Popular Anonymous Websites.http://the-free-world.org
http://galatorg.com/
http://anonnews.org/
http://theglobalsquare.org/
Most Popular Anonymous Video Referencing NDAA legislation.
Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is a loosely associated hacktivist group. It originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain.[4] It is also generally considered to be a blanket term for members of certain Internet subcultures, a way to refer to the actions of people in an environment where their actual identities are not known.[5] It strongly opposes Internet censorship and surveillance, and has hacked various government websites. It has also targeted major security corporations.[6][7][8] Its members can be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks.
http://galatorg.com/
http://anonnews.org/
http://theglobalsquare.org/
Most Popular Anonymous Video Referencing NDAA legislation.
Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is a loosely associated hacktivist group. It originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain.[4] It is also generally considered to be a blanket term for members of certain Internet subcultures, a way to refer to the actions of people in an environment where their actual identities are not known.[5] It strongly opposes Internet censorship and surveillance, and has hacked various government websites. It has also targeted major security corporations.[6][7][8] Its members can be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks.
In its early form, the concept has been adopted by a decentralized online community acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal, and primarilyfocused on entertainment. Beginning with 2008, the Anonymous collective has become increasingly associated with collaborative, international hacktivism. They undertook protests and other actions in retaliation against anti-digital piracy campaigns by motion picture and recording industry trade associations.[9][10] Actions credited to "Anonymous" are undertaken by unidentified individuals who apply the Anonymous label to themselves as attribution.[11] Some analysts have praised Anonymous as the freedom fighters of the internet,[12] and a digital Robin Hood,[13]although others have condemned them as "anarchic cyber-guerrillas".[14]
Although not necessarily tied to a single online entity, many websites are strongly associated with Anonymous. This includes notable imageboards such as 4chan, their associated wikis,Encyclopædia Dramatica, and a number of forums. After a series of controversial, widely publicized protests, distributed denial of service (DDoS) and website defacement attacks by Anonymous in 2008, incidents linked to its cadre members have increased.[15] In consideration of its capabilities, Anonymous has been posited by CNN to be one of the three major successors to WikiLeaks.[16] In 2012, American magazine Time named Anonymous as one of the most influential groups of people in the world.[17]
Background
The name Anonymous itself is inspired by the perceived anonymity under which users post images and comments on the Internet. Usage of the term Anonymous in the sense of a shared identity began on imageboards. A tag of Anonymous is assigned to visitors who leave comments without identifying the originator of the posted content. Users of imageboards sometimes jokingly acted as if Anonymous were a real person. As the popularity of imageboards increased, the idea of Anonymous as a collective of unnamed individuals became an internet meme.[18]
Anonymous broadly represents the concept of any and all people as an unnamed collective. As a multiple-use name, individuals who share in the "Anonymous" moniker also adopt a sharedonline identity, characterized as hedonistic and uninhibited. This is intended as a satirical, conscious adoption of the online disinhibition effect.[19]
| “ | We [Anonymous] just happen to be a group of people on the internet who need—just kind of an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society. ...That's more or less the point of it. Do as you wish. ... There's a common phrase: 'we are doing it for the lulz.' | ” |
—Trent Peacock. Search Engine: The face of Anonymous, February 7, 2008.[19]
| ||
Definitions tend to emphasize the fact that the concept, and by extension the collective of users, cannot be readily encompassed by a simple definition. Instead it is often defined by aphorisms describing perceived qualities.[4] One self-description, originating from a protest video targeted at the Church of Scientology, is:
We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.[20]
Iconography and aesthetics
![[icon]](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg&page=1){kind=small} | This section requires expansion with: information on Anonymous subcultural elements; common images, themes, concepts, etc. (February 2011) |
As a cyberculture, Anonymous aesthetics are based in various forms of shock humor, including genres of cringe, surreal, and black comedy. Many people affiliated with Anonymous associate with the Guy Fawkes mask, either at protests, or within images spread online.[19]
Overview
| “ | [Anonymous is] the first Internet-based superconsciousness. Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know they're a group? Because they're traveling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely. | ” |
—Chris Landers. Baltimore City Paper, April 2, 2008.[4]
| ||
Anonymous consists largely of users from multiple imageboards and Internet forums. In addition, several wikis and Internet Relay Chat networks are maintained to overcome the limitations of traditional imageboards. These modes of communication are the means by which Anonymous protesters participating in Project Chanology communicate and organize upcoming protests.[21][22]
A "loose coalition of Internet denizens,"[23] the group is banded together by the Internet, through sites such as 4chan,[21][23] 711chan,[21] Encyclopædia Dramatica,[24] IRC channels,[21] and YouTube.[5] Social networking services, such as Facebook, are used for the creation of groups which reach out to people to mobilize in real-world protests.[25]
Anonymous has no leader or controlling party and relies on the collective power of its individual participants acting in such a way that the net effect benefits the group.[23] "Anyone who wants to can be Anonymous and work toward a set of goals..." a member of Anonymous explained to the Baltimore City Paper. "We have this agenda that we all agree on and we all coordinate and act, but all act independently toward it, without any want for recognition. We just want to get something that we feel is important done..."[4]
A statement attributed to a member of Anonymous has described Anonymous as containing every belief and lifestyle, and that the views of "the loudest" of Anonymous aren't necessarily the views of the rest of Anonymous.[26]Anonymous members have previously collaborated with hacker group LulzSec.
Membership
It is impossible to 'join' Anonymous, as there is no leadership, no ranking, and no single means of communication. Anonymous is spread over many mediums and languages, with membership being achieved simply by wishing to join.[27]
Commander X and the People's Liberation Front
A person known as Commander X provides interviews and videos about Anonymous.[28] He said that "we are not a terrorist organization".[citation needed] In 2011, he was at the center of an investigation into Anonymous by Aaron Barr, who claimed to have identified him as a San Francisco gardener. Interviewed following the attack on HBGary Federal, Commander X revealed that while Barr suspected that he was a leader of the group, he was in his own words a "peon". However, Commander X did claim to be a skilled hacker and founding member of an allied organization, the Peoples Liberation Front (PLF). According to Commander X, Peoples Liberation Front, a collective of hactivists founded in 1985, acted with AnonOps, another sub-group of Anonymous, to carry out denial-of-service attacks against government websites in Tunisia, Iran, Egypt, and Bahrain. Explaining the relationship between Anonymous and the PLF, he suggested an analogy to NATO, with the PLF being a smaller sub-group that could choose to opt in or out of a specific project. "AnonOps and the PLF are both capable of creating huge "Internet armies". The main difference is Anon Ops moves with huge force, but very slowly because of their decision making process. The PLF moves with great speed, like a scalpel."[29] On September 23, 2011, a homeless man in California named Christopher Doyon was arrested, under charges that he participated online as a part of a group called "PLF", and as "Anonymous".[30] He pleaded not guilty to charges.[31]
Low Orbit Ion Cannon
The Low Orbit Ion Cannon is a network stress testing application that has been used by Anonymous to accomplish its DDOS attacks. Individual users download the LOIC and voluntarily contribute their computer to a bot net. This bot net is then directed against the target by AnonOps.[32] Joining the bot net and volunteering one's resources for the use of the group is thus one way of being a "member," a concept that is otherwise hard to define.
