Anonymous vs. Donald Trump

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An Anonymous member speaks in a video threatening Donald Trump. (screenshot from YouTube video)
Anonymous vs. Donald Trump: Hacker group declares 'total war' on GOP frontrunner
By Ben Axelson | baxelson@syracuse.com   Follow on Twitter   on March 16, 2016 at 12:02 PM

  "Anonymous, the hacker collective that routinely attacks prominent
   figures or organizations it disagrees with, has called for "total war"
   against Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
   
   In a video published this month, the group threatened to "expose what
   he doesn't want the public to know." It also threatened to take down
   the website of Trump's Chicago property on April 1.
   
   

   
   "We have been watching you for a long time and what we've seen is
   deeply disturbing. You don't stand for anything but your personal greed
   and power," the voice in the video says. "This is a call to arms. Shut
   down his websites, research and expose what he doesn't want the public
   to know. We need you to dismantle his campaign and sabotage his brand."
   
   The video includes clips of some of the controversial things Trump has
   said over the course of his campaign, including referring to Mexican
   immigrants as rapists, and saying Syracuse Native Megyn Kelly had
   "blood coming out of wherever" during the first Republican primary
   debate last year.
   
   Anonymous' coordinated attack on Trump's properties is being called
   #OpTrump, and comes on the heels of a previous Anonymous attack in
   December, during which the website for New York City's Trump Tower was
   taken offline, according to The Guardian. That attack was in response
   to Trump's suggestion that all Muslims be banned from entering the
   United States.
   
   CNet reports that Anonymous will use a distributed denial of service
   (DDoS) attack. The simple method of service disruption involves
   overloading the backend of a website by bombarding it with an
   overwhelming number of access attempts.
   
   The attack plan was met with mixed applause on social media, where some
   users cheered Anonymous on, and others pondered whether it was an
   effective method of slowing Trump's momentum.   
   https://twitter.com/daronammo/status/709838636234231808   
   https://twitter.com/DaggsyD/status/709843532312350720   
   Trump's voicemail was hacked earlier in March, revealing what some
   described as "cozy" relationships with members of the national media,
   Gawker reported. The hack, however, did not appear to dissuade Trump's
   voters, who delivered the frontrunner primary victories in Florida and
   North Carolina this week.
   
   Whether the latest effort by Anonymous will have any effect on the
   candidate's popularity remains to be seen, but Anonymous is urging
   supporters to get involved and spread the message.
   
   Anonymous has targeted groups like Westboro Baptist Church, the Ku Klux
   Klan and the Islamic State group in the past."
   



The Anonymous attack on Donald Trump is setting off a hacker civil war
Paul Szoldra  18h [Thu Mar 16 22:40:26 CET 2016]  11,097   10   
http://www.techinsider.io/anonymous-hackers-trump-war-2016-3

  "Anonymous declaring "total war" on presidential candidate Donald Trump
   is starting to reveal in-fighting within the hacker collective itself.
   
   "Recently, Operation Trump has been re-engaged. We are here to
   terminate it and to banish it from the internet," reads a new statement
   from a hacker
   associated with the group, posted to YouTube on Wednesday.
   
   The release comes fewer than 10 days after another Anon declared "total
   war" on Trump, renewing a call to attack the Republican front-runner
   that began in December.
   
   It's a strange twist from what the shadowy hacker group has done in the
   past, in that there are now dueling statements and mixed messages going
   public. While there is no central leadership, Anons often loosely
   coordinate hacks and rally together, whether they were going after the
   Church of Scientology or helping to support Arab Spring protesters.
   
   Now there are some calling to take down Trump's websites, while others
   openly criticize the operation as being irresponsible and "cringeworthy."
   
   Cracks in the armor
   
   So what's the problem here? Why isn't everyone rallying around the idea
   of attacking Trump?
   
   While anyone can simply say they are "Anonymous" since there is no
   initiation or hierarchy, the group does have some loose rules most
   follow. And the collective's initial organization sprang from the
   anything-goes 4chan message boards, so most Anons champion freedom of
   speech.
   
   But that seems to be an issue for some who may disagree with Trump but
   don't think he should be censored.
   
   "Don't you think Trump has the right to speak his mind as everyone
   else," one user asked in the #OpTrump chatroom on Wednesday. "Even if
   its right wing?"
   
   One Anon responded that Trump was causing a "resurgence of racism and
   unrest," while others compared the candidate to Hitler.
   
      
   U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reacts to supporters as he arrives to a campaign event in Radford, Virginia February 29, 2016.
   
   Meanwhile, others within the group were opposing the operation on the
   grounds that it would ultimately prove ineffective.
   
   That's mainly because the video announcing "total war" on Trump
   basically boiled down to calling for distributed denial-of-service
   attacks — a simple way of harnessing multiple computers to flood a
   website with data — against Trump sites, to begin on April 1.
   
   Almost immediately, some members were openly criticizing "#OpTrump" on
   Twitter. "DDoS is not hacking," tweeted one prominent Anon account,
   https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/709833299636703232
   @YourAnonNews. The account also called the initial posting "the most
   cringeworthy video within Anonymous."
   https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/709831997384957952

   Some others in the Anonymous chatroom agreed: "You cant destroy Trump
   by DDoSing. Only by leaking info no one should know about him and I
   don't think we can do it."
   
   Beemsee, the hacker who is trying to rally others to #OpTrump, conceded
   the point in an updated release, writing that taking down sites would
   give them publicity. "We know they are not the best way to directly
   attack Donald Trump."
   
   So what happens on April 1st?
   
   While the initial pitch asks followers to wait until April 1st to start
   flooding Trump's websites with traffic, some were already getting ahead
   of schedule. One Anon briefly took down the website
   citizensfortrump.com on Wednesday, amid open talk of finding
   vulnerabilities on various sites in the group's chatroom.
   
   Others were filling shared documents with web addresses to target. But
   the new release calls for the operation to be "terminated." Whether
   that dissuades the collective remains to be seen.
   
   "We call upon the public and the entire anonymous collective to
   redirect in protesting the system, not just one candidate. We also ask
   the collective and lone wolf hackers to stray away from the planned
   attack on Trump's website this upcoming April 1st. Not only will this
   operation endanger the collective, it will prove nothing. There is
   enough information via the web to prove Trump's incapacity to become
   president."
   
   The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
     
   SEE ALSO: An Anonymous hacker says the group's 'total war' on Donald
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