “Operation Isis.”

" We will launch the biggest operation ever against you.

Expect massive cyberattacks"

"War is declared. Get prepared"

"The French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger"

The online disruption caused by Anonymous attacks could serve to not only embarrass Isis by publishing evidence of hypocrisy amongst its leaders, but destroy their attempts at recruiting all over the world. Isis pitches its radical Islamist messages through email, web chat, Skype calls and YouTube videos, and more recently it promoted a mobile messaging app called Telegram.

The attacks began with Anonymous leaking the twitter profiles and personal information of suspected extremists, resulting in over 5,500 twitter accounts being taken down just 24 hours after the attack was launched. This number has almost doubled with a total of 10,000 twitter accounts being taken down since the launch.

However, this ‘war’ has not gone without criticisms, as some say this may actually cause Isis to become more tech savvy, increasing their understanding of the online world in order to develop their online security, making the authorities to combat this growing issue.

Griffin, A (2015)’Paris attack: Anonymous launches ‘biggest operation ever’ against Isis’. The Independent. November 16. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/paris-attacks-anonymous-launches-its-biggest-operation-ever-against-isis-promises-to-hunt-down-a6735811.html

Mann, T (2015) ‘Who are Anonymous? All you need to know about the ‘hacktavist’ group that declared war on Isis over Paris attacks.’ Metro Online. November 17. Available: http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/17/who-are-anonymous-all-you-need-to-know-about-hacktivist-group-that-declared-war-on-isis-over-paris-attacks-5507438/

Syrmopolos, J (2015) Anonymous takes down 5,500 ISIS accounts – 24 hours after ISIS called them “idiots”. The Free Thoughts Project. Available: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/opparis-anonymous-takes-5500-isis-twitter-accounts-24-hours/

Keeping Children Safe on Social Media

Parents are encouraged to be mindful that an increasingly large aspect of being online is communicating with others, especially on Facebook. They are advised to talk to their children about the dangers of being online, and maintain a relationship in which the children feel confident in telling their parents who they are talking too online.

UK Police forces were able to train officers to become Covert Internet Investigators, who were able to proactively police the Internet by portraying themselves as children. As well as this, there have been several examples of vigilante groups taking a similar approach and portraying themselves on social media sites as children in order to lure sex offenders into a conviction.

The most contemporary example of this is 33 year old, Stinson Hunter. Hunter is a self-proclaimed ‘paedophile hunter’ who along with his accomplices poses as under-age children on social networking sites to catch “online sexual predators”. Their aim is to get the offender to arrange to meet the “underage child”, where they film their confrontation with the individual, post it on Facebook, and then pass their information on to the police. Over the last six years, Hunters group have secured over 30 convictions.

Hunter uses Facebook to share videos of the people they have caught, in order to raise awareness and publicly humiliate.

The danger of their vigilante activities are as they are not trained, they create a risk for themselves, for the police service and for the people they target. The fact it is not the police conducting these operations, there may be vital evidence lost through the way in which the situation is handled, meaning it is of no use to the police. As well as this, on a personal level, the humiliation the individuals undergo from being broadcast as a 'paedophile' over social media sites such as Facebook, can be life destroying.

Matellozzo, E (2012) Online child sexual abuse: grooming, policing and child protection in a multi-media world. London: Routledge
McAlinden, A-M. (2012) ‘Grooming’ and the sexual abuse of children: institutional, Internet and familial dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press
NSPCC (2015) What is online abuse?. Available from: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neglect/online-abuse/what-is-online-abuse/