Anonymous Hacktivists Declare War On the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist group in the United States of America and Anonymous is a self-proclaimed “hacktivist” group. How are the two even connected? Well, recent reports tell us that Anonymous hacked into KKK’s Twitter account and have furthermore vowed to release the names of about one thousand Ku Klux Klan members.
https://twitter.com/Operation_KKK/status/657334427446411264?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
This is not the first time that Anonymous has taken upon itself the responsibility to reveal the names of members of a secret group or society. Earlier in May 2015, they had named around nine thousand two hundred members of the ISIS terrorist group, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo case.
This time, they will reveal the KKK names on the day of Operation KKK’s one-year anniversary. The act is seen as a declaration of cyber-war against the Klan following the grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer Darren Wilson for the death of a black-american boy named Michael Brown in Missouri, USA.
https://twitter.com/Operation_KKK/status/657335422259867648?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
To give you a background, back in November 2014, the KKK had distributed fliers threatening violence against the hacktivists, warning them that they had “awakened a sleeping giant”. This was followed by Anonymous taking over the KKK’s Twitter account in response to the threat. The account remains under Anonymous’ control till date and they have further sent all Klan affiliated sites with DDoS, that is, distributed denial of service attacks. Anonymous is calling this anti-Klux movement Operation KKK and has even changed the logo of the society’s Twitter account to their own.
The transparency of the web obviously has its positives and negatives, however, the web can also be a very dark place to be in. Hacktivists like Anonymous are using the transparency of this ‘cyber age’ and is using it to bring to the fore various social and political issues. As of now, it seems like a good move, but how long do you think it will be until both parties start facing repercussions?
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