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Anonymous Hacks Tunisian Islamist Sites 101

Posted by Soulskill from the keeps-on-ticking dept.
eldavojohn writes "The hacktivist group Anonymous has claimed another victim by taking down Islamist sites in Tunisia. Similar to an earlier attack on Turkish government sites, #optunisia has resulted in several government blogs and sites being replaced with 'Payback is a b****, isn't it?' The message lists censorship as the motivation behind this activity. The AFP is reporting that this is also in response to the reintroduction of Salafist laws and the caliphate. An additional Anonymous message read, 'We are not against religion, we are Muslims, but we are defending freedom in our country.' Censorship continues wholesale in Tunisia."
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Anonymous Hacks Tunisian Islamist Sites More

Anonymous Hacks Tunisian Islamist Sites

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  • Safe target? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 ) on Monday March 12, 2012 @03:14PM (#39330071) Journal
    I wonder if they're hacking these guys because they basically won't have any ability to retaliate, as opposed to the U.S. Government or the drug cartels in Mexico.

    • Re:Safe target? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 ) on Monday March 12, 2012 @03:17PM (#39330121) Journal
      Note, I'm not saying that the hack without merit since it is in favor of free speech, but rather if that's the reason they're avoiding the big dogs, ever since the recent sting.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        How do you know it's even the same person/people doing this hack vs. any other anonymous hack? If they are "avoiding the big dogs", who are "they"? The leaders of anonymous who may or may not exist? If someone writes graffiti on a Bank of America building signed "anonymous" are you going to say it looks like they decided to go after the banks? It sounds like you're trying to make sense of what could be basically random actions by diverse non-connected groups of individuals. Maybe some are 4-channers, m

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Anonymous isn't run by a handful of people who make decisions like that. Half the time Anonymous is fighting against Anonymous. How many times does this have to be explained?

    • There are more than enough bad guys out there that CAN'T reach you, I'd rather have them pestering "safe targets" for a while rather than them going after the bigger fish, and getting killed or deported.

      I also thought the whole thing with "Targeting the Zetas" was probably just "for the lulz," in the first place. I mean, it's a pretty low-tech operation. I wasn't quite clear how Anonymous would have gotten their hands on identities of corrupt officials working with the zetas, proof of their corruption,

      • There are more than enough bad guys out there that CAN'T reach you, I'd rather have them pestering "safe targets" for a while rather than them going after the bigger fish, and getting killed or deported.

        You have seen what many Muslim people do when they are upset/mad/in a bad mood, right?

        • You have seen what many Muslim people do when they are upset/mad/in a bad mood, right?

          The Tunsinian fundamentalist Muslims? No... nope. Haven't the foggiest what they're like when they're mad, living as I do in the US.

          You do bring up a good point: Anonymous members should avoid Tunsinia. Though, everyone else should too.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dave420 ( 699308 )

          You have seen what many people do when they are upset/mad/in a bad mood, right?

          FTFY

    • Because somehow drug cartels in Mexico are heavily involved in Tunisian politics? Did you even bother reading the fucking summary, is that seriously too much to fucking ask anymore?

  • Paybill will be a bitch (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When the radical Muslims pay the hackers back by kicking their ass.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 )

      The FBI has enough trouble finding random anons, I don't think they need to worry about any religious nutjobs that can only threaten to backtrace them and report them to the cyber police.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The FBI has enough trouble finding random anons, I don't think they need to worry about any religious nutjobs that can only threaten to backtrace them and report them to the cyber police.

        The FBI, despite the raving of the tinfoil hat crowd, has some manner of responsibility to NOT target and kill random US citizens. Religious nutjobs don't have such irritating restrictions.

        Note I did not say what specific religion or belief system these nutjobs are.

      • The religious nutjobs won't even bother with backtracing anything - they'll just round up and stone to death everyone who is remotely computer-literate.

  • Dog? (Score:1)

    by it0 ( 567968 )

    Why is bitch censored?

  • Pretty random attacks these days (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lucas123 ( 935744 ) on Monday March 12, 2012 @03:31PM (#39330327) Homepage
    Anonymous seems to just have its fingers in the wind these days, shifting its sites all over the placewith no real direction or purpose. I mean, they even took down the Boston Police Department's website because the city forced the Occupy Wall Street wackos out of Dewey Square after letting them squat there for months.

    • Anonymous seems to just have its fingers in the wind these days, shifting its sites all over the placewith no real direction or purpose.

      Who said they have any real direction or purpose? It's a big amorphous group of whoever wants to participate in whatever popular idea is floating around at the time, they don't have any long-term plan.

      • This. One person saying they are the spokesperson for anon would be like me standing up and saying I speak for all of America. Anon's own biggest enemy is anon and always will be. It is the embodiment of chaos and randomness.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      No shit, that's because anonymous isn't one centralised group with a single purpose but a group of many with many purposes.

