Hidden 'Je Suis Charlie' message emerges in a very unexpected place

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Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Since Wednesday's horrific terror attack on the satiricial magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, the phrase "Je Suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) has become a rallying cry of solidarity across the globe.

And as crowds surge at vigils and rallies in Europe and the United States, that message of support for freedom of speech continues to resonate online.

One such place is with a hidden ASCII message in the WHOIS text for any domain with a .fr top-level domain name, the domain for France.

A WHOIS query shows who has registered a domain name, its IP address (sometimes) and other types of address information. If you enter a WHOIS command in a terminal for a domain ending in .fr, "Je Suis Charlie" comes up in ASCII.

Whois on any .fr domain name right now displays "Je suis Charlie" in asciitext. pic.twitter.com/T5IoDamkX1— JSON-ta clause (@sachasayan) January 9, 2015

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