Pray for London via the Hummingbird on Twitter

The London attack on the Westminster Bridge and the Palace of Westminister (ie Parliament) which has ended the lives of five including one attacker and a policeman, and wounded 40 others was apparently targeted via posts on the infamous troll board 4Chan and the ubiquitous code-and-dox dumping ground Pastebin. The paste appears to have been removed, but was archived.

On the one-year anniversary of the Brussels Terrorist Attacks, the Westminster attack(s?) included someone driving a car into pedestrians on Westminster bridge, then crashing the car on the barriers outside of the Palace of Westminster. The attacker then entered the grounds, stabbed a police officer, and was shot by police. Some witnesses said the car contained two people. As we write this, staffers at Westminster have been told by police that they are still searching for a second suspect, who may have made his way into the building. UPDATE: Police now confirm there was only one attacker. The Guardian reports:

The policeman who died was named as Keith Palmer, 48, a member of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Service. He was married with children and had been a police officer for 15 years.

First revealed by Aric Toler of Bellingcat on Twitter, the latitude and longitude coordinates for Westminster were released in binary on Pastebin.

Prior to that, directions to the Pastebin post were published as Morse code on 4chan. Thanks to Tyler Booth of CDW for pointing out this was the lone post from that 4chan user’s account, and that the image is from a post on a luxury car enthusiast site dating back to 2010.

At this point no-one has publicly taken credit for the attack, and police are treating it as a terrorist incident with no additional details. Confusion reigns as Channel 4 and RT report the attacker, and others point out that man is still in prison.

Thanks to Phill Hallam-Baker, Cody Celine, and Tyler Booth for their input.

Categories: 4chan, Attack, Breaking, Communication, Crime, News, Social Media