If 'Operation Blackout' succeeds, I might get a day off work
There are no snow days on the Internet. If you work from home and write online like I do, drudgery never ends. Or does it? This Saturday, Anonymous may change that.
"To protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, on March 31, Anonymous will shut the Internet down", so claims a February 19 Pastebin post.
I know it's still Friday and early to be reporting the Internet's demise. But I thought some of you might appreciate opportunity to plan for a one-day -- hell, if you're lucky two-day -- weekend.
But wait? Has Anonymous betrayed our leisure time? Tweets over the last 24 hours suggest the blackout so meticulously explained last month isn't happening after all.
Yesterday: "For the billionth time: #Anonymous will not shut down the Internet on 31 March. #OpGlobalBlackout is just another #OpFacebook failop. #yawn". And: "Think for a moment: Why would #Anonymous shut down our playground, the Internet? Really, how would that help ANY of us? #NextQuestion".
I dunno. I suppose no one would notice the Internet going black. No news organization would report such a feat, mentioning Anonymous and debating the attack ad nauseam. None of this would happen if Anonymous kept the plan.
Or is it all just a ploy -- a distraction before the strike against the Internet's primary DNS servers. I'm ready. I've waited six weeks for this day off work.
Anonymous had planned an attack against 13 root DNS servers:
By cutting these off the Internet, nobody will be able to perform a domain name look-up, thus, disabling the HTTP Internet, which is, after all, the most widely used function of the Web. Anybody entering "http://www.google.com" or ANY other url, will get an error page, thus, they will think the Internet is down, which is, close enough. Remember, this is a protest, we are not trying to 'kill' the Internet, we are only temporarily shutting it down where it hurts the most.
Of course, the Internet's distributed structure is quite resilient. The original ARPANET was designed to survive nuclear strikes. It would take one hell of a coordinated DDoS to cripple all the primary DNS servers.
Sadly, I may have to wait another month. Anonymous' big, new campaign supports Occupy May 1st -- a call for a global workers' strike; "a day without the 99 percent".
Anonymous: "On May Day, wherever you are, we are calling for: No Work. No School. No Housework. No Shopping. No Banking. Instead, take to the streets and protest with us!"
Well, such a protest, if possible, surely would cause more disruption that hitting the Internet. But, damn, I'll have to work. Someone has to report about the May 1st protests. That is unless Anonymous can bring down the Internet, too. Hey, that's a Tuesday. I never get those off, not even to vote.
Photo Credit: arindambanerjee/Shutterstock