Operation Payback
Press Release:
Anonymous Attacks NZ Government Websites
Auckland, NZ - With the passage of The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill by the New Zealand Parliament, Anonymous has launched a major operation to chastise the government of New Zealand for this act of oppression [1].
Operating under the flagship "Operation Payback", Anonymous has targeted the domain of the New Zealand parliament for internet silence.
On Saturday, April 30 at 23:59 UTC, the website was rendered inoperable by a successful denial of service effort.
In a video address published minutes before the attack [2], Anonymous asserted: "Guilty until proven innocent - we shall never accept this, and nobody should."
Promising a continued large-scale effort, Anonymous is planning a sustained campaign which is likely to include activist action on the ground.
Security services protecting the parliament website were "confident [the] website will stand up", with "adequate firewalls in place" [3].
However, like many organizations and individuals before them, they have committed the dire error of underestimating Anonymous. Unable to resist the anger of the masses, system administrators proceeded to cut their own website off from international traffic soon after the attack began.
This effectively accomplished much of our work for us. This cowardly act also demonstrated a willingness on part of the New Zealand governement to isolate themselves from the international community in order to maintain control over their citizenry.
Unwilling to confront their defeat, the security services promptly buried their head in the sand, denying that any attack ever took place. The extent of their humiliation became painfully obvious to everyone but them when an independent news source finally acknowledged an Anonymous victory [4].
In addition to the protests against the NZ parliament; Anonymous also protested the website of NZ FACT (New Zealand Federation against Copyright Theft) an organization which actively encourages the persuing of "file sharers" and encourages punitive punishments.
Service was denied to this website for over 10 hours and counting (at time of release).
Operation Payback is a long-standing Anonymous action, members of which have taken it upon themselves to defend freedom of information on the internet.
The operation was involved in the high-profile actions against Visa and Mastercard upon their withdrawal of support to Wikileaks.
Operation Payback has successfully challenged and in some cases destroyed legal firms and online security companies.
Sources:
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHKhbxr7Gxg
3. Threat to bring down Parliament website taken seriously. NZ Hearald. Wednesday Apr 27, 2011. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10721808
4. Parliament’s site Under Attack: Hackers Claim Responsibility. Scoop. May 3, 2011. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1105/S00029/parliaments-site-under-attack-hackers-claim-responsibility.htm
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