Hackers have a bone to pick with Donald Trump.
A hooded figure wearing a Guy Fawkes mask—uniform of the informal hacker group Anonymous—has declared “total war” on the GOP frontrunner in a video released this month. The group had previously declared war on the presidential candidate in Dec., after he made statements about banning Muslims from entering the country.
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“Dear Donald Trump, we have been watching you for a long time and what we see is deeply disturbing,” the masked figure says before airing a montage of clips featuring a selection of Trump’s most controversial moments on the campaign trail. In one clip, Trump calls Mexicans “rapists”; in another he mocks a disabled reporter; in yet another he is read a litany of the insults he has used against women.
“Your inconsistent and hateful campaign has not only shocked the United States of America—you have shocked the entire planet with your appalling actions and ideas,” the speaker says.”This is a call to arms.”
“We need you to shut down his website,” the Anonymous rep continues. “Research and expose what he doesn’t want the public to know. We need you to dismantle his campaign and sabotage his brand.”
For more on Anonymous, watch: [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciavyc6bE7A&w=560&h=315]
The Anonymous YouTube page that hosts the video asks participants to target “trumpchicago.com” on April 1, or April Fool’s Day in the U.S. Another page devoted to so-called #OpTrump on Ghostbin, a data dump-friendly website, directs would-be hackers to more of Trump’s official campaign and property websites.
Anonymous hackers often use distributed denial of service attacks—overwhelming floods of Internet traffic—to pummel the computer servers of their targets. The group previously waged campaigns against countries such as Turkey and Hungary as well as the cybersecurity startup CloudFlare. Factions of the group have also targeted ISIS, scientologists, and the Ku Klux Klan.
Read more:“Let’s Talk About Anonymous Versus ISIS”
The latest video represents a renewed effort in the #OpTrump campaign, which Anonymous initiated at the end of last year. Most recently, Anonymous hackers supposedly broke into Donald Trump’s voicemail account and leaked messages to Gawker.