The war between Anonymous and ISIS continues in the deep dark realms of cyberspace, and today Anonymous are claiming that ISIS have had some help protecting their websites from US based security firm CloudFlare.
CloudFlare is a security firm that has over four million customers, but Anonymous are claiming that as many as 40 of those sites are now linked to terrorism. CloudFlare specifically protects against DDOS attacks – where a site is overrun with traffic, forcing it offline – which means Anonymous can no longer use these tactics to shut down terrorist sites.
A Twitter account associated with Anonymous recently tweeted the following:
Once again, @CloudFlare have been found to be providing services to pro #IslamicState websites. Shameful #OpISIS #Daesh #Anonymous.
This referred to a previous incident in 2013, when CloudFlare was accused of hosting Al Qaeda sites. The CEO of CloudFlare Matthew Prince (pictured below) has swiftly dismissed these claims in a strongly worded statement though:
Featured Image VIA
Image VIA
I’d suggest this was armchair analysis by kids — it’s hard to take seriously.
Anonymous uses us for some of its sites, despite pressure from some quarters for us to take Anonymous sites online.
Even if we were hosting sites for ISIS, it wouldn’t be of any use to us.
I should imagine those kinds of people pay with stolen credit cards and so that’s a negative for us.
If we were to receive a valid court order that compelled us to not provide service to a customer then we would comply with that court order.
Well, that sounds fairly legit, but you can bet your bottom dollar that a shadowy tech company probably has at least something to do with a terrorist threat, even if they don’t know it and it someone working on the inside or something – I mean that’s what always happened in 24 wasn’t it?
Anonymous aren’t convinced either and think that everything Prince is saying is a pack of lies and that CloudFlare’s existence isn’t exactly benefitting the fight against ISIS. We’ll have to see how this pans out, but it would probably be a lot easier for Anonymous if they didn’t have to fight CloudFlare and whoever else as well as ISIS.
At least they’re making progress with all the rick rolling they’re doing though.
