This article first published by Medialternatives under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial 3.0, Unported license, by David Robert Lewis aka ethnopunk

THE electronic disruption of Internet traffic to several sites associated with the censorship of Wikileaks over the past months, has riveted public attention on the predicament of online civil disobedience in particular the use of distributed denial of service (DDoS) as a form of protest. The digital protests carried out by hacktivist group Anonymous, we know, saw the denial of service to Paypal and Mastercard and the subsequent arrest of teenagers in Britain and the Netherlands. Some forty searches and seizure of equipment were also made in the United States, although it is unclear as I write this, whether or not anybody has been actually arrested and charged.

Read the rest of the story here...

Anonymous has issued another communique this week, this time in the form of an open letter to the UK government over the arrest of five alleged members of anonymous. It's interesting to note anonymous doing some prisoner solidarity, something we have not seen from them yet. Will we see an anonymous prisoner support group forming (similar to those developed for other movements)? The full text is pasted below and a copy of the original PDF is available here.

Hello World. We are Anonymous. What you do or do not know about us is irrelevant. We have decided to write to you, the media, and all citizens of the free world to inform you of our intentions, potential targets, and our ongoing, active campaign for the freedom of information exchange, freedom of expression, and free use of the Internet.

Update Feb 18th 2010: Operation Titstorm is taking to the streets. More info at http://www.itnews.com.au/News/167295,operation-titstorm-hits-the-streets.... Protest times and locations at http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Project_Freeweb

Update Feb 13th 2010: List of websites taken offline: Australian Parliament + Stephen Conroy (http://www.australia.gov.au/, http://www.aph.gov.au/, . They have been down for two days now and anonymous said the attack could continue "for months". Interview with "spokesperson" for anonymous at http://delimiter.com.au/2010/02/12/anonymous-attacks-better-than-signing...

The hacktivist group Anonymous has launched a wave of successful attacks against websites of the Australian government. As many hackers are aware, Australia has proposed mandatory internet filtering at the isp level for all citizens. During the trial runs where the effectiveness of such a hypothetical system was measured, several whistleblowing, commercial, and otherwise "normal" or political sites were blocked.

According to a member of anonymous, "No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be unwanted". The website of the Australian Parliament was getting 7.5 million hits a second. Government offices involved were also hit with "a shitstorm of porn e-mail, fax spam, black faxes and prank phone calls to government offices." The porn consisted mainly of "extreme" porn and female ejaculation, both of which are proposed to be banned.

Based on reports, the main wave of attacks is through but low-intensity fighting continues. If the past actions of anonymous are anything to go by, another wave or two of attacks are expected in the next month. It's worth noting that Anonymous declared war on Australia several months ago.

More info from the press at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/11/oz_anti_censorship_ddos_latest/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/anonymous-unfurls-operation-tit...
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20100210/hackers-attack-au-websites-prot...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/10/1459257/Hackers-Attack-AU-Website...
http://www.news.com.au/technology/anonymous-hackers-threaten-to-shut-dow...

Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, a 20 year old man from Nebraska, has pled guilty to participating in a Jan 2008 DDoS attack against scientology websites. These attacks occurred directly after anonymous declared war on scientology. The plea agreement states he may continue to use computers but that he will have to allow random searches and seizures of any electronic equipment and that all use be approved by the probation officer. Furthermore, he must pay full restitution to scientology (estimated at a total of $20,000 but it's unknown how much he'll personally be liable for), cannot associate with any members of "anonymous", and must voluntarily turn over to authorities any phone bills, internet bills, etc. he receives.

Mettenbrink is the second person to be charged and plead guilty in DDoS attacks against scientology websites. It is important to maintain perspective here as thousands if not tens of thousands of people have participated in these attacks without facing personal consequences. The strategy of charging one or two people with the crimes of many others is a classic intimidation tactic used by law enforcements against activists such as the RNC8.

More information about the case is available at Wired Threat Level.

Dmitriy Guzner has been sentenced to a year in prison for participating in a large-scale DDoS attack against scientology websites (by Anonymous). Of the thousands of people who have helped DDoS scientology websites, a select few have been targeted and given long sentences as examples.

According to an article on the teen, "Dmitriy Guzner caught the attention of federal authorities after a YouTube video of a protest of the Church of Scientology in New York City identified one of the participants -- the individual in the center -- as "Aendy, " which is also Guzner's online handle. Guzner, 19, was arrested after he was connected to an online assault of the church's websites."

The BOP website doesn't have list him as a current inmate. Does anybody know anything more or know of ways to support this kid? Photos of him are available below (he is allegedly the person in the middle)

More info at http://www.nj.com/news/local/index.ssf/2009/11/verona_teen_sentenced_to_...

Anonymous, the online hacktivist group that has taken on Scientology, the Government of Iran, and many other strong adversaries is now adding the Government of Australia to their hit list. According to WIRED magazine, the sites of the Australian Communications Authority and the Communications Minister have been taken offline due to attacks.

Anonymous is against all attempts to restrict the freedom of the internet, to control a land that is ours, that cannot be regulated by any government or agency because it does not exist within their territories. As of such, Anonymous has launched attacks against the Government of Australia for their plans to implement mandatory web censorship.

More at http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/anonymous-hacks-australia/

Moral outrage brimmed over the edge of the news day when television pundits finally began reporting that Sarah Palin's private Yahoo account had been hacked by the shadowy "Anonymous," an internet hacktivist group organized much like the Animal Liberation Front, utlizing leaderless resistance in which the lack of a visible hierarchal structure is replaced by like-minded individuals contributing to the group autonomously to avoid detection by authorities.

Anonymous is popular for its ongoing campaign against the Church of Scientology. In what first appeared to be a joke with its introduction to the mainstream through a cheeky youtube video, the group quickly went on to attack and expose an organization accused of fraud, murder, and censorship. Utilizing typical hacktivist strategies such as denial-of-service attacks, digg.com bumping of articles critical of Scientology, google bombing, and baiting suspected pedophiles, the group is special for going a step further from typical hacktivists and enjoys the activities of traditional activists: masked direct actions throughout the world, sometimes attracting as many as 300 participants, as well as leaking hacked materials to the mainstream media, such as the Tom Cruise Scientology video.

The group who has been attacking the cult of scientology for some time has now broken into Sarah Palins yahoo e-mail account. Copies of the e-mails were posted to WikiLeaks and can be found here WikiLeaks Sarah Palin's e-mail. It is not anything too interesting still it is pretty funny though.

Here are a few links to more information:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/group-posts-e-m.html

http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-email-account-hacked