Can you imagine an entire day without Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google, Wikipedia?
Just the thought of a day without the internet is enough to scare the life out of any of us. But, be it a rumor or truth, 31st March 2012 has been designated as a “Global Blackout Day” by a group of cyber hackers called 'Anonymous'.
The news circuit has recently been hammered by a shocking news of Internet Closure for a day! The web has been flooded with the news of possible attack on the Domain Name System (DNS) by the members of Anonymous group.
The infamous hacktivist network has launched their one day movement to protest against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), Wall Street, the irresponsible politicians and the bankers of the country who are starving the world for their own selfish needs.On the contrary, one of the Anonymous writer has explained the plan of the group on one of the popular social networking site as a strategy to fool people into thinking that Internet is offline!
They have planned to shut down the 13 servers that connect URLs (like Google.com) with the IP codes (web address) of websites. If successful in their attempt, people accessing the websites will find only a blank page,concluding, that Internet is temporarily out of service.
They have planned to shut down the 13 servers that connect URLs (like Google.com) with the IP codes (web address) of websites. If successful in their attempt, people accessing the websites will find only a blank page,concluding, that Internet is temporarily out of service.
Anonymous, has no single mouthpiece and the news regarding the blackout are surfacing upon the web from the different Internet accounts.
@YourAnonNewsEurope confirmed the Operation Global Blackout, writing as "It's firing !! Anonymous launches 'Operation Global Blackout', aims to DDoS the Root Internet servers."
But how serious are these threats?
To some it appears to be April Fools joke- albeit one day early or the indications of gaining some publicity for their anti-SOPA campaign.
Even if the Anonymous plans don’t come to fruition, would their take-down methods actually work?
Is it possible to shut down the internet?
Anonymous specializes in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which they have incorporated in the past. In a DDoS attack, computers across the internet overwhelm the target server by sending numerous anonymous friend requests. In an attempt to process the request, the target server “loses” the legitimate requests, causing genuine users to experience the unacceptable delays or time-outs.
Although the hacktivist's are planning the massive DNS amplification attack to shut the internet infrastructure for a day, they surely lack the capability to execute them. Graham's post, titled “No,# Anonymous can't DDoS the root DNS servers,” makes a strong argument that Internet is completely protected and their attempt to shut down the central servers will be noticed by cyber-attack cell, once they start executing the damage. He has also suggested that if Anonymous goal is to trick the public into thinking that they have shut off the internet, they should focus on taking out the biggest websites like Google, Twitter & Facebook because people are more concerned about internet for accessing these social networking sites.
Be it a threat or just a rumour buzzing the cyber zone, if there is 1% reality to the confusion then professionals across the globe must be worried about how information will be accessed and how work will be done.
Countdown has already begun...
Definitely! A worst nightmare for the world!
