Grandfather, Hacker, Takes Credit for Al Qaeda Website Shakedown

A lone American hacker who goes by the name “The Raptor” is taking credit for taking down Al Qaeda on the Web last month.

FoxNews.com has the story, saying this self-proclaimed patriot and grandfather is an anonymous crusader aiding troops overseas. The Raptor says he took down the Shamukh Islamic Network, Al Qaeda’s main online forum, as well as a few other forums and sites where jihadists convene to plan their next terrorist attack.

FoxNews.com says The Raptor’s Twitter (News - Alert) stream was sending off threats in 140 characters or less, saying “Bow. Wave. Exit Stage Right. Curtains. Applause,” after the main site was taken down.

Of course, there’s no proof that The Raptor is who he claims to be, an “infidel defending cyberspace for God and country,” but the person who contacted FoxNews.com says he’s a retired military man with a grandson currently serving in active duty.

No other information was given, nor was it confirmed.

The Raptor’s Wordpress blog gives us some insight to his mission. In a blog post from May 4, 2011, he writes “Limiting the ability of terrorists to use the Internet as an operational platform is one of the most significant challenges that lawmakers and national security experts face. The problem could not be more central to winning the war on terrorism.”

With just two entries, including the aforementioned and a short one posted just this week, The Raptor, or th3raptor, has a page dedicated just for “rants and shout-outs,” as well as a page justifying the shakedown of terrorist sites.

“My hope is that some U.S. or Allied soldier will get to go home to his wife and children because that one dollar of jihadist financial support or one moment of jihadist inspiration that would have killed him was disrupted,” he writes.

Similar to The Raptor, hacktivist Group Anonymous has always had its sights on taking down Web pages, however, Anonymous targets governments and officials and not so much with extremists.

In recent months, Anonymous was responsible for taking down websites of police departments in Boston, Syracuse, New York, Salt Lake City, and Greece.

A message posted by Anonymous on the hacked Boston Police website read “Anonymous hacks Boston Police website in retaliation for police brutality at OWS.”

The attacks on the Boston Police and others apparently won’t be the last. “There is plenty more mayhem to deliver,” the message added.

 Anonymous also disabled multiple government and corporate websites including the Department of Justice, the FBI, Universal Music and more last week in retaliation to the FBI shutting down MegaUpload.com, a file sharing website accused of hosting pirated materials, which has been in the middle of all the SOPA and PIPA buzz. 

“We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. Lulz,” Anonymous said in an online statement. “The FBI didn't think they would get away with this did they? They should have expected us.”