Anonymous Threatens To Shut Down Internet Next Month

Sodaholic said:

Well, looks like this will come in handy after all:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/desopa/

So something that was ostensibly intended as some sort of protest against attempts to combat piracy turns out to be useful as a way to circumvent a more high-profile protest against the same thing? Priceless.

I thought that only Eric "eBaum" Bauman had make the Internet his bitch so far (John Romero tried, but failed).

If the internet were to shut down, maybe journalists could write more gripping articles using more credible sources than some garbage on pastebin.

If they tried to mount an attack on google.com, now THAT would effectively paralyze almost everything, or at least disrupt things long enough to cause chaos until e.g. people realize that there are other search engines, or that "the Cloud" wasn't such a good idea after all.

fraggle said:

There's a reason why there are 13 redundant root server addresses, and it seems incredibly unlikely that they would be able to take out even one of them, let alone all 13. Furthermore, 9 of those 13 addresses are anycast addresses - meaning that the individual addresses don't even correspond to single servers, but rather multiple servers located around the globe.

In summary, this is an idiotic and clueless threat that is doomed to failure.

That's actually why my first post in this thread was "I lol'd"; the threat reeks of a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works, how DNS works, and how UDP works, all in one convenient package.

Plus the idea that causing a denial of service to hosts(even in the case of a single one) is as simple as spoofing the source address of a packet is silly. It's just about the first attack anyone can think of when hearing a basic overview of how packets work, and they don't think that the issue has been mitigated over the last 30 years? Riiiiight.

GreyGhost said:

Poor old Snakes might have another productive day coming up, he's not going to enjoy that.

I don't believe I'd ever forgive them if this were to happen.

fraggle said:

There's a reason why there are 13 redundant root server addresses

Yep - the Pentagon wanted a communications network that stood a chance of surviving a nuclear war and the best way to go about that was by building lots of redundancy into the system.

In summary, this is an idiotic and clueless threat that is doomed to failure.

Agreed.

Or just an April Fool's joke. I'm inclined to think it is.

fraggle said:

There's a reason why there are 13 redundant root server addresses, and it seems incredibly unlikely that they would be able to take out even one of them, let alone all 13. Furthermore, 9 of those 13 addresses are anycast addresses - meaning that the individual addresses don't even correspond to single servers, but rather multiple servers located around the globe.

In summary, this is an idiotic and clueless threat that is doomed to failure.

I don't really know a whole lot about this topic, but don't most ISPs essentially mirror the DNS servers as well? I imagine if the roots don't respond the cache wouldn't just disappear and thus most of the popular sites would remain accessible even if all the roots were down.

There's several layers, ISPs tend to be on the bottom-most ones, but yes; rarely will your requests ever need to go to the top-level root servers.

If this actually happens, I'll be glad. Hell, I'd love it if it went on for a week.

Blzut3 said:

I don't really know a whole lot about this topic, but don't most ISPs essentially mirror the DNS servers as well? I imagine if the roots don't respond the cache wouldn't just disappear and thus most of the popular sites would remain accessible even if all the roots were down.

Mirroring the root servers isn't necessary or practical. If an ISP's server can't pull an address from its cache it'll forward the request to its nearest neighbor, that'll either respond with the address or forward the request to another server. In due course the originating server will either be given the address (and cache it) or the hop limit will be reached and it'll report the domain name as unresolvable. As for how long the web stays up with the root servers down, that would depend in part on the cache retention settings in other servers.

Rambosee said:

If this actually happens, I'll be glad. Hell, I'd love it if it went on for a week.

But I need fresh pornography to masturbate to.

They better not shut down the Internet next month! Otherwise I will be pissed.

stewboy said:

Or just an April Fool's joke. I'm inclined to think it is.

I don't see why people think this could be an April Fool's joke. Sure, it's one day before April Fool's, but why would they announce it in advance in that case?

People don't announce their what their April Fool's day pranks are going to be a month in advance, it just doesn't make any sense.

Sodaholic said:

I don't see why people think this could be an April Fool's joke. Sure, it's one day before April Fool's, but why would they announce it in advance in that case?

People don't announce their what their April Fool's day pranks are going to be a month in advance, it just doesn't make any sense.

Neither does trying to shut down the internet by DDoSing some DNS servers.

Sodaholic said:

Sure, it's one day before April Fool's, but why would they announce it in advance in that case?

To see how many people fall for it? To see how the media reacts? If it's not for April Fool's, why choose that particular date? Why not say they're going to do it, for example, tomorrow? Or why not just do it and then explain the reasons for it? The only reasons I can think of them choosing that date is either it's a giant April Fools prank, or perhaps they want people to think it's an April Fools prank and then they're actually going to do it. But from what other people have been saying about how difficult it would be, I doubt it's the latter.

As I said, it reminds me strongly of this.

we all know the best way to prove a point is to throw a childish tantrum and do exactly what you don't want done, just to show those assholes that you can do it better than they can...when push comes to shove.

it helps to also understand what it is you are arguing against.

/meh

The Internet? Who cares.

I care! Without the Internet I'm a basement dwelling tough guy with no-one to bully! Do you wish to deprive me of my social life? :P

You could always startup a D&D group, the timing is almost perfect:
http://trollitc.com/2012/01/wizards-of-the-coast-go-full-grognard-re-release-original-add-books/

Then again, I'd just buy the original hardcovers from ebay or something. They can be had for around $10/book, sometimes less if you're not picky about condition.

hex11 said:

You could always startup a D&D group, the timing is almost perfect:
http://trollitc.com/2012/01/wizards-of-the-coast-go-full-grognard-re-release-original-add-books/

Then again, I'd just buy the original hardcovers from ebay or something. They can be had for around $10/book, sometimes less if you're not picky about condition.

Better buy them before the internet goes down.

Technician said:

Better buy them before the internet goes down.

But the internet was bought by the CIX (Commercial Internet Exchange) back in 1995, at least according to some underground Italian demoscene magazine which made a great deal out of it back then.

Surest way to make the Internet go down is to list it on the New York Stock Exchange, then wait for the inevitable boom'n'bust bubble market.

http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-anonymous-cant-ddos-root-dns-servers.html

This whole story is probably a decoy/diversion: why would any attacker detail his attack plan to his "victims" a-priori, giving them ample time to prepare a specific defense, unless the real intention is striking somewhere else/doing something entirely different?

I like how that article hints that they'd have an easier time trying to take out Google, Facebook, and/or twitter. Still not very likely but it would have been slightly more credible of a claim.

I wonder how mobile phone connections 3g and 4g would handle this type of disruption.

If this is really a distraction for another, more realistic plot, I wonder what Anonymous has planned? Then again, why would they even need a fake distraction plot to begin with? They're Anonymous, they'll do whatever they like, whenever.

I doubt they have anything; the pastebin version of the "threat" was even worse than the one in the OP -- it has technical language on par with that of Hollywood writers: they got the vocabulary but failed to put it together in any meaningful form.