Introduction
Raids, which are defined as a spontaneous attack to punish a site (DDOSing it and taking it offline) or harrass an individual (by prank calling them) take place all the time. There haven’t been any invasions, which I define as a planned attack involving multiple *chans to overwhelm a site and embarrass the owner (by defacing the front page of the site, releasing personal details of the users, etc) since early 2007.
Almost Every *chan used to have its local /i/ board (the i stands for invasion) for people to pick targets and plan their attacks.
A Timeline
- From December 2006 to April 2007: 7chan led attacks on Hal Turner (this is well documented)
- January 2007: 4chan led an invasion of the Gaia forums (see image 700px-Gaiaraid.jpg, which bears all the hallmarks of a 4chan photoshop job)
- In February: either 420chan or 4chan led an invasion of Perverted-Justice.com (4chan may be responsible. See the attached file 1225134341198.png, which is from a 4chan thread)
- In April, 420chan led an invasion of the Subeta forums (see image 1225179082632.jpg and 1225253025300.jpg)
Eventual Board Closing
The local /i/ boards were shut down in mid-2007 after lawsuits were filed against the two biggest *chans, 4chan and 7chan. (See for instance 1253092891703.png)
Afterwards
The people who enjoyed attacking other sites (/i/nsurgents) didn’t disappear, they moved to smaller imageboards and carried out small-scale invasions. Towards the end of 2007, 711chan was declared the new home of /i/. The community there was not well organised (it didn’t have its own IRC network, part of the helldive network), every invasion they attempted failed and people began to focus more and more upon raids. It is interesting to note though people who remained on the smaller imageboards (such as infinitychan) were attacking Gaia as recently as April 2008 and getting good results (see the image 1208951703933.png, people in the Gaia thread that was linked were considering reporting them to the FBI).
This briefing is originally based on a Work-In-Progress article by an anonymous Yotsuba Society historian.