Pierluigi Paganini
July 18, 2016
I’m continuing to interview hackers that every day fight against the ISIS supporters, people that live in the shadow that are engaged in hard battles.
Enjoy the interview!
Hi Zeus, first of all, thank you! Please, can you introduce yourself and tell me more about your character. What is your technical background and are you an IT professional?
I am known as Zeus (Zeus Anon @anonzeus3 on twitter, Zeus1 on Anonops). I have been involved in anti-ISIS operations since the ISIS took over Kobane a couple of years back. I have no IT background, and i learn as I go.
I had spent some time studying how to move anonymously online before my interest in Anonymous, for reasons of personal security online and general concerns about big brother surveillance by the Governments. I spent a lot of time online and came across Anonymous, as you do, and took an interest in what the collective does and what it is.
What are your motivations? Why do you fight against IS?
I loved the idea of being able to effect change for good using online skills such as you develop. I decided to visit Anonops, and scanned the list of ops having chosen Zeus1 as a nickname. (I chose Zeus1 as I guessed there would be a Zeus already). I joined an Op called #OpiceISIS and fell in love with it, helping out initially with doing research on tools etc and getting information for people that were busy doing stuff. I met several people that were very good at downing Isis sites with DDOS tools like Torshammer, Pyloris and Slowloris that were freely available online. It wasn’t long before I became quite adept at using said tools, particularly Pyloris at the time.
I had by this time developed a real hatred of ISIS, seeing endless videos of their atrocities on sites like Liveleak. Had I have been a younger man, I would most likely have gone out to fight alongside the Kurds; such was my passion.
About 18 months ago, ‘DDoSing’ went out of fashion on #OpIceISIS, the hackers on there thought we should all be hacking sites and dumping information , defacing etc; however, I could see no value in this unless you were a Fed or in the Military, and could do something with it, so myself and a great guy called AnonTango formed #OpDDosISIS which quickly became a very busy Op.
This Op was for people that loved and saw value in dosing.
As time passed, I made many friends and enjoyed posting downed sites on twitter. That’s when I discovered there were many hackers and such on twitter that not only do not support what we do but actively oppose us. Astonishing though it is, there are people that are constantly trying to suspend our accounts and generally wreck our ops; what motivates them I don’t know.
As time went by, ISIS sites became more and more protected, particularly by Cloudflare who seem to have no morals about who they protect online and it became very hard to knock ISIS websites offline with standard tools. To add to the problem, many sites that were hosting terrorist material stopped doing so; prompting a backlash on twitter from people accusing us of harming ‘innocent’ sites. A friend of mine, called Korrupt, developed a powerful tool we call KingKor which is Xerxes (the script used by th3j35st3r to down Wikileaks) x2 fired through shell extensions, so the script restarts automatically. This gave us an edge for a while. At that point, I was getting more involved in Twitter and #Opisis. Mikro from Ctrlsec was a bro of mine from Anonops and I was a huge fan of Ghostsec , Digitashadow from Ghostsec used to give us our targets in #OpIceISIS way back when, before the Ghostsec crew split into two groups. Since then, I now have around 60 people that I tag in reporting ISIS supporter accounts, and when Twitter staff are on the ball, accounts go down quite fast; there are several accounts in #Opisis monitored by the Twitter staff and will take down reported accounts from those quite quickly. I have to admire the efforts that the OPISIS volunteers put in free of charge to help Twitter stay free of terrorist propaganda.
There are those who say it is a waste of time; that the suspended accounts simply make new ones. Well, they do; but- when I first came here, Isis accounts had thousands of followers; now, they are lucky to get several hundred before being suspended.
plus, we enjoy doing what we do.
Which is the most interesting hacking community on the web?
There are many individuals and groups working on here that I admire – Hackers? well, it is not really my field due to time constraints and other priorities; but, in spite of hack tools and tutorials being readily available online, I have no doubt that there are many skilled hackers and hacking groups on Twitter. Some of the young lads clearly have a lot of talent; spoiled only by their ‘I’m a hacker god’ attitude. ( Nod to @derplaughing and CWA) 😉 Also, I’m a great admirer of Sonny Spooks and team.
Which are the most important tools in your hacking arsenal? Do you use your own DDoS botnet?
Do I have a Botnet? No, but I am convinced it is the most devastating way to DDOS having seen a whole load of Saudi webservers taken down by one.
Booters? Great, if you can find a way to buy the Bitcoin for an account, store it, and transfer it without leaving a trail back to you. Do I use one? No. Still second best though next to a Botnet for dos power.
Well, I recently joined Ghostsec having been approached by one of the members, and I am very proud and pleased to have been asked, they are a great bunch. I am currently Admin staff on Anonops , #OpIceISIS and #OpDDosISIS.
pls feel free to ask if i have missed anything. Yours , Zeus 😉
My favorite digital weapons are KingKorV1, KingKorV2, and Slobhammer; also Nmap and Intercepter.
Which are the privileged channels used by IS militant online (i.e. Forums (which), hacking communities, Dark nets (which) and Telegram Channels)
Isis are using all levels of Social media to spread their messages and are relying heavily on encrypted chat for communications. Telegram seems to be one of their favorites.
They are putting sites on darknet for additional security, but they can still be reached and hacked; their first main site https://t.co/X03RYffD7E was taken out by Ghostsec. TorReaper doing the honors a week after its launch in November 2015.
Isis use many social platforms including Vkontakte, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Telegram, WhatsApp, Diaspora and LinkedIn.
What scares you the most on the internet?
What scares me on the internet? Nothing, real life is far more scarier. Opisis members are very wary of being doxed tho, due to some of us living in high Muslim populations; that can be very dangerous.
But, very difficult to prove any dox unless you have been busted by Freddy Fed and they have plastered your details all over national press.
Isis hackers are using the banner CCA (Cyber Caliphate Army) although their abilities are yet to be fully assessed.
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(Security Affairs – Hacker, Zeus Anon)
