Global DNS takedown plotters disowned by Anonymous

Anonymous has distanced itself from a plot to knock out critical systems in the backbone of the internet. Documents posted on Pastebin and elsewhere warn of a planned attack against the main DNS root servers on 31 March as part of a protest against SOPA and other hated copyright enforcement measures. If successful, the attack …

[James O'Brien]

well now

This is certainly a good way for any group, be it anonymous or Obama haters or whatever else, to get your entire group on the black shoot on site list. And yes I RTFA that anonymous OS disavowing all knowledge of this but if you allow someone or several ones to use your shirts its your own Damn fault when people stop listening and start to look deeper into the shadows.

Idiots.

[JDX]

Re: well now

Surely anyone who acts and claims to be part of anon is by definition part of anon? Isn't that the point of anon?

[Ned Ludd]

Re: Re: well now

In fact, if the powers-that-be wanted to create a catch-all domestic/cyber terror bogeyman that's, by it's very nature, the perfect patsy for false flag operations, they couldn't have come up with better.

Just saying...

[James O'Brien]

damn auto correct

Site = sight and OS = is.....

I hate when it does this to me.....can I downvote myself?

[Gannon (J.) Dick]

Re: damn auto correct

You'll have to down vote yourself.

So much for the theory you were doing it to me.

[ratfox]

Re: damn auto correct

If your autocorrect is replacing "is" with "OS"...

You might be working in the IT business.

[JDX]

>>"On March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down. In order to shut the Internet down, one thing is to be done. Down the 13 root DNS servers of the Internet,"

Isn't that very similar to a quote from one of the Matrix films? Or LOTR?

[John Brown (no body)]

Would most people even notice?

IANADE[1] but would most people even notice? The TTL on DNS entries in your ISPs DNS server would probably outlast any "takedown" if anyone even managed to take out all of the root servers at the same time. As I see it, it has the potential to stop you accessing a site which has recently changed it's IP address or a new site, which has not yet propagated to your ISPs DNS server cache yet, but surely that's not going to affect the vast majority who visit the same sites time after time.

*I Am Not A DNS Expert.

[PyLETS]

Re: Would most people even notice?

A DNS root outage could probably last quite a bit longer than a week with most Net users not noticing. How often does the DNS resolver provided by your ISP need to ask the root server about a new global TLD ? Answer: not very often. Besides which, if a long outage were to occur, what would prevent the resolver operators (generally your ISP) hardwiring the few and well known addresses of the TLD servers for the most commonly used TLDs into the DNS resolvers ?

In a DNSSEC world eventually the keys allowing for content verification would time out without new ones to replace these, and DNS clients would need to be software upgraded to accept new DNSSEC trust anchors, but even that is presumably doable if all the main OS providers included these updates within their security patch/update routine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not gonna work.

Many of the 'root servers' are clusters spread across multiple continents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anycast#Domain_Name_System

[Anonymous Coward]

Cyberattack could cause power outages

`National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander has warned the White House that Anonymous "could have the ability within the next year or two to bring about a limited power outage through a cyberattack"'

Jeez, maybe they shoudn't connect such vulnerable SCADA units directly to the Internet. Is there a precident that the NSA is aware of, of a computer virus interfering with the US power grid?

"SCADA vuln imperils critical infrastructure, feds warn", Dec 2011

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/14/scada_bugs_threaten_criticial_infrastructure/

"Hackers tap SCADA vuln search engine", Nov 2011

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/02/scada_search_engine_warning/

World's power grids infested with (more) SCADA bugs, Feb 2009

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/05/areva_scada_security_bugs/

Slammer worm crashed Ohio nuke plant net, Aug 2003

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/20/slammer_worm_crashed_ohio_nuke/

"Did MS Blaster crash the power grid?", Aug 22 2003

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/did-ms-blaster-crash-power-grid-696

[Gordon 10]

Re: Cyberattack could cause power outages

Since the NSA probably had a hand in Stuxnet isn't this a case of pot and kettle?

Ahhh I see it's ok to do it to others but not to be done unto.

[Wize]

Re: Cyberattack could cause power outages

As well as having a target and its weakness, you need to provide a name of a potential threat who could exploit it before you get funding for it.

[Crazy Operations Guy]

Resilient solution

I have a BSD box set up with a script to pull the root.zone file down from iternic.net once a day (checks the version number first) so I pretty much have a private root server, so even if anonymous can pull off something like that, I wouldn't see anything.

I originally did this for work to block access to restricted websites (KP, SY, IR, xxx, etc) by running some simple search for these NS records and replacing them with blank lines. All DNS servers in the org I control use this as server as their root and are blocked from accessing anything else.

[Wize]

Re: Resilient solution

So, if instead of killing the server, someone replaced the file on internic.net with a fake one (all the numbers changed to point to the wrong places but all the right headers/version numbers), your system will still download it and use it?

Hope you keep an archive of previous working copies.

[Turtle]

Whose agenda is getting pushed, really?

