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Patriotic ‘hackitivist for good’ may be behind takedown of 4chan.org

Steven Nelson Associate Editor
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The cyber-vigilante known as “the Jester” may be behind a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) against the website 4chan.org, an online community that has facilitated coordinated attacks against the websites of corporations that have cut ties with WikiLeaks.

In the past, the self-described “hackitivist for good” has released claims of responsibility via his Twitter handle, th3j35t3r, and used the catch phrase “TANGO DOWN” to acknowledge responsibility for website attacks, typically against sites considered to be supportive of terrorism in the Middle East.

Tuesday, a tweet  released by the Jester reads: “4chan.org – that looks like a TANGO DOWN (not) maybe you guys pissed off the wrong person trying to (wrongly) ID me?”

It is unclear from the cryptic message whether the Jester is claiming credit for the attack. Anonymous, the hacking group that emerged from 4chan and took down the websites of MasterCard and others, has claimed that the identity of the Jester is a Montana resident named Robin Jackson.

The Jester previously took down the website of WikiLeaks, issuing several tweets on November 28 reading, “www.wikileaks.org – TANGO DOWN – for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, ‘other assets’ & foreign relations.” He also attacked the server of a chat site used by Anonymous.

4Chan is one of the most popular websites, ranking 580 in the most recent Alexa ranking. Christopher Poole, the founder of 4chan, posted on 4chan’s status blog today, “Site is down due to DDoS. We now join the ranks of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, et al.–an exclusive club!”