Activities
Main article: Timeline of events associated with Anonymous
Protest actions
The Pirate Bay
In April 2009, after The Pirate Bay co-defendants were found guilty of facilitating extensive copyright infringement "in a commercial and organized form", Anonymous launched a coordinated DDoS attack against the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an organisation responsible for safeguarding recording artists' rights.[33] When co-founders lost their appeal against convictions for encouraging piracy, Anonymous again targeted the IFPI, labelling them "parasites". A statement read: "We will continue to attack those who embrace censorship. You will not be able to hide your ludicrous ways to control us."[34][35]
_group_supporters_at_an_October_29,_2011_rally_in_Oklahoma_City.jpg)
Megaupload
On January 19, 2012, Megaupload, a website providing file sharing services, was shut down by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[36] This led to what Anonymous called "the single largest Internet attack in its history".[37] Barrett Brown, described as a spokesperson for the group Anonymous by news outlet RT, said the timing of the raid "couldn’t have come at a worse time in terms of the government’s standpoint".[37]
SOPA
With the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) protests only a day old, it was claimed that internet users were "by-and-far ready to defend an open Internet".[37] Brown told RT that the Department of Justice website was shut down only 70 minutes after the start of the attack. Days later many of the sites were still down or slow to load. The attack disabled a number of websites, including those belonging to the Justice Department, the FBI, Universal Music Group, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and Broadcast Music, Inc.[37] "Even without SOPA having been passed yet, the federal government always had tremendous power to do some of the things that they want to do. So if this is what can occur without SOPA being passed, imagine what can occur after SOPA is passed," Brown commented.[37] Although the actions of Anonymous received support, some commentators argued that the denial of service attack risked damaging the anti-SOPA case.[38][39][40]
The attack included a new, sophisticated method whereby internet users who clicked on links placed in chat rooms and on Twitter participated, some without their knowledge, in a denial of service attack, thereby breaking existing US law. Anonymous used "Low Orbit Ion Cannon" (LOIC) to attack supporters of SOPA on January 19, 2012. Anonymous claimed this to be their largest attack with over 5,635 people participating in the DDoS attack via LOIC.[41] LOIC was utilized by many attackers, despite the fact that a network firewall could easily filter out network traffic it generates, thus rendering it only partly effective. In addition, LOIC attacks were easily identified in system logs, making it possible to trace the attacker's IP address and allowing arrests to be made by these law enforcement agencies.
Kony
Anonymous has described the Kony 2012 campaign by Invisible Children as "propaganda". Although they support the campaign against Kony, they felt that the campaign is mainly a scam.[42]
Government websites
Anonymous claimed responsibility for taking down government websites in the UK in April 2012 in protest against government extradition and surveillance policies. A message was left on Twitter saying it was "for your draconian surveillance proposals".[43]
Occupy movement
Anonymous activists merged with Occupy Wall Street protesters. Anonymous members descended on New York's Zucotti Park and organized it partly. After it became known that some Occupy protesters would get violent, Anonymous used social networking to urge Occupy protesters to avoid disorder. Anonymous used Twitter trends to keep protests peaceful.[44]
A similar protest occurred outside the London Stock Exchange in early May 2012 during a May Day Occupy protest.[45]
Wanted criminals
Alleged Internet predator Chris Forcand, 53, was charged with child sexual and firearm offenses.[46] A newspaper report stated that Forcand was already being tracked by "cyber-vigilantes before police investigations commenced.[47] Atelevision report identified a "self-described Internet vigilante group called Anonymous" who contacted the police after some members were "propositioned" by Forcand. The report stated this was the first time a suspected Internet predator was arrested by the police as a result of Internet vigilantism.[48]
In October 2011, "Operation Darknet" was launched as an attempt to cease the activities of child porn sites accessed through hidden services in the deep web.[49] Anonymous published in a pastebin link what it claimed were the user names of 1,589 members of Lolita City, a child porn site accessed via the Tor network. Anonymous said that it had found the site via The Hidden Wiki, and that it contained over 100 gigabytes of child pornography. Anonymous launched a denial-of-service attack to take Lolita City offline.[citation needed]
Religious organisations
Main articles: Project Chanology and Operation Ouraborus
The group gained worldwide press for Project Chanology, the protest against the Church of Scientology.[50]
The project was started in response to the Church of Scientology's attempts to remove material from a highly publicized interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008. The project was publicly launched in the form of a video posted to YouTube, "Message to Scientology", on January 21, 2008. The video states that Anonymous views Scientology's actions as Internet censorship, and asserts the group's intent to "expel the church from the Internet".
As of early 2011, the organisation has also targeted the Westboro Baptist Church, releasing several videos on a range of related topics, such as their controversial preaching against homosexuality. Several attacks have been made on the primary website, one that was even made while Shirley Phelps-Roper was debating a representative of Anonymous in a televised interview on the David Pakman show.
LGBT issues
On August 2012 Anonymous hacked into Ugandan government websites in protest of pending homophobic bills. A message stated :
- "Anonymous will continue to target Ugandan government sites and communications until the government of Uganda treats all people including LGBT people equally".[51]
Cyber-attacks and other activities
The group is responsible for cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, News Corp and has also threatened to destroy Facebook.[52]
In October 2011, Anonymous hackers threatened the Mexican drug cartel known as Los Zetas in an online video after one of their members was kidnapped.[53]
In late May 2012 alleged Anonymous members claimed responsibility for taking down a GM crops website.[54]
In early September 2012 alleged Anonymous members claimed responsibility for taking down GoDaddy's Domain Name Servers, affecting small businesses around the globe. [55]
In mid-September 2012, Anonymous hackers threatened the Hong Kong government organization, known as National Education Centre. In their online video, Anonymous members claimed responsibility for leaking classified related government documents and taking down the National Education Centre website, after the Hong Kong government has repeatedly ignored months of wide-scale protests against the establishment of a new core Moral and National Education curriculum for children from 6-18 years of age. The new syllabus has come under heavy criticism and international media attention, as it does not award students based on how much factual information is learned, but instead grades and evaluates students based on their level of emotional attachment and approval of the Communist Party of China, almost in blind brain-washing fashion. [56]
Anonymous is a meme spread through the Internet whose goals, like its organization, are decentralized. Anonymous seeks mass awareness and revolution against corrupt entities, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Anonymous has had a hacktivist impact.[1] This is a timeline of activities reported to be carried out by the group.
