National Geographic

Infosec Island notes that Westboro Baptist Church's dozens of websites remain offline more than one month after the initial attack by the famed hacker Jester.

The sustained DoS attacks which began on February 21st represent a duration record for the hacktivist who is best known for his regular attacks on militant Jihadi websites as well as for an attack on the WikiLeaks website in late November of 2010 that forced the organization to shuffle Internet hosting providers. The Jester uses a DoS tool he calls XerXeS to perform an application level attack which can be performed by a single low-spec machine with relatively few packets, whereas traditional TCP-based DoS attacks require multiple machines. The XerXeS tool has been employed to disable multiple WBC websites in a relentless campaign to hamper the church's continued use of the Internet to broadcast hate speech.

The hackers group Anonymous, which is apparently not involved, says that Westboro's initial claim of a pending attack by them was a publicity hoax.

(Tipped by JMG reader Jay)

JMG reader Thomas writes to observe that the websites of Westboro Baptist Church still appear to be offline more than three weeks after the live hacking done by Anonymous during a joint interview with Shirley Phelps.

Westboro's sites are down again at the moment, but the above is a screen shot captured earlier and sent to me by a purported member of 4chan. Embiggen the image or hit the above link to read the message claiming to be from Anonymous.

UPDATE: On today's David Pakman Show, a purported member of Anonymous and Westboro's Shirley Phelps-Roper butt heads over the hacking. Anonymous denies the initial hacking threat, but then performs a live hack of the Westboro site during the below interview.

Yesterday a letter purporting to be from Anonymous hackers claimed that the original threat against Westboro was a hoax and not from them. However God Hates Fags has been down all day today. In the clip below, radio host David Pakman talks to Westboro's Shirley Phelps.

The mysterious hackers group Anonymous, best known so far for their campaign against the Church of Scientology, has issued a stark warning to the Westboro Baptist Church.

We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS - the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People - have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism. We have always regarded you and your ilk as an assembly of graceless sociopaths and maniacal chauvinists & religious zealots, however benign, who act out for the sake of attention & in the name of religion. [snip]

ANONYMOUS cannot abide this behavior any longer. The time for us to be idle spectators in your inhumane treatment of fellow Man has reached its apex, and we shall now be moved to action. Thus, we give you a warning: Cease & desist your protest campaign in the year 2011, return to your homes in Kansas, & close your public Web sites.

Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS: We will target your public Websites, and the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover. It is in your best interest to comply now, while the option to do so is still being offered, because we will not relent until you cease the conduction & promotion of all your bigoted operations & doctrines.

The warning has been given. What happens from here shall be determined by you.

WE ARE ANONYMOUS.
WE ARE LEGION.
WE DO NOT FORGIVE.
WE DO NOT FORGET.
EXPECT US.

This should be very interesting.

RELATED: Late last year Anonymous took credit for denial of service attacks that brought down the websites of Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal after the companies refused to process donations to Wikileaks.

(Via - Good As You)