Make Weekend Plans: ‘Anonymous’ Hackers Plan to Shut Down the Internet This Saturday

Are you someone who spends a lot of time on the Internet? Do you surf websites, send email, post your exploits on Facebook or argue with your friends on Twitter? If so, all that fun is apparently going to grind to a halt this Saturday.

How can this be? Well, if it does happen, you can thank notorious hacker group Anonymous. They plan to shut down the Internet in protest on March 31.

Here’s why: “To protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, on March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down. Remember, this is a protest, we are not trying to ‘kill’ the Internet we are only temporarily shutting it down where it hurts the most.”

The plan, known as “Operation Global Blackout 2012” (catchy name that) looks to hit the Internet where it lives, at the main DNS servers that make the entire thing possible. By shutting down the DNS servers with what amounts to a denial of service attack (look it up), it will effectively make websites unreachable and spawn a sea of 404 errors or worse.

But can they do it? According to Cyber Security “experts” they can’t. Well, at least this one guy seems pretty certain.

Whatever happens on Saturday, if you end up having a problem reaching your favorite website maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Take it as a sign that perhaps you should spend some time with friends, family or even dare I say it, outside in the fresh air.

It’s just one day. It won’t kill you.