[edit]2006–07
[edit]Habbo raids
A frequent target for organized raids by Anonymous is Habbo, a social networking site designed as a virtual hotel.[2] The raid pre-dates, and was not inspired by, the news of an Alabama amusement park banning a two-year-old toddler affected by AIDS from entering the park's swimming pool.[3] Users signed up to the Habbo site dressed in avatars of a black man wearing a grey suit and an Afro hairstyle and blocked entry to the pool, declaring that it was "closed due to AIDS,"[2][4] flooding the site with Internet slang,[4] and forming swastika-like formations.[4] When the raiders were banned, they complained of racism.[4]
[edit]Hal Turner raid
Main article: Hal Turner
According to white supremacist radio host Hal Turner, in December 2006 and January 2007 individuals who identified themselves as Anonymous took Turner's website offline, costing him thousands of dollars in bandwidth bills. As a result, Turner sued 4chan, eBaum's World, 7chan, and other websites for copyright infringement. He lost his plea for an injunction, however, and failed to receive letters from the court, which caused the lawsuit to lapse.[5]
[edit]Chris Forcand arrest
On December 7, 2007, the Canada-based Toronto Sun newspaper published a report on the arrest of the alleged Internet predator Chris Forcand.[6] Forcand, 53, was charged with two counts of luring a child under the age of 14, attempt to invite sexual touching, attempted exposure, possessing a dangerous weapon, and carrying a concealed weapon.[7] The report stated that Forcand was already being tracked by "cyber-vigilantes who seek to out anyone who presents with a sexual interest in children" before police investigations commenced.[6]
The Global Television Network report identified the group responsible for Forcand's arrest as a "self-described Internet vigilante group called Anonymous" who contacted the police after some members were "propositioned" by Forcand with "disgusting photos of himself." The report also stated that this is the first time a suspected Internet predator was arrested by the police as a result of Internet vigilantism.[8]
[edit]2008
[edit]Project Chanology
Main article: Project Chanology
The group gained worldwide press for Project Chanology, the protest against the Church of Scientology.[9]
On January 14, 2008, a video produced by the Church featuring an interview with Tom Cruise was leaked to the Internet and uploaded to YouTube.[10][11][12] The Church of Scientology issued a copyright violation claim against YouTube requesting the removal of the video.[13] In response to this, Anonymous formulated Project Chanology.[14][15][16][17] Calling the action by the Church of Scientology a form of Internet censorship, members of Project Chanology organized a series of denial-of-service attacks against Scientology websites, prank calls, andblack faxes to Scientology centers.[18]
On January 21, 2008, individuals claiming to speak for Anonymous announced their goals and intentions via a video posted to YouTube entitled "Message to Scientology," and a press release declaring a "War on Scientology" against both the Church of Scientology and the Religious Technology Center.[17][19][20] In the press release, the group states that the attacks against the Church of Scientology will continue in order to protect the right to freedom of speech, and end what they believe to be the financial exploitation of church members.[21] A new video "Call to Action" appeared on YouTube on January 28, 2008, calling for protests outside Church of Scientology centers on February 10, 2008.[22][23]On February 2, 2008, 150 people gathered outside of a Church of Scientology center in Orlando, Florida to protest the organization's practices.[24][25][26][27]Small protests were also held in Santa Barbara, California,[28] and Manchester, England.[25][29] On February 10, 2008, about 7000 people protested in more than 93 cities worldwide.[30][31] Many protesters wore masks based on the character V from V for Vendetta (who, in turn, had been influenced by Guy Fawkes), or otherwise disguised their identities, in part to protect themselves from reprisals from the Church.[32][33]
Anonymous held a second wave of protests on March 15, 2008 in cities all over the world, including Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Vancouver, Toronto, Berlin, and Dublin. The global turnout was estimated to be "between 7000 and 8000," a number similar to that of the first wave.[34] The third wave of the protests took place on April 12, 2008.[35][36] Named "Operation Reconnect," it aimed to increase awareness of the Church of Scientology'sdisconnection policy.[10]
On October 17, 2008, an 18-year-old from New Jersey described himself as a member of Anonymous, and he stated that he would plead guilty to involvement in the January 2008 DDoS attacks against Church of Scientology websites.[37]
Protests continued, and took advantage of media events such as the premiere of the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie, where the venue was chosen in part to reduce exposure to the protests.[38]
[edit]Epilepsy Foundation forum invasion
Main article: Epilepsy Foundation: 2008 forum invasion
On March 28, 2008, Wired News reported that "Internet griefers"—a slang term for people whose only interests are in harassing others[39]—assaulted anepilepsy support forum run by the Epilepsy Foundation of America.[40] JavaScript code and flashing computer animations were posted with the intention of triggering migraine headaches and seizures in photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epileptics.[40] According to Wired News, circumstantial evidence suggested that the attack was perpetrated by Anonymous users, with the initial attack posts on the epilepsy forum blaming eBaum's World. Members of the epilepsy forum claimed they had found a thread in which the attack was being planned at 7chan.org, an imageboard that has been described as a stronghold for Anonymous. The thread, like all old threads eventually do on these types of imageboards, has since cycled to deletion.[40]
News.com.au reported that the administrators of 7chan.org had posted an open letter claiming that the attacks had been carried out by the Church of Scientology "to ruin the public opinion of Anonymous, to lessen the effect of the lawful protests against their virulent organization" under the Church's fair gamepolicy.[39]
[edit]Defacement of SOHH and AllHipHop websites
Main article: SOHH: Defacement
In late June 2008, users who identified themselves as Anonymous claimed responsibility for a series of attacks against the SOHH (Support Online Hip Hop) website.[41] The attack was reported to have begun in retaliation for insults made by members of SOHH's "Just Bugging Out" forum against members of Anonymous. The attack against the website took place in stages, as Anonymous users flooded the SOHH forums, which were then shut down. On June 23, 2008, the group which identified themselves as Anonymous organized DDOS attacks against the website, successfully eliminating 60% of the website's service capacity. On June 27, 2008, the hackers utilized cross-site scripting to deface the website's main page with satirical images and headlines referencing numerous racial stereotypes and slurs, and also successfully stole information from SOHH employees.[42] Following the defacement, the website was temporarily shut down by its administration. AllHipHop, an unrelated website, also had its forum raided.[41]
[edit]Sarah Palin email hack
Shortly after midnight on September 16, 2008, the private Yahoo! Mail account of Sarah Palin was hacked by a 4chan user.[43] The hacker, known as "Rubico", claimed he had read Palin's personal e-mails because he was looking for something that "would derail her campaign."[44] After reading through Palin's emails, Rubico wrote, "There was nothing there, nothing incriminating — all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor."[44] Rubico wrote that he used the Sarah Palin Wikipedia article to find Palin's birth date (one of the standardsecurity questions used by Yahoo!.[45]) in "15 seconds." The hacker posted the account's password on /b/, an image board on 4chan, and screenshots from within the account to WikiLeaks.[46]A /b/ user then logged in and changed the password, posting a screenshot of his sending an email to a friend of Palin's informing her of the new password on the /b/ thread. However, he did not blank out the password in the screenshot.[47] A multitude of /b/ users then attempted to log in with the new password, and the account was automatically locked out by Yahoo!. The incident was criticized by some /b/ users, one of whom complained that "seriously, /b/. We could have changed history and failed, epically."[48]
[edit]2009
[edit]No Cussing Club
In January 2009 members of Anonymous targeted California teen McKay Hatch who runs the No Cussing Club, a website against profanity.[49][50] As Hatch's home address, phone number, and other personal information were leaked on the internet, his family has received hate mail, obscene phone calls, and bogus pizza and pornography deliveries.[51]
[edit]2009 Iranian election protests
Following allegations of vote rigging after the results of the June 2009 Iranian presidential election were announced, declaring Iran's incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner, thousands of Iranians participated in demonstrations. Anonymous, together with The Pirate Bay and various Iranian hackers, launched an Iranian Green Movement Support site called Anonymous Iran.[52] The site has drawn over 22,000 supporters world wide and allows for information exchange between the world and Iran, despite attempts by the Iranian government to censor news about the riots on the internet. The site provides resources and support to Iranians who are protesting.[53][54]
[edit]Operation Didgeridie
Main article: Internet censorship in Australia
In September 2009 the group reawakened "in order to protect civil rights" after several governments began to block access to its imageboards. The blacklisting of Krautchan.net in Germany infuriated many, but the tipping point was the Australian government's plans for ISP-level censorship of the internet. The policy was spearheaded by Stephen Conroy and had been driven aggressively[55] by the Rudd Government since its election in 2007.
Early in the evening of September 9, Anonymous took down the prime minister's website with a distributed denial-of-service attack. The site was taken offline for approximately one hour.[56]
[edit]2010
[edit]Operation Titstorm
Main article: February 2010 Australian Cyberattacks
External videos
Message To The Australian Government From Anonymous,[57] directed at Kevin Rudd and Seven News hours before Operation Titstorm began.[58]
Occurred from 8 am, February 10, 2010 as a protest against the Australian Government over the forthcoming internet filtering legislation and the perceived censorship in pornography of small-breasted women (who are perceived to be under age) and female ejaculation. Hours earlier, Anonymous uploaded a video message to YouTube, addressed to Kevin Rudd, and Seven News, presenting a list of demands and threats of further action if they were not met.[58] The protest consisted of a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) on Australian Government websites. Australian anti-censorship groups complained that the attack only hurt their cause, and Australian government members dismissed the attack and said that they would just restore the service when the attack finished.[59][60] Analysis of the attacks cited their peak bandwidth at under 17Mbit, a figure considered small when compared with other DDoS attacks.[61]
[edit]Oregon Tea Party raid
In July 2010, there was a reaction to the use of one of Anonymous' slogans by the Oregon Tea Party. The Party's Facebook page was flooded with image macro and flames. Within a few hours, the Tea Party posted a message saying "Anonymous: We appreciate your resources and admire your tactics. You have taught us more than you know. As requested, we are no longer using the 'anonymous' quote." Following this raid, the Party's Facebook page was removed, and its Ning page limited to member-only access.[62]
[edit]Operations Payback, Avenge Assange, and Bradical
Main article: Operation Payback
In 2010, several Bollywood companies hired Aiplex Software to launch DDoS attacks on websites that did not respond to software takedown notices.[63] Piracy activists then created Operation Payback in September 2010 in retaliation.[63] The original plan was to attack Aiplex Software directly, but upon finding some hours before the planned DDoS that another individual had taken down the firm's website on their own, Operation Payback moved to launching attacks against the websites of copyright stringent organizations, law firms and other websites.[64] This grew into multiple DDoS attacks against anti-piracy groups and law firms.
