Internet around the world may shut down on Saturday

NEW DELHI: Come Saturday and there is a strong possibility that you won't be able to indulge in your favourite internet activities like shopping and surfing due to a hacking group - Anonymous - which has threatened to shut down the net.


"Operation Global Blackout 2012 looks to shut down the internet for a whole day tomorrow (Saturday) by disabling its core DNS servers, making websites inaccessible," said Interpol's Secretary General, Ronald K. Noble.


Noble was speaking at the thirteenth DP Kohli memorial lecture on "Multijurisdictional Investigation: Operation Unmask" in the capital.


According to Noble, "Anonymous" is protesting against several reasons including the crash of Wall Street and irresponsible leaders.


"Investigations have already been launched by Colombia, Chile and Spain as their private and public websites have been attacked by the group," he added.


Meanwhile, Interpol has launched Operation Unmask to deal with the group and arrested 31 alleged members in two different phases in February and March, 2012.


However, Anonymous vowed vengeance and retaliated through a global wave of cyber-attacks on Interpol Feb 28.


"At its peak, the wave reached 400,000 attacks per minute. My parents' home address and phone number were published on websites," said Noble.


According to Noble, there are around 2.3 billion internet users in the world and more than one million of them are affected by cybercrime every year while $388 billion dollars is the global cost of such crimes.