Taking Islamic State Off The Twitterverse

"My motivation is to stop the brutality. I knew that someone had to stop them."
"I take time out of my day to do this because the world is in danger, humanity is in danger. It is my duty, as a human being, to stand up."
JhonJoe, #OpISIS hacker

Anonymous OpISIS via @lexinerus on Twitter

Well, it's heartening to know that Anonymous in particular, along with other hacker groups is finally putting its web-based expertise and influence to good use. That same cannot be said for a lot of its previous incursions into the field of hackery. This time, no one could fault their choice of hacktivism. What they're doing is tackling a problem of global significance in a venue that is of great use to the jihadist terrorists of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Without the use of instant communication through all manner of social networking sites, and apparently Twitter in particular, ISIL would be in a huge disempowering quandary. Their ability to flash their psychotic videos of gruesome torture and horrifying murders to attract recruits to jihad would be in jeopardy. The disadvantage that would descend on their recruiting techniques would certainly retard their growth in numbers.

And this is precisely what the allied groups that together make up #OpiSIS are motivated by. The groups involved are GhostSec, CtrlSec and the collective Anonymous whose operations take a multitude of forms. Some of the hackers are able to strike ISIS websites offline, while others attack ISIS social media accounts, and others yet pursue the people responsible for the accounts.

Evidently, with the use of Twitter, recruits locate someone expressing views that support their own, and from there make contact through the direct message function on Twitter. "We ran a sting operation to uncover this", JhonJoe remarked in a interview conducted on Twitter. The recruiters attempt to convince their potential recruits to travel to Syria to fight jihad with ISIL.

"They give you phone numbers and addresses to go to", and from there guide their targets through the resulting process. Should the targeted individual state they're unable of travelling, then the ISIL recruiter launches a convincing argument that terrorist attacks are useful to the global jihad wherever they occur. The recruiter insists that to "kill" people wherever the recruit happens to be is the goal.

"Stab them, then stab some more, and after that, keep stabbing, until they are all dead."

One of the amateur recruiters, according to the hackers, spoke to them directly: "@TheBinarySec@AnonTerminal hack my account Kuffar if you can!"

The response to that challenge was a two-day delay, then the hackers released his personal information, inclusive of phone number and home address in the Philippines, sending him a message on Twitter complete with screenshot of the FBI tips page: "your location was sent to the FBI".

Anonymous ‏@AnonyOpNews

89 Jihad sites #offline & 1,200+ Twitter accounts suspended. #OpCharlieHebdo