On April 2, 2011 Anonymous launched an attack on the media giant Sony, named #opsony, as a part of Operation Payback.[65] Anonymous claims the attack a success after they took down the PlayStation Network and other related PlayStation Websites. Anonymous' actions also included personal harassment of employees and their families. The PlayStation Network subsequently has had lengthy outages, although Anonymous claims that this is not due to any officially sanctioned action on their part, but may be due to sub-groups of Anonymous.[66]
Sony Corp. came to Anonymous' attention after it took legal action against George Hotz (a.k.a. GeoHot), the coder behind a popular tool that allows homebrew software to run on the PlayStation 3 (PS3). In addition, Sony is also taking legal action against Alexander Egorenkov (a.ka. Graf_Chokolo) for his efforts to restore Linux to the PS3. The reason why Hotz and Egorenkov did that follows on from Sony's decision to remove the system's OtherOS feature, which enabled the use of Linux. While the pair has earned respect for their research and technical skills, they have also gained the attention of Sony's legal team. With a lawsuit now against Hotz this attracted the attention of Anonymous. They claim that Sony is breaching the free speech border, and this is the reason for their actions.[67]
In December 2010, the document archive website WikiLeaks (used by whistleblowers) came under intense pressure to stop publishing secret United States diplomatic cables. In response, Anonymous announced its support for WikiLeaks,[68][69] and Operation Payback changed its focus to support WikiLeaks and launched DDoS attacks against Amazon, PayPal, MasterCard, Visa and the Swiss bank PostFinance, in retaliation for perceived anti-WikiLeaks behavior. This second front in the December offensive was performed under the codename Operation Avenge Assange.[70][71][72][73][74][75] Due to the attacks, both MasterCard and Visa's websites were brought down on December 8.[76][77] A threat researcher at PandaLabs said Anonymous also launched an attack which brought down the Swedish prosecutor's website when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assangewas arrested in London and refused bail in relation to extradition to Sweden.[78]
After suspected leaker Bradley Manning was transferred to Marine Corps Brig, Quantico in July 2010, allegations of abuse arose around Manning's isolation in a maximum security area, and the suicide-watch he was put under which included constant verbal checks by guards and forced nudity.[79][80][81][82][83] Military officials denied the treatment was abuse or abnormal. In an event that lead to his resignation, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley made statements condemning the treatment.[84][85] In response to Manning's imprisonment and treatment, Anonymous threatened to disrupt activities at Quantico by cyber-attacking communications, exposing private information about personnel, and other harassment methods.[86][87] Dubbed "Operation Bradical",[88] Spokesperson Barrett Brown stated that this would be in direct response for the alleged mistreatment.[89][90] Military spokespersons have responded that the threat has been referred to law enforcement and counterterrorism officials and requested an investigation.[91][92]
[edit]Operation Leakspin
Main article: Operation Leakspin
[edit]Zimbabwe
The websites of the government of Zimbabwe were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents.[93]
[edit]Visa, Mastercard, Paypal
Anonymous launched several Denial-of-Service attacks on the Visa, MasterCard and Paypal companies for cutting off their services to Wikileaks.[94]
[edit]2011
[edit]Attack on Fine Gael website
The website for the Irish political party Fine Gael, a centre right party and currently in coalition government with the Labour Party, was hacked by Anonymous during the 2011 general election campaign according to TheJournal.ie.[95] The site was replaced with a page showing the Anonymous logo along with the words "Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech yet they censor your voice. WAKE UP! <owned by Raepsauce and Palladium>".
[edit]Arab Spring activities
The websites of the government of Tunisia were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents and the Tunisian Revolution.[96] Tunisians were reported to be assisting in these denial-of-service attacks launched by Anonymous.[97] Anonymous's role in the DDoS attacks on the Tunisian government's websites have led to an upsurge of internet activism among Tunisians against the government.[98] A figure associated with Anonymous released an online message denouncing the government clampdown on recent protests and posted it on the Tunisian government website.[99] Anonymous has named their attacks as "Operation Tunisia".[100] Anonymous successfully performed DDoS attacks on eight Tunisian government websites. The Tunisian government responded by making its websites inaccessible from outside Tunisia. Tunisian police also arrested online activists and bloggers within the country and questioned them on the attacks. Anonymous's website suffered a DDoS attack on January 5.[101]
During the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Egyptian government websites, along with the website of the ruling National Democratic Party, were hacked into and taken offline by Anonymous. The sites remained offline until President Hosni Mubarak stepped down.[102]
Anonymous was divided on the 2011 Libyan civil war, while they hacked into Libyan government websites, and persuaded the host of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's personal website to take it down, other members of the group sided with the dictator in what they called "Operation Reasonable Reaction".[103] The pro-Gaddafi attacks were fairly unsuccessful, only managing to take down minor opposition sites for a little while.[104]
Anonymous also released the names and passwords of the email addresses of Middle Eastern governmental officials, in support of the Arab Spring.[105] Countries targeted included officials from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco.[106]
[edit]Attack on HBGary Federal
One man, who calls himself Owen, says his Anonymous colleagues broke into the company's servers. Hackers have a name for what they did. "They decided to just rape his servers and take all the information they wanted," he says. "Forgive that term ... 'Rape' is an Internet term, you know, as to go in and take everything out of somebody's server." Whatever the term, it was not a nice thing that Anonymous did to HBGary Federal. But now that the company's e-mails are out, it appears it was also willing to do some not-nice things. —E-Mails Hacked By 'Anonymous' Raise Concerns, NPR[107]
On the weekend of February 5–6, 2011, Aaron Barr, the chief executive of the security firm HBGary Federal, announced that his firm had successfully infiltrated the Anonymous group, and although he would not hand over details to the police, he would reveal his findings at a later conference in San Francisco. In retaliation for Aaron Barr's claims, members of the group Anonymous hacked the website of HBGary Federal and replaced the welcome page with a message stating that Anonymous should not be messed with, and that the hacking of the website was necessary to defend itself. Using a variety of techniques, including social engineering and SQL injection,[108] Anonymous also went on to take control of the company's e-mail, dumping 68,000 e-mails from the system, erasing files, and taking down their phone system.[109] The leaked emails revealed the reports and company presentations of other companies in computer security such as Endgame systems who promise high quality offensive software, advertising "subscriptions of $2,500,000 per year for access to 0day exploits".[110]
Among the documents exposed was a PowerPoint presentation entitled "The Wikileaks Threat", put together by HBGary Federal along with two other data intelligence firms for Bank of America in December.[111] Within the report, these firms created a list of important contributors to WikiLeaks; they further developed a strategic plan of attack against the site. As TechHerald explains, "the plan included pressing a journalist in order to disrupt his support of the organization, cyber attacks, disinformation, and other potential proactive tactics." The report specifically claims that Glenn Greenwald's support was key to WikiLeaks' ongoing survival.[112][113][114]
Anonymous also personally attacked Aaron Barr by taking control of his Twitter account, posting Mr Barr's supposed home address and social security number.[115]
In response to the attacks, founder of HBGary Federal, Greg Hoglund, responded to journalist Brian Krebs, "They didn't just pick on any company, we try to protect the US Government from hackers. They couldn't have chosen a worse company to pick on."[115] After the attacks, Anonymous continued to clog up HBGary Federal fax machines, and made threatening phone calls.[116]
[edit]Operation Ouraborus
On February 16, 2011, the group supposedly[117] wrote an open letter to the Westboro Baptist Church, stating: "Cease & desist your protest campaign in the year 2011... close your public Web sites. Should you ignore this warning... the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover."[118][119][120] On February 19, 2011, the church responded, telling Anonymous to "bring it on" and calling them, among other things, "a puddle of pimple-faced nerds."[121][122][123] Anonymous subsequently denied the authenticity of the threat,[117] suggesting that someone from outside Anonymous had made the posting.[123][124][125] Due to their website being openly editable by anyone, it is unknown who made the post at this time. Anonymous responded with a press release calling the Westboro Church "professional trolls" stating that they believe that it was a member of the Westboro Church making an attempt to provoke an attack, thus acting as a honeypot which would both allow the church to retaliate against Internet service providers in court, and to gain it further publicity.[123][126] They also claimed that they had more pressing matters to attend to, namely the support of the protests that led to the 2011 Libyan civil war.[127] That said, Anonymous later suggested tactics for those who wished to attack Westboro nevertheless, avoiding DDoS in favor of sending "prostitutes, preferably male," and in general to "rape their asses in the most unpredictable ways possible."[126]
"Our best guess is that you heard about us on that newfangled TV of yours and thought we might be some good money for your little church." —Anonymous response to the Westboro issue[125]
Anonymous also indicated that an attack would be self-defeating, stating: "When Anonymous says we support free speech, we mean it. We count Beatrice Hall among our Anonymous forebears: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'"[128]Nonetheless, Westboro's website at godhatesfags.com suffered an attack.[129][130][131] Another hacktivist by the name of Jester claimed to bring down the websites from the Westboro Baptist Church on his Twitter account.[132][133][134] Nonetheless, people are still unsure who actually attacked the Westboro Baptist Church. In a thread on 4chan, several members revealed their confusion and wondered about Jester's motives.
