Last night one of NBC’s longest running shows came to an epic close. While many spin offs still remain like SVU and Law & Order Los Angeles, the show that started the (Dun Dun) took a dramatic turn. This time, instead of ripping stories from the headlines, they ripped it from the internet.

Last night as I sat in my office and lurked on the interwebs, I noticed something happening on 4chan. Everyone for some reason kept posting “Dun Dun”. This was even before the series finale of Law & Order began it’s run in it’s time slot on NBC. Many images of Law & Order assaulted the image boards. I was never a big Law & Order fan, but it peaked my interest.So I made a post, this, is when I shat brix.

The 4chan mods had changed the “Post Successful” message to a Law & Order themed message complete with the unforgettable Law & Order sound “Dun Dun”. What can I say, I LOL’d, LOL’d hard.

The time came for Law & Order so I turned around and flipped on my TV in my office and began watching Law & Order with my fellow /b/tards.

The series finally was about a guy who had posted a  warning on the internet that he was going to set off bombs in a school and go on a killing spree. Now I know people are thinking “That’s more of a Columbine story than internet.” Not so, the would be killer was posting the warning on his blog. So what made this so intriguing to the denizens of 4chan? The fact that the name of the Website was “Moot’s Countdown”.

Moot, as most people know him, is the internet handle of Chris Poole, founder of the popular site 4chan.  The fact that Law & Order writers included the internet handle, set 4chan into a frenzy.

Most people on the site last night were speculating: “Do you think the bad guy will be the real Moot? That would be so F’N Epic!” This statement really isn’t that far fetched of a guess. 4chan and Anonymous had hacked a Time Magazine Poll to name Moot as the most influential person on the planet. This garnered Chris Poole aka “Moot” national recognition. Moot has also been asked to speak at many conferences and has only recently in the past year began giving more interviews.

(4Chan founder Chris Poole aka Moot)

To the credit of the writers, they actually did their homework. Most police dramas I have seen recently totally screw up the real life application of computer forensics, not Law & Order. With good old fashioned police work and the correct protocol for tracking IP’s, doing interviews, Law & Order came to it’s dramatic finish.  Much to the dismay of the 4chan community, Chris Poole did not play himself. 4Chan erupted into a resounding “WTF!” but, most were torn, upset that Moot was not Moot, but yet happy that the site was yet again receiving recognition.

As Anonymous and 4Chan go, they are a force to be reckoned with. Members of 4Chan and Anonymous have pulled off some of the most daring raids in Internet history. From changing the Time magazine “Most Influential” poll to reflect the founder of 4Chan Chris Poole, as being the top pick, to numerous raids against Disney Stars and other high profile individuals.

Members of 4Chan and Anonymous have brought people to justice, mostly animal abusers and the occasional pedophile. They have supplied Iranian Government Proxy info during the Iranian protests. Also, who could ever forget their on going war against the Church of Scientology?

4Chan and Anonymous have their own set of rules they live by. These are the coveted Rules of the Internet. They have no leader, no set hierarchy, and no membership fees.  Some content does require a 4chan Gold Account to see, but we’ll get into that later.

4Chan and Anonymous does have some members who leak info and destroy plots and schemes. The people are called Internet White Knights. 4Chan can’t stand them most of the time.  A lot of times White Knights will step in and ruin a perfectly good raid, they will leak the story or plans to a news source, then everything goes downhill from there.

The latest such issue happened with the popular Tech blog known as TechCrunch.  YouTube account Lukeywes1234 had been banned. Now there usually isn’t a big deal about an account being banned on YouTube, however the account belonged to a kid that 4Chan had labeled a God. The user Lukeywes1234 as it turns out, was to young to have a YouTube account so, in accordance with their Terms of Service, YouTube banned the kids account. 4Chan didn’t care for excuses, in their minds, they had been wronged, deprived of LULZ, they set up their master plan.

So today is officially YouTube Porn day. The plan was to flood YouTube with a ton of porn submissions. Starting around 6 o’clock GMT. 4Chan has pulled this off in the past, and had a good laugh doing it. What makes it different this time is, a White Knight had stepped in and leaked the story to TechCrunch. The jig was up, 4Chan’s plans were blown. Now YouTube had time to get admins in place to respond to the porn flood.

While TechCrunch is a very popular Tech blog and the writer if the article MG Siegler, I am sure is a professional writer, I do have some advice.  If TechCrunch could have done more investigating, and let the drama unfold, they would have had a bigger story. One of the rules of the Internet according to Anonymous is Rule# 32. “Lurk Moar, it’s never enough.” Had the TechCrunch writer lurked, he could have taken screen grabs, had more links to the hilarity and seen first hand how both sides handled the issue. But hey it’s TechCrunch. They are known for jumping on a story without ALL the facts and throwing caution to the wind.