Anonymous Went After the Internet’s Most Popular Hub of Lost Knowledge Just to Get ISIS

Anonymous chooses some bizarre targets. It has gone after Black Lives Matter for being "racist," and it has attacked the central banking websites of countries like Bosnia for being a part of the "New World Order."

Now, it's going after the internet's most trusted archive of lost websites and hidden information.

On Thursday afternoon, hackers took down the Internet Archive, a nonprofit site best known for its Wayback Machine tool, which lets users view websites that are lost, down or deleted. The group took down the site in the name of #OpISIS, because ISIS was allegedly using the Internet Archive to store jihadi material where it couldn't be taken down.

A Twitter account called @AttackNodes took credit for the attack as part of Anonymous' campaign against ISIS, which was reinvigorated by the Orlando shooting.

"Now you can not spread your shit fucking rats," @AttackNodes said in a tweet that's no longer available. "Oink."

The internet didn't take too kindly to the attack:

The attack was advertised as a part of Anonymous' broader war on ISIS, but according to Motherboard, more mainstream Anonymous channels are distancing themselves from the assault on an online organization that stands for transparency and openness, things Anonymous traditionally values.

After six hours, the Internet Archive and its tools were back up and running, having successfully mitigated the Distributed Denial of Service attack.

Correction: June 19, 2016

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