[edit]2011 Wisconsin protests
See also: 2011 Wisconsin budget protests
On February 27, 2011, Anonymous announced a new attack on Koch Industries[135] as a response to the Wisconsin protests. Between 1997 and 2008, David and Charles Koch collectively gave more than $17 million to groups, such as Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United, lobbying against unions.[136][137] The Kochs are one of (Republican) Governor Walker's largest corporate supporters.[138] Anonymous accused the brothers of attempting "to usurp American Democracy" and called for a boycott of all Koch Industries products.[139][140]
[edit]2011-2012 Operation Empire State Rebellion
On March 14, 2011, the group Anonymous began releasing emails it said were obtained from Bank of America.[141] According to the group, the files show evidence of "corruption and fraud", and relate to the issue of improper foreclosures. They say that a former employee named Brian Penny [142] from Balboa Insurance, a firm which used to be owned by BofA, appeared to be a reputable insider in the force placed insurance market,[143][144] a market which, in 2012, began getting more and more coverage from various government and media sources, including the New York Department of Finance,[145] 50 State Attorney General Coalition,[146] the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,[147]and large class action lawsuits.[148] Balboa Insurance is now owned by Australian Reinsurance company QBE,[149] while Brian privately consults various agencies and institutions on the inside workings of mortgage/insurance tracking systems and force placed insurance[150] while maintaining a blog about his experience as a whistleblower.[151][152][153][154][155][156]
[edit]Operation Sony
Anonymous announced their intent to attack Sony websites in response to Sony's lawsuit against George Hotz and, specifically due to Sony's gaining access to the IP addresses of all the people who visited George Hotz's blog as part of the libel action, terming it an 'offensive against free speech and internet freedom'[157][158] Although Anonymous admitted responsibility to subsequent attacks on the Sony websites, Anonymous branch AnonOps denied that they were the cause behind a major outage of the PlayStation Network in April 2011. However, as Anonymous is a leaderless organization, the possibility remains that another branch of the group is responsible for the outage, though screenshots of AnonOps promotion of the attack still exist.[159][160]
[edit]Spanish Police
On June 12, 2011, there was a DDoS attack on the website of the Spanish Police, starting at 21:30 GMT. Anonymous claimed responsibility the following day, stating that the attack was a "direct response to the Friday arrests of three individuals alleged to be associated with acts of cyber civil disobedience attributed to Anonymous." The site was down for approximately an hour as a result of their efforts.[161]
[edit]Supporting 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement in cyber space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_991422&feature=iv&index=1&list=UU6eb1FQVhNue0NStIZTejRg&src_vid=D8H5Lp4ditE&v=R0VN7QSg2oE
The group has come out in support of a civil movement against corruption in India. This cyber movement has been named as 'Operation India'.[162][163]
[edit]Operation Malaysia
On June 15, 2011, the group launched attacks on ninety-one websites of the Malaysian government in response to the blocking of websites like Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay within the country, which the group labels censorship of a basic human right to information.[164]
[edit]Operation Orlando
On June 20, 2011, members of the group took down the websites of the Orlando, Florida Chamber of Commerce and inserted a message into the website of the Universal Orlando Resort requesting that users "boycott Orlando". The group did so in response to the arrests of members of Food Not Bombs for feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park against city ordinances.[165] The group had planned and announced the attack on their IRC channel.[166][167] The group has vowed to take a different Orlando-related website offline every day, and have also targeted the re-election website of Mayor of Orlando Buddy Dyer and the Orlando International Airport. A member of the group left a Guy Fawkes maskoutside of the mayor's home; the police are treating the picture taken of the mask as a threat against the mayor.[168] On July 11, the group took down the website of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando and the Rotary Club of Orlando.[169]
[edit]Operation Intifada
On June 28, 2011, Anonymous announced that within the next 24 hours, it would hack into the website of the Knesset, the legislature of Israel, and knock it offline. It was stated that the planned attacks were a response to alleged hacking attacks by Israeli intelligence such as the Stuxnet virus, a computer virus which allegedly was created by Israeli and U.S. intelligence and targeted the Iranian nuclear program.[170]
[edit]Operation Anti-Security
Main article: Operation AntiSec
The group collaborated with LulzSec to hack the websites of a number of government and corporate sources and release information from them.[171][172] As well as targeting American sites, Anonymous also targeted government sites inTunisia, Anguilla, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Turkey, and Australia. On July 21, Anonymous released two PDFs allegedly taken from NATO.[173]
[edit]Operation Facebook
In August 2011, someone created an account on Twitter with the name OP_Facebook and announced the "Operation Facebook". According to the links on the post, Anonymous will take down Facebook on November 5, 2011.[174] The date "November 5" is believed to be attributed to the comics V for Vendetta, where the character "V" conducts his major plans every fifth of November in memory of Guy Fawkes. This operation isn't assuredly an Anonymous one. There was an earlier OpFacebook that was abandoned, and this current plan is a revival of the communication channels previously used.[175] The plan is contentious and does not appear to be supported by the majority of those who say they are part of Anonymous. Operation Facebook, against popular belief, never showed any signs of itself. Facebook continued to run after the supposed Operation Facebook was to begin. On that day, Anonymous tweeted that they never announced Operation Facebook and that this was some guy's idea of a joke.[176]
[edit]Operation BART
In August 2011, in response to Bay Area Rapid Transit's shutdown of cell phone service in an attempt to disconnect protesters from assembling non-violently in response to a police shooting, as well as the shooting itself, Anonymous sent out a mass email/fax bomb to BART personnel and organized multiple mass physical protests at the network's Civic Center station.[177] Anonymous also hacked the BART website, releasing the personal information of 102 BART police officers,[178] as well as account information for about 2,000 customers.[179]
[edit]Shooting Sheriffs Saturday
In an event dubbed "Shooting Sheriffs Saturday," Anonymous hacked 70 (mostly rural) law enforcement websites and released 10 GB of leaked information.[180] The name is likely a reference to the song "I Shot the Sheriff" by Bob Marley.
