![]() ![]() One number represented an editor, for instance, and all the accounts and IP addresses associated with him. ![]() Each number represented a different member of the ISIS media operation. Each one carefully preselected and put on a target list that, by Operation Day, had become so long it was on a 3-foot-by-7-foot piece of paper hung on the wall. ![]() And what they contained weren't glowing lines of code: Instead, Neil could see login screens - the actual login screens of ISIS members half a world away. "I'm not sure how many people there were on the phones listening in or in chat rooms."įrom his vantage point in a small elevated bay at the back of the Operations Floor, Neil had a clear line of sight to all the operators' screens. He asked us to use only his first name to protect his identity. "I felt like there were over 80 people in the room, between the teams and then everybody lining the back wall that wanted to watch," Neil recalled. They were cyberwarriors, and they all sat in the kind of oversize office chairs Internet gamers settle into before a long night. Each station was armed with four flat-screen computer monitors on adjustable arms and a pile of target lists and IP addresses and online aliases. Sergeants sat before keyboards intelligence analysts on one side, linguists and support staff on another. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency had never worked together on something this big before.įour teams sat at workstations set up like high school carrels. "Every time, I had to say yes, no matter what I thought." He was nervous, but confident. "They wanted to look me in the eye and say, 'Are you sure this is going to work?' " an operator named Neil said. The crowded room was awaiting one word: "Fire."Įveryone was in uniform there were scheduled briefings, last-minute discussions, final rehearsals. Neil stands in a room with military cyber operators from Joint Task Force ARES to launch an operation that would become one of the largest and longest offensive cyber operations in U.S. ![]()
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