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'Anonymous' Vows To Shut Down Syrian Government Websites

By: Mark Memmott // November 30, 2012
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The news that someone has shut off the Internet (and cellphone service) across Syria has led Anonymous to vow it will "shut down Syrian government websites around the world," as Reuters' Anthony DeRosa puts it.

SecurityWeek's Steve Ragan writes that:

"When the public first learned of the Internet blackout in Syria, the Syrian Minister of Information was quick to blame terrorists and made a halfhearted attempt to assure the world that the government had nothing to do with the outage. ...

"However, network analytics firms and Internet monitors tell a different story. Renesys was the first firm to go on record and confirm a complete shutdown of the Web within Syria, noting that all 84 of Syria's IP address blocks has become unreachable, 'effectively removing the country from the Internet.' " ...

"Once the outage was confirmed, it wasn't long before Anonymous, under OpSyria, entered the conflict. 'The nation of Syria has gone dark. And Anonymous knows all to well what happens in the dark places,' a statement from OpSyria stated."

Late last night, this message appeared on Twitter:

"Anonymous is attacking Assad due to the internet outage. Anonymous is not attacking Assad in support of the Free Syrian Army. #OpSyria."

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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