[edit]Support of Occupy Wall Street
Several contingents of Anonymous have given support to the Occupy Wall Street movement, with members attending local protests and blogs run by members covering the movement.[181][182][183]
[edit]Operation Syria
In early August, Anonymous hacked the Syrian Defense Ministry website and replaced it with a vector image of the pre-Ba'athist flag, a symbol of the pro-democracy movement in the country, as well as a message supporting the 2011 Syrian uprising and calling on members of the Syrian Army to defect to protect protesters.[184]
[edit]Operation DarkNet
In October 2011, the collective campaigned against child pornography protected by anonymous hosting techniques.[185] They took down 40 child porn sites, published the names of over 1500 people frequenting those websites,[186] and invited the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Interpol to follow up.[187]
[edit]Opposition to Los Zetas
On October 6, 2011, Anonymous released a video stating that Los Zetas had kidnapped one of the group's members, and threatened that unless the hostage was freed, they would publish personal information about members of the cartel and their collaborators in politics, police, military, and business, which might lead to their prosecution by Mexican authorities, or targeting by rival cartels. The website of Gustavo Rosario Torres, a former Tabasco state prosecutor, was subsequently defaced with a message suggesting his involvement with the organization.[188][189][190][191][192][193] Early November, Los Zetas reportedly freed the kidnapped victim without knowledge of its Anonymous affiliation, as announced on Anonymous Iberoamerica blog.[194][195] However, following widespread news coverage of the video, reporters did not find evidence of a previous Anonymous action matching the description given, and found little evidence of support among Anonymous members, particularly in Mexico.[196] Many blogs run by members of Anonymous also report on this.[183]
[edit]Operation Brotherhood Takedown
On 2011 November 7, Anonymous released a warning threat to the Muslim Brotherhood that they would take down major websites belonging to their organization.[197] On November 12 the Muslim Brotherhood released a statement detailing the extent of the attack and that four websites were temporarily taken down.[198] On 2011 November 12 another video was released claiming the attack would continue until November 18.[199]
[edit]Attack on Stratfor
On December 24, claims were made that Anonymous stole thousands of e-mail addresses and credit card information from security firm Stratfor. Reportedly, Anonymous commented that this is because the data was unencrypted, however Anonymous put out a press-release stating "This hack is most definitely not the work of Anonymous".[200]
[edit]Operation Pharisee
Operation Pharisee was an attack organized via social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube[201] against the Vatican website for World Youth Day 2011. It was unsuccessful, despite a denial-of-service attack resulting 34 times normal traffic, and well-documented[202] due to the efforts of Imperva, the security firm employed by the Vatican.[203]
[edit]2012
[edit]CSLEA hack
In January 2012, Anonymous hacked the website of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association to protest police brutality.[204]
[edit]Occupy Nigeria
In solidarity with Occupy Nigeria, Anonymous has joined forces with the People's Liberation Front and the Naija Cyber Hactivists of Nigeria. Anonymous promised “a relentless and devastating assault upon the web assets of the Nigerian government” in support of Occupy Nigeria. This was in protest to the removal of fuel subsidy that the majority of impoverished Nigerians depend upon for their very existence, causing the price of fuel and transportation to skyrocket and therefore extreme hardship for the majority of Nigerians. On January 13, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission website was hacked, with a false report of the arrest of people involved in the oil sector replacing the normal page.[205]
[edit]Operation Megaupload
Wikinews has related news: US government, music industry websites taken offline in web attack
In retaliation for the shut down of the file sharing service Megaupload and the arrest of four workers,[206] Anonymous DDoSed the websites of UMG (the company responsible for the lawsuit against Megaupload), the United States Department of Justice, the United States Copyright Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the MPAA, Warner Brothers Music, the RIAA, and theHADOPI the afternoon of January 19, 2012.[207] The operations by Anonymous are most likely driven further by anger over the House of Representatives' Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).[208]
[edit]Anti-ACTA activism in Europe
On January 21 a series of DDoS attacks on Polish government websites took place, for which the Anonymous took responsibility and referred to as "the Polish Revolution".[209] The group via their Twitter account stated it was a revenge for upcoming signing of ACTA agreement by the Polish government. Starting with websites of the Sejm, Polish Prime Minister, President, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, later on websites of the police, Internal Security Agency, Ministry of Foreign Affairs were also blocked. The presumed attack was further strengthened by the media coverage which resulted in extremely high interest of public opinion, followed up by blackout of popular polish websites on 24th[210] and protests of thousands of people on January 24 and 25, in major cities of Poland,[211] against signing ACTA. Other suspected targets were the websites of Paweł Graś - the government's spokesman (blocked after Graś denied the attacks ever took place), the website of PSL (blocked after Eugeniusz Kłopotek, a member of the party, supported ACTA on air of the major TV station). Governmental sites in France's presidential website[212] and Austria's Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Economy and also the website of the Federal Chancellor [213] were also cracked and paralyzed.
Anonymous in Slovenia announced opposition against the Slovenian signing of the ACTA and have posted video threats on various websites against the government officials, as well as against Nova Ljubljanska Banka (commonly known as NLB), accusing the latter of corruption.[214] On February 4, 2012 The NLB was a victim of a cyber attack and was offline for one hour, while public demonstrations were held in the capital of Ljubljana and in Maribor. Some estimated 3000 people gathered in the capital, while around 300 protested in Maribor.[215]
[edit]Operation Russia
Unidentified hackers cracked email boxes of some prominent pro-Kremlin activists and officials, including Vasily Yakemenko, head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, Kristina Potupchik, press secretary for Nashi youth movement, and Oleg Khorokhordin, deputy head of the Department for Internal Affairs at the Presidential Administration. Since February 1, links to contents of the mailboxes have been appearing on @OP_Russia Twitter account. The hackers confirmed they consider themselves a part of the Anonymous movement; "We are Anonymous", they stated in an interview.[216][217] The information discovered enabled many to accuse Yakemenko and his colleagues in paying some influential bloggers, as well as numerous trolls, for publishing stories and commenting in favour of Vladimir Putin on negative press articles on the Internet.[218][219][220]
[edit]Boston Police Department attacks
On February 3, 2012, Anonymous hacked a website belonging to the Boston Police Department to protest the eviction of Occupy Wall Street protestors.[221] BPD later responded with a sarcastic video of their own.[222]
[edit]Syrian Government E-mail Hack
On February 6, 2012, Anonymous broke into the mail server of the Syrian Ministry of Presidential Affairs, gaining access to some 78 inboxes of Bashar al-Assad’s staffers in the process. One of the email files was a document preparing Assad for his December 2011 interview with ABC's Barbara Walters. One of the passwords commonly used by Assad’s office accounts was "12345." [223]
In July 2012, Anonymous gave over 2.4 million e-mails to Wikileaks.[224]
[edit]AntiSec Leak and CIA Attack
On Friday, February 10, Anonymous claimed responsibility for taking down the Central Intelligence Agency's website for more than 5 hours. Several servers went back up while others stayed down.[225] This followed a conversation leak, in which Anonymous took responsibility, between FBI and Scotland Yard officials discussing members of Anonymous being put on trial as well as other topics on the group, which took place a week before.[226] On March 6, 2012Donncha O'Cearbhaill was charged in connection with the leak.[227]
[edit]Interpol Attack
Following Interpol's announcement on February 28 that they made arrests of 25 suspected members of the hacking activist group Anonymous in Europe and South America, their site went down briefly. [228]
[edit]AIPAC Attack
On March 4, Anonymous took down the American Israel Public Affairs Committee website. An AIPAC spokesman was questioned on the matter but did not respond.[229] A video titled "Anonymous: Message to AIPAC" was uploaded on YouTube earlier the same day.[230]
[edit]Vatican website DDoS Attacks
The official website of the Vatican was brought down temporarily by a DDoS attack from Anonymous on March 7. Later that day the website recovered. Anonymous has also attempted to take the site down in 2011 but the attempt did not succeed. They claimed that their attack was not targeted against the followers of the Catholic Church but against the Church itself, which Anonymous viewed as corrupt.[231]