  • Not against religion? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ZeRu ( 1486391 ) on Monday March 12, 2012 @03:33PM (#39330351)
    So, when Anonymous hacked Vatican's site, they were against religion, but now they say they are not? I guess they need to take a more cautious approach when they know tomorrow could be thousands of angry people on the street screaming for their beheading.

    • Re:Not against religion? (Score:4, Informative)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <`gameboyrmh' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday March 12, 2012 @03:39PM (#39330439) Journal

      Way to over-simplify and misinterpret:

      https://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/anonymous-hacks-vatican-website/10567 [zdnet.com]

      They don't seem to like Scientology either.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Scientology isn't a recognized religion in most places. It's a cult at best, and a criminal organization otherwise.

        • Scientology isn't a recognized religion in most places. It's a cult at best, and a criminal organization otherwise.

          I still haven't understood the reason for distinguishing between cult religions and so-called "non-cult religions". All of them seem disturbingly alike to me.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by krept ( 697623 )
            Scientology is tax exempt. The IRS deciding that they're a religion is reason enough. Whether we like it or not.
          • That's easy, any religion that I don't agree with is a cult. Of course since I don't agree with any religions you can see where that will go however YMMV.

          • To me, the difference between a religion and a cult is first the spelling. The second being acceptance. Once a certain number of people 'accept' a cult it changes to religion.

            • There's also the issues of internal control and charity. Scientology is totalitarian. It never bothers with charity. Established religions do. So I'd call it a cult.

          • A religion is a cult that's old enough that nobody can remember what blunders its founders made.

          • It's a continuum. Basically the more control the religous authorities try to exert over what the adherents think and do, the more it moves towards the cult end of the scale. People that want to categorise things one way or the other draw their own arbitrary line at some point on the continuum.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 12, 2012 @03:53PM (#39330599)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MoonFog ( 586818 )
        I'd argue that with that kind of classification it can hardly be called a "movement". Viewed from the outside they don't look schizophrenic, rather it looks like anyone who wants to stir up some trouble can just claim to be from Anonymous and thus get extra media attention towards what has been done. Since there is no common ground or movement, it's not possible to say that you're sympathetic to the cause either because the question would then become "what cause?".
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • There is a cause and there is a movement.

            Well he asked the question, 'what cause?'
            And what definition of a 'movement' do they fit?

            To simply have a safe venue by which to vent anger and frustration without reprisal.

            But there has been reprisal, in case you missed it there have been many arrests and even a case where one member turned into an FBI informer.

            The members that make up "anonymous" are from all walks of life, country, religion, race, and culture. You name it.

            Hang on, you were saying they were anonymous, now you profess to know they come from all walks of life, country, religion, race and culture. How can you possibly know that?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )
      It sounds like the people behind this particular attack against the Tunisian government are Tunisian citizens, and therefore Muslim. The group behind the Vatican attacks were probably Western in residency. Remember, Anonymous is like al-Qaeda: anyone can claim the name, as both are an idea more than an actual organization. And to address this particular case, this was always the worry that the Arab Spring would bring out Islamist governments to replace authoritarian, dictatorial, regimes. However, we we

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by chrb ( 1083577 )

        There are two points to consider with the whole Arab Spring Islamist thing:

        1) The Islamist groups were often the only form of resistance against an unpopular dictator. People joining or supporting those groups weren't necessarily hardcore Islamists. Consider that the Islamist groups that fought against Gadaffi turned out to be our allies, and openly called for democratic elections. Also consider the Polish uprisings against Communism - the uprisings had many religious overtones (martyrdom, use of the Chri

    • So, when Anonymous hacked Vatican's site, they were against religion, but now they say they are not?

      Who are "they"? How do you know it's the same person/people? Do you know some of the members of anonymous personally? If so, please contact the FBI immediately for processing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      You're struggling to understand what anonymous is.

      So if you can't grasp the concept of what anonymous is, each time you read it in relation to a story like this, mentally replace it with "A group of hackers".

      Things will start making sense then.

      Anonymous isn't one person or group, it's many groups sharing the same name. Your argument doesn't make sense, it's like seeing a green car and saying "What the hell? I thought all cars were white, why is this one different?" - there are many different colours of car,

  • This counter tactic won't work for the Islamist sites that need to be populist, but it will work for the ones who have enough men, guns and money to seize power and control through fear, intimidation or murder.

    Basically, if you attack them, they can simply murder some innocent person related to you. Say, find someone who studies computers and whether you declare this 'computer' thing an evil or not, simply murder them and publicize that they died in response to the attack. They would just be interested in

  • ....originated from, then you will also see the intentional distortions fabricated for personal gain at the expense of many others.

