Anonymous hackers to shut down Internet on March 31

Anonymous, or someone pretending to be part of the elusive hacktivist network, has threatened to launch a coordinated cyberattack that would effectively shut down the worldwide Internet, according to Msnbc.msn.com.

On Sunday, an announcement appeared on the file-hosting site Pastebin declaring March 31 as the day "anonymous will shut the Internet down." Called " Operation Global Blackout," the massive cyberattack, the message claims, is a protest against "SOPA, Wall street, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun." It's not designed to kill the Internet, but to temporarily take it down to prove the hackers' point.

A lofty goal, certainly, but the author of the message — he or she didn't sign it, and the Pastebin post was uploaded by a guest — has the Internet destruction plan mapped out.

Operation Global Blackout (OpGlobalBlackout) calls for supporters to download a denial-of-service launching tool, called "Ramp," which will flood the 13 root Domain Name Servers (DNS) of the Internet with more requests than they can process.