On March 12 the Vatican's official website was brought down for a few hours by a second DDoS attack. Anonymous also hacked Vatican Radio and gained access to the Vatican Radio database in protest against the Vatican Radio allegedly using "repeaters with power transmission largely outside the bounds of the law."[232]
[edit]Bureau of Justice leak
On March 21, 1.7GB of data was stolen from the [US? Chicago?] Bureau of Justice from Anonymous, the leak contained “shiny things such as internal emails and the entire database dump.”[233]
[edit]Taking down Monsanto's Hungarian website
On March 16 the official website of Monsanto's Hungarian website collapsed and wasn't restored until March 26.[234][235][236][237]
[edit]Symantec source code leak
In March 2012, people claiming to be a part of Anonymous leaked the source code for old versions of Norton AntiVirus and Norton Utilities after failing to extort the company.[238]
[edit]April 2012 Chinese attack
In April 2012, Anonymous hacked 485 Chinese government websites, some more than once, to protest the lack of democracy.[239]
[edit]Operation Bahrain and Formula One attacks
On April 21, Anonymous defaced the official site of Formula One, in protest against the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix. The race was the subject of ongoing controversy, as it was being held during ongoing anti-government protests, with the support of the government.[240][241] Anonymous posted a press release criticising the decision to hold the race despite the violent crackdowns,[242] and posted data of ticket sales for the event with sensitive information — particularly the credit card numbers of spectators — redacted. Other sites related to the sport and the Bahraini government were also the subject of Distributed denial-of-service attack.[243]
[edit]Occupy Philippines
On April 21, 2012 attacked the China University Media Union website, as a retaliation against alleged Chinese hackers who defaced the University of the Philippines website, claiming that the Scarborough Shoal is Chinese territory. Anonymous left a message that the Scarborough Shoal is the Philippines' territory. On April 25, 2012. Anonymous #Occupy Philippines warned that they had not yet started their attack against Chinese websites. The cyber attacks were a result of the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff.[244][245]
[edit]Operation India
On May 17, 2012, Anonymous launched an attack against the websites of the Supreme Court and the currently ruling Congress party in reaction to internet service providers blocking popular video sites like Vimeo as well as file-sharing sites like The Pirate Bay.[246]
[edit]Operation Quebec
Main articles: 2012 Quebec student protests and Bill 78
On May 20, 2012, Anonymous launched Opération Québec in reaction to the adoption of Bill 78 by the government of Quebec, an act restricting the freedom of association in thisCanadian province after several weeks of student protests.[247] A video was released urging the governing Liberal Party of Quebec to let the citizens protest.
On May 21, the websites of the Liberal Party of Quebec, of the Ministry of Public Security of Quebec as well as a government site on police ethics were DDoSed.[248][249]
Anonymous then threatened to disrupt the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Canada, to be held between June 7 and 10 in Montreal, the same way they did for the Bahrain Grand Prix.[250] They claimed to have accessed personal information stored in the F1 website.[251]
On May 30, Anonymous leaked a video called "DVD Gouverne(mental)", a 2 hours long footage from Sagard, Quebec where a party for the wife of Paul Desmarais of Power Corporation had been held in 2008.[252] Among the guests were former US president George H. Bush, prime minister Jean Charest of Quebec, former Canadian prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney, former Québec prime minister Lucien Bouchard, former governor general of Canada Adrienne Clarkson, journalist Charlie Rose, singers Robert Charlebois and Hiromi Omura, lyricist Luc Plamondon and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.[253]
[edit]Operation Japan
On June 26, the website of the Japanese Business Federation, was taken offline, with Anonymous claiming this was part of "Operation Japan".[254] The reason for their action was the new amendments to the copyright laws in Japan.[255] For those caught with pirated material such as music or pirated DVDs and Blu-ray discs, fines could run as high as $25,000 and carry a sentence of two years in prison, according to CNET Japan.[256]
[edit]Operation Anaheim
On July 25, 2012, Anonymous launched an online protest in response to the Anaheim police shooting. It began with the release of the personal information of some of the top officers, including police chief John Welter.[257]
[edit]AAPT attack
In July 2012, Anonymous hacked Australian ISP AAPT and later leaked 40 GB of partially redacted customer data to protest data retention policy.[258]
[edit]Operation Myanmar
On August 10, 2012, Anonymous launched DDoS attack and defacement more than 100 Myanmar's website, all hacker from all over the world joined this operation as a protest for killing Muslim Rohingya at Myanmar.[259] Even Anonymous has done with it, the cyber war still continue until now,[260] the hackers that joined the operation has established new world ranking hackers group, Danger Hackers.[261] Myanmar's hacker also made a lot of counter attack.[262]
[edit]Uganda LGBT rights
On August 13, 2012, Anonymous hacked two Uganda government websites to protest the country's strict anti-gay laws.[263]
[edit]Hong Kong National Education
In mid-September 2012, Anonymous hackers threatened the Hong Kong government organization, known as National Education Centre. In their online video, Anonymous members claimed responsibility for leaking classified related government documents and taking down the National Education Centre website, after the Hong Kong government has repeatedly ignored months of wide-scale protests against the establishment of a new core Moral and National Education curriculum for children from 6–18 years of age. The new syllabus has come under heavy criticism and international media attention, as it does not award students based on how much factual information is learned, but instead grades and evaluates students based on their level of emotional attachment and approval of the Communist Party of China, almost in blind brain-washing fashion.[264]
[edit]Philippine Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012
Anonymous Philippines launched a series of attacks against several websites of the Philippine government to protest against the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The hackers urged for the revisions of the cybercrime law. On September 26, Anonymous defaced several websites, including that of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.[265] They claim that the law violates freedom of expression and described the law as “most notorious act ever witnessed in the cyber-history”. On October 1, they hacked again several government websites in a operation dubbed as "Bloody Monday" and asked for "a revision of the [Cybercrime Law] for the betterment of the Filipino netizens."[266] .
Official FBI website Hacked
The official website server of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been hacked and the database has been leaked by The Hackers Army from Pakistan.
The founder of The Hackers Army contacted us in an email about their latest hack, explaining why the hack was done, the founder said that ” a Pakistani doesn’t need any reason to hack FBI, as the FBI itself a reason”.
The hackers gain access of the FBI’s website a couple of hours ago, downloaded the database and leaked it publicly on Pastebin.
The leak data contains address, server address, network IP, Bureau’s address, Vulnerable Open Ports in FBI InterCommunication Intranet and total 295 official email addresses with their plain text passwords of FBI officials.
The complete details related to FBI’s leaked database can be downloaded from: http://pastebin.com/BjZMZV63
THA is known for their high profile hacks, in past THA has hacked CNN blog, thousands of Indian and Israeli government owned websites.
It is shocking to see FBI’s website security where the passwords were stored in plain text, making it a piece of cake for the hackers to access them.
This is not the first time when FBI’s servers have been compromised, in past Anonymous and several other hackers have also gained access of the servers, recently thousands of Apple ids were also hacked because of an official laptop of an FBI officer was hacked.
In 2011, FBI Was again hacked and over 180 Accounts Information were disclosed online.
Earlier, I informed you how the American Financial Giants and Banks are being targeted by the hackers, today’s hack of FBI proves that nothing is secured in the cyber world and hackers will go up to any level to seek revenge.
Source: hackread.com
Project Mayhem
Impact
The group gained worldwide press for Project Chanology, the protest against the Church of Scientology.[9]
External videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_991422&feature=iv&index=1&list=UU6eb1FQVhNue0NStIZTejRg&src_vid=D8H5Lp4ditE&v=R0VN7QSg2oE
The official website server of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been hacked and the database has been leaked by The Hackers Army from Pakistan.
The founder of The Hackers Army contacted us in an email about their latest hack, explaining why the hack was done, the founder said that ” a Pakistani doesn’t need any reason to hack FBI, as the FBI itself a reason”.
