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Anonymous hacks the CIA—what’s next?

The hacker collective Anonymous is back, targeting spy agencies in its Friday initiative.

 

Fruzsina Eördögh

Tech

Posted on Feb 10, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 9:33 pm CDT

It appears as if Anonymous’s “Fuck FBI Friday (FFF)” initiative might become a regular occurrence.

This Friday afternoon, the hacktivist collective brought down the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) website. At press time, more than two hours later, CIA.gov was still down.

According to Raw Story, which contacted the intelligence agency for comment, the CIA was “experiencing some problems with the servers,” indicating it might be a DDoS attack.

It wasn’t readily apparent if Anonymous, which had taken down a slew of law enforcement websites last Friday, would be up to the task this week. While the name implies FBI targets, the collective has targeted law firms and even police apparel shops, since the phrase was coined more than two months ago.

“Anonymous worked overtime for Fuck FBI Friday last week. Wonder if there will be any delicious caek tomorrow,” tweeted MetatronAnonymo yesterday. No, according to some Anons, who tweeted that we shouldn’t expect further attacks tomorrow.

“It’s Fuck FBI Friday!! Should http://FBI.gov be next?” an account supportive of the collective tweeted today.

One Anon, who was involved with the original FFF operation three months ago, told the Daily Dot it took months to prepare for the initial Friday.

Describing the motives for the FFF attacks is tricky. Each time Anonymous attacks, members have described different motives to the Daily Dot. Sometimes they attack to protest the cybersecurity industry. Other times, they’ve wanted to raise awareness of political issues such as the imprisonment of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, or police brutality at Occupy protests. And then, at times, they’ve just sought publicity.

The question is, what exactly does Anonymous hope to accomplish with these FFF attacks? The days of doing it “just for the lulz”—amusement at others’ reaction—are long gone, as evident by their continued support of protesters in the Middle East and Occupy Wall Street.

Regardless of their motives, some wonder if members of the collective have enough juice for an attack next week.

Photo by OperationPaperStorm

 

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*First Published: Feb 10, 2012, 9:03 pm CST