4 October 2013

(1) Thirteen alleged members of hacktivist group ANONYMOUS have been indicted, accused of carrying out cyber-attacks. They have been charged in the US with conspiring to intentionally cause damage to protected computers. They were said to have targeted firms that refused to process payments for WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing site founded by Julian Assange.

(2) [?] flooded services with large amounts of traffic in an attempt to overwhelm the sites. [?] - known as a Distributed Denial of Service attack, or DDoS - is a typical [?] of the hacktivist movement.

(3) [?] allegedly targeted groups or [?] they felt did not share the philosophy of ANONYOMOUS to make all information free for everyone, regardless of copyright laws or national security considerations. Those hit included governments, trade associations, law firms and financial institutions.

(4) Court documents said that from September 2010 to January 2011, ANONYMOUS members waged a campaign they dubbed Operation Payback. In December 2010, [?] are alleged to have discussed possible targets related to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing site that struggled to receive funding after several payment processing companies, including Mastercard and Visa, refused to facilitate the transfer of donations to [?].

(5) The Swedish prosecutor's office was also hit, in connection with arrest warrants for sexual crimes issued for Mr. Assange. [?] were also said to have gone after music industry bodies in [?] for action taken against The Pirate Bay, a Sweden-based file sharing website devoted to the illegal downloading of copyrighted material.

Used with permission by the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24399215