Anonymous To Fix Flint Water Crisis

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Flint, Michigan has had a fraught history. In the past the city was a major manufacturing centre of the American automotive industry, but the decline of the industry brought the town into financial disarray. The latest tribulation the city faces is a months long water crisis, with residents being delivered water contaminated with lead through the pipes.

Hacktivist collective Anonymous has launched #OpFlint, to make sure the State of Michigan rights this wrong, and have called for Governor Rick Snyder to be charged with “voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.” In reaction to #OpFlint launch, the State of Michigan has raised its cyber security alert level, and Michigan Police have opened an investigation into the group.

A video was posted last week on the website IntelGroup, an Anonymous-affiliated faction, warned that Gov Snyder must “be shown the error of his evil ways.” In the video, an Anonymous spokesperson promised the residents of the city to “amplify your voice where the mainstream media will surely fail you, as it has in the past.”

Caleb Buhs, spokesman for Michigan Department of Technology, Management, and Budget, under whose jurisdiction the state’s computer systems fall, said the department’s security officers are on high alert for “activity outside of the normal parameters and are in contact with our private vendor partners and MSP to ensure we are prepared in case of an attack attempt.”

The state’s website went offline for a brief period recently, due to a denial of service attack, according to Buhs. It is unclear whether the incident is related to Anonymous’ threat.

“The attempt caused slower performance and a brief period where the site was offline,” Buhs said. “Working with our private partners we were able to mitigate the problem in a short amount of time and have not incurred any further attacks since this past weekend’s events.”