The hackers gain access of the FBI’s website a couple of hours ago, downloaded the database and leaked it publicly on Pastebin.
The leak data contains address, server address, network IP, Bureau’s address, Vulnerable Open Ports in FBI InterCommunication Intranet and total 295 official email addresses with their plain text passwords of FBI officials.
The complete details related to FBI’s leaked database can be downloaded from: http://pastebin.com/BjZMZV63
THA is known for their high profile hacks, in past THA has hacked CNN blog, thousands of Indian and Israeli government owned websites.
It is shocking to see FBI’s website security where the passwords were stored in plain text, making it a piece of cake for the hackers to access them.
This is not the first time when FBI’s servers have been compromised, in past Anonymous and several other hackers have also gained access of the servers, recently thousands of Apple ids were also hacked because of an official laptop of an FBI officer was hacked.
In 2011, FBI Was again hacked and over 180 Accounts Information were disclosed online.
Earlier, I informed you how the American Financial Giants and Banks are being targeted by the hackers, today’s hack of FBI proves that nothing is secured in the cyber world and hackers will go up to any level to seek revenge.
Source: hackread.com
Reception
On July 26, 2007, Fox affiliate KTTV in Los Angeles, California aired a report on Anonymous, calling them a group of "hackers on steroids," "domestic terrorists," and collectively an "Internet hate machine." The report covered an attack on a Myspace user, who claimed to have had his Myspace account "hacked" into seven times by Anonymous, and plastered with images of gay pornography. The Myspace user also claimed a virus written by Anonymous hackers was sent to him and to ninety friends on his Myspace contact list, crashing thirty-two of his friends' computers. The report featured an unnamed former "hacker" who had fallen out with Anonymous and explained his view of the Anonymous culture. In addition, the report also mentioned "raids" on Habbo, a "national campaign to spoil the new Harry Potter book ending," and threats to "bomb sports stadiums."[15][57]
The day following the KTTV report, Wired News blogger and journalist Ryan Singel derided the report, stating that Fox news service had confused the hacker group with "supremely bored 15-year olds who post obscene pictures" from the English-language imageboard website 4chan, and that the news report was "by far the funniest prank anyone on the board has ever pulled off."[58]In February 2008, an Australia-based Today Tonight broadcast included a segment of the KTTV report, preceded by the statement: "The Church of Scientology has ramped up the offensive against Anonymous, accusing the group of religious bigotry and claiming they are sick, twisted souls."[59]
Graham Cluley, a security expert for Sophos, argued that Anonymous' actions against child porn websites hosted on a darknet could be counterproductive, commenting that while their intentions appear beneficial, but the removal of illegal websites and sharing networks should be performed by the authorities, rather than Internet vigilantes.[60]
The English language edition of Al Jazeera published regular articles on Anonymous and its activism. The journal also ran opinion pieces on the group, sometimes laudatory, describing it as a future form of internet-based social activism:
"This is the future, whether one approves or not, and the failure on the part of governments and media alike to understand, and contend with the rapid change now afoot, ought to remind everyone concerned why it is that this movement is necessary in the first place."[61]
In January 2008, Search Engine, a Canadian radio show published by CBC Radio One, began reporting on Project Chanology. Host Jesse Brown called Anonymous "clowns," citing their lack of coordination, vulgar humor, and pack mentality, and invited them to confront him in person. On February 7, two members of Anonymous appeared on the show, explaining the nature of the group and the genuine criticism they held for Scientology.[19] After Anonymous held a protest in front of Scientology compounds around the world on February 10, 2008, Brown admitted that they had "proved me wrong."[62]
The nature of the protest was unprecedented—picketers wore masks and refused to divulge names—and sparked a follow-up discussion on the show about journalistic standards for source protection, and the meaning of identity. Brown brought the issue to his own workplace, interviewing CBC's president Hubert Lacroix in reaction to a conflict between him and an anonymous critic who went by the handle "Ouimet."[19]
Reaction from law enforcement agencies
Arrests
| “ | First, who is this group called Anonymous? Put simply, it is an international cabal of criminal hackers dating back to 2003, who have shut down the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice and the F.B.I. They have hacked into the phone lines of Scotland Yard. They are responsible for attacks against MasterCard, Visa, Sony and the Governments of the U.S., U.K., Turkey, Australia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. | ” |
—Canadian MP Marc Garneau, 2012[63]
| ||
In December 2010, the Dutch police arrested a 16-year old for cyberattacks against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal in conjunction with Anonymous' DDoSattacks against companies opposing Wikileaks.[64]
In January 2011, the FBI issued more than 40 search warrants in a probe against the Anonymous attacks on companies that opposed Wikileaks. The FBI did not issue any arrest warrants, but issued a statement that participating in DDoS attacks is a criminal offense with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.[65][66]
In January 2011, the British police arrested five male suspects between the ages of 15 and 26 with suspicion of participating in Anonymous DDoS attacks.[67]
Matthew George, a Newcastle, New South Wales resident, concerned with forthcoming Australian internet filtration legislation, was arrested for his participation in Anonymous DDoS activities. George participated in Anonymous IRC discussions, and allowed his computer to be used in a denial of service attack associated with Operation Titstorm. Tracked down by authorities, he was fined $550, though he was not fully aware that his actions were illegal, and believed his participation in Operation Titstorm had been a legal form of civil protest. His experience left him disillusioned with the potential of online anonymity, warning others: "There is no way to hide on the internet, no matter how hard you cover your tracks you can get caught. You're not invincible."[68]
On June 10, 2011, the Spanish police captured three purported members of Anonymous in the cities of Gijon, Barcelona and Valencia. The operation deactivated the main server from which the three men coordinated DDoS attacks. This particular group had made attacks on the web servers of the PlayStation Store, BBVA, Bankia, and the websites of the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. The operation revealed that their structure consisted of "cells" which at any given time could coordinate attacks through the downloading of software; the decision-making process to attack occurred in chat rooms. The Spanish national police stated that this operation corresponds to the fact that the Spanish government and NATO considers this group of hackers a threat to national security.[69]
On June 13, 2011, officials in Turkey arrested 32 individuals that were allegedly involved in DDoS attacks on Turkish government websites. These members of Anonymous were captured in different cities of Turkey including Istanbul andAnkara. According to PC Magazine these individuals were arrested after they attacked these websites as a response to the Turkish government demand to ISPs to implement a system of filters that many have perceived as censorship.[70][71]
During July 19–20, 2011, as many as 20 or more arrests were made of suspected Anonymous hackers in the US, UK, and Netherlands following the 2010 Operation Avenge Assange in which the group attacked PayPal, as well as attacking MasterCard and Visa after they froze Wikileaks accounts. According to US officials statements suspects' homes were raided and suspects were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio, as well as a 16 year old boy being held by the police in south London on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and four being held in the Netherlands.[72][73][74][75]
On February 28, 2012, Interpol issued warrants for the arrests of 25 people with suspected links to Anonymous, according to a statement from the international police agency. The suspects, between the ages of 17 and 40, were all arrested.[76]
On September 12, 2012; Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown was arrested at his home in Dallas on charges of threatening an FBI agent. Agents arrested Brown while he was in the middle of a Tinychat session.[77]
Fear of retaliation
On January 28, 2012 American media outlet the Wall Street Journal claimed US law enforcement officers are concerned about cyber-retaliation attacks by the group. The US has been investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, although no charges have been filed and his legal team say the US has no jurisdiction, as the Australian citizen has committed no crimes on U.S. soil. The concern was caused by suspicion that Anonymous was involved in retaliatory attacks. A prosecutor in the investigation faced so many personal intrusions that colleagues became concerned about the possibility of bodily harm, according to journalist Devlin Barrett, who explained the Department of Justice was acting unusually by suppressing the names of officials in public statements to the press, but not in court documents. Mr Barrett said there was debate within the Department of Justice and the FBI over the release of names of officials working on the Megaupload case.[78]
