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Smut shaming: Anonymous fights Islamic State... with porn

Also exposing bare naked IP addresses

Elements of the Anonymous hacking collective have switched tactics in a campaign against supporters of the self-style Islamic State by attempting to shame and humiliate jihadists by adding pornographic images to their social media profiles.

The smut-smearing follows months of attempting to report jihadist profiles on social media sites in requests to get them blocked or shut down by Twitter and others. The porn offensive involves defacing profile pics with porn images and exposing the apparent IP addresses of those purporting to be Islamic State (AKA Daesh) supporters on Twitter rather than the more straightforward tactic of attempting to get accounts suspended.

For example, over the last few days, Anonymous member WauchulaGhost has been targeting the Twitter accounts of Islamic State sympathisers tweeting about the Orlando massacre and replacing their profile pictures with images from gay porn and pro-LGBTQ content (rainbow flags etc). WauchulaGhost claims to have pwned or hijacked “hundreds” of Twitter profiles as part of his smut-slinging campaign.

Hijacking Twitter accounts also allows Anonymous to map and track communications with other accounts (some of them hidden or inactive in public), WauchulaGhost told Softpedia.

Anonymous members have made claims of shutting down thousands of Islamic State-affiliated accounts under the banner of a variety of operations including #OpISIS, #OpParis and #OpCharlieHebdo over the past year or so since the deadly terrorist attacks against the offices of Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. Anon types involved in the Twitter whack-a-mole campaign have shrugged off criticism that these activities might be getting in the way of secret intelligence-gathering activities by Western law enforcement agencies.

More commentary on the smut-shaming campaign can be found in a blog post by net security firm Sophos here. ®

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