    All religions are going to fall in exposure of their origins. Even the Atheist and Agnostic are in for a surprise.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You DO know "agnostic" and "atheist" are orthogonal right? All religions, as well as atheism, are belief claims, while a claim of agnosticism simply means "I do not put the same kind of confidence in this belief as I would in something derived deductively from prior principles." For example, an agnostic atheist says "I have no particular God belief, but this does not mean there never is, was, or will be a God or Gods in any place, time, or meaning."

  • When they hack a company/organization, that group is more resolved than ever to keep doing what they're doing, except now with improved net security. They are strengthening the resolve and defenses of who they claim to hate!
  • This was actually the Taliban in Afghanistan, nothing like Tunisia, but it does remind me of how Islamic justice doesn't necessarily need to get the (anonymous) perpetrator in order to declare justice. http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&id=2589110&smallembed=1 [slashdot.org]

  • But for Anonymous (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So the 'Arab Spring' is getting all theocratic. Lovely. Mufties and imams subjugating billions of women and $150/bbl gas.

    Can we please have our imperialist puppet dictators back now? These people can't govern themselves properly. Thanks so much.

    But for Anonymous we'd have had ovens full of infidels before the MSM had reason to mention any of this.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cpghost ( 719344 )

      So the 'Arab Spring' is getting all theocratic.

      I have family living in one of those countries (Morocco), and all of them saw it coming, and constantly said so, long before Ben Ali fled Tunisia. The problem with the "Arabellion" was that it came too early, in the midst of a huge wave of Islamism that has been sweeping the region since at least the 1990ies and that is still virulent and highly contagious today. Before this, there were already democratization tendencies in place and going along nicely, albei

  • Because nothing says "Fight the power" like hacking a website in Outer Buttfuckistan.
    Especially when the Outer Buttfuckistani government is going to hush the incident up locally.
    And isn't likely to raid your house like they do when you script-kiddie domestically.

    WOO!
    BIG BRASS BALLS BABY!

    Pardon my disgust.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbwolfe ( 241413 )
      I'd prefer they hacked rather than not, and I think we can all agree "the internets" do indeed have "fight the power" power. Will this hack change anything? Maybe not but it costs little except the effort and inaction is ineffective...

  • Islamist. It's not a real word, stop using it please.

    • Islamist [thefreedictionary.com]
      Islamism [wikipedia.org]
      islamist [reference.com]

      While it is highly charged, and there may be some disagreement about the precise definition of the term, it most certainly is a word. You're free to dislike its usage all you like, but that won't change the fact that it is a word.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        it most certainly is a word.

        Santorum [spreadingsantorum.com] has a "definition" too...doesn't mean it's a valid one.

        You can defend it's usage all you like, but that wont change the fact that Islamist is a pejorative invented by non-Muslims to disparage Muslims, same as "Democrat Party" is used by Republicans to disparage their political opponents. You can find lots of references [wikipedia.org] for that, too.

        "Democrat Party" is a political epithet used in the United States instead of "Democratic Party" when talking about the Democratic Party.[1]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbwolfe ( 241413 )
      Regardless of how you feel about that word, or any word for that matter, your opinions are meaningless on their own. Any word can emerge as a neologism and as for the term "Islamist", it appears in the Oxford English Dictionary and is used commonly enough that nobody is going to "stop using it please." Perhaps you are transferring your animosity toward the group mentioned with the term itself. I can understand that...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tqk ( 413719 )

      Islamist. It's not a real word, stop using it please.

      (0) kiak /home/keeling_ dict islamist
      1 definition found

      From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:

          Islamist
                  n 1: a scholar who [is] knowledgeable in Islamic studies
                  2: an orthodox Muslim

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        1 definition found

        You can also find definitions for "Santorum", when Googled. Doesn't mean that it's a valid term. "Islamist" is a pejorative used by non-Muslims to disparage Muslims, same as how "Democrat Party" is used by Republicans.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tqk ( 413719 )

          "Islamist" is a pejorative used by non-Muslims to disparage Muslims,

          You're working from a bad dictionary. Neither of the definitions I quoted are disparaging.

        • ""Islamist" is a pejorative used by non-Muslims to disparage Muslims..."
          Citation?

  • The guy they caught in NYC had a ninth-grade education, and he was LulzSec's chief-rooter-in-charge.

    Since this site is for nerds, how about a nerdish description from someone of what exactly it means to "take down" a website in this way?

    Politics and religion I'm pretty well up on, but I'd like to know more about the technology behind these well-publicized, probably over-publicized, attacks.

  • This is just a prank.

    So they hacked the website of a bunch of illiterate sheep-herders. Big deal.

    When they do something *really* meaningful, like bringing down a corrupt bank, or a mass weapon manufacturer, I will be impressed.

  • Tunisia has a caliphate? Since when did they organize a massive worldwide shura and elect a new Amir-ul-Mumineen? I must have missed the invitation.

    What an odd accusation for Anonymous to make. The Muslim world hasn't had a caliph since 1924.

  • ...we should call them "Irony"-mous.

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