"Various members of Anonymous denounced this warning as scare-mongering geared towards creating a climate in which Congress allows the passage of the 2012 cyber-security bill despite objections by Senate Republicans. They say it gives federal authorities too much power over private-sector infrastructure firms. 'We're pretty sure, that cyber bill is the reason for the renewed NSA fear-mongering," AnonymousIRC retorted.'"

In line with today's article about Labour attacking Google's Tory hirelings, we once again see the odd (i.e. not odd really at all) sight of these loudmouth "hacktivists" on the side of the Republicans.

Did these hacktivist idiots really not understand that the *inevitable* reaction to their high-publicity attacks would be increased government involvement? Government abhors a power vaccuum, and these fools and tools and been advertising the power vacuum on the internet with such enthusiasm that you'd think that they're getting paid to do so.

If someone wanted to establish firm government control over the internet, they couldn't ask for better shills for their agenda, then these "hactivists".

[Flat Phillip]

Not 13 servers anyhow

The root DNS is not hosted on 13 servers but on 11 anycast addresses and 2 servers. Each anycast address has many (the number varies from a few to tens) of real servers behind it. So to do it they would need to take out 259 servers at the same time and THEN wait for all of the TTLs to age (about a day for some I looked at).

That would be with all of the domain administrators and ISPs doing nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter

Hack and go to prison. It doesn't matter who you are or think you are or want to be.

[Ian Stephenson]

Re: Doesn't matter

You are Morris D. and I claim my five pounds.

[Nebulo]

No, no ...

... March 31st? They should be doing this on Dec 21st as their contribution to the Grand Internet End of Life As We Know It celebrations!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who Gains?

Not Anon, but probably some Agency trying to blacken Anon and at the same time manufacturing reasons to try to clamp down on Liberty.

[JDX]

Re: Who Gains?

I love how the paranoids think like this. Most entertaining.

[Thomas 18]

Unlikely

When people predict the end of the world we laugh at them, how about we laugh at these dummies

[Abhorsen]

FALSE FLAG FALSE FLAG HURF DURF FALSE FLAG.

No, sadly, just human stupidity at it again.

[Anonymous Coward]

pfft

it's not like we haven't been here before ... days without the internet.

as a young chap, I'd be fishing instead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Def not Anonymous

Anonymous have demonstrated that they know how DNS works.

Simple caching mitigates this issue. Somebody above points out that TTLs tend to be quite small. Many DNS resolve anyway if they can't update their cache.

[CD001]

Re: Def not Anonymous

You might also imagine they'd know the difference between the Internet and the WWW - nobbling the core DNS servers is hardly going to affect the actual infrastructure now is it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again...

Once again Anonymous or people purporting to be them - therefore people who actually are Anonymous because you can just say that you are them and no-one can confirm or deny it - suggest something which is is condemned. Later some other people, purporting to be the Real Anonymous, say that the people purporting to be Anonymous weren't actually Anonymous, despite no-one knowing who they are therefore making them, err, Anonymous.

This has to stop.

[Red Bren]

Re: Once again...

I'm Anonymous and so's my wife!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Re: Once again...

No, I'm Brianfag!

[JDX]

Re: Once again...

Peoples' Front of Judea.

[DayDragon]

Take out their playground?

"but taking out the root DNS of the net is not the group's style. After all, such a action would throw a spanner in the works of the hacktivists' favourite playground"

Err, no it wouldn't. Since the servers and routers will still be there they only need to use IP addresses. Proper hackers would be able to get around the net without having to use nameservers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no....you mean....

.....we have to use IPs? But I don't understand the numbers, they scare me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh no....you mean....

Ok smart arse, without using DNS in any way - What's the IP address of google? The BBC? The Register?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous is...

....anyone and everyone, potentially. It is an idea. That's the whole f*cking point. FFS people are thick. Most of you deserve whatever happens to you, for being so f*cking feckless. JSC.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Anonymous is...

Anon says Anon is going to take down the nameservers

Anon says Anon isn't going to take down the nameservers

Anon says Anon doesn't exist

Anon says Anon "is an idea"

Anon says "Most of you deserve whatever happens to you, for being so f*cking feckless"

Children will play games, but,

Anon better hope their 7 proxies are well configured and that a RIPA notice is not served.

Anonymous Coward says Bubba is keeping an extra special place warm, just for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous aren't an organised group

Anonymous is just a catch all name for the faceless plebs net.

I'm Anonymous ffs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous ain't so anonymous

More of those Hacktards are arrested weekly.

[NoneSuch]

You would think the NSA would be more interested in hacking attempts from inside China aimed at Northrup Grumman and Lockheed (To name only two) going on today than something well off in the future. Maybe. Possibly. Sorta.

Glad it is not my tax money at work.

[Chris 228]

What makes you think they aren't?

The NSA should be dealing with all of the threats current and future. Would you prefer your tax money be spent at the Pub by politicians?