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Anonymous Strikes U.S. Government Websites…Again

Feb. 17, 2012 10:27am Liz Klimas

The hacking group known as Anonymous seems to be continuing its trend of hacking U.S. government websites on Fridays. It has claimed a new series of hacks against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and consumer rights websites.

The loosely organized collection of cyber rebels said it attacked the FTC’s consumer protection business center, consumer.gov, and the National Consumer Protection Week website. Both sites were replaced with a violent German-language video (see below) satirizing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. As of this posting, both the sites appeared to be down.

Anonymous Hacks U.S. Government Websites to Protest ACTA

Anonymous tweets about most recent hack.

ACTA was recently signed by several countries, but restrictions on online piracy have prompted a growing protest movement.

A call by the Associated Press to the Trade Commission rang unanswered before business hours Friday. An email seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Watch the satirical video about ACTA (Warning: Graphic Content):

International Business Times has more from Anonymous’ statement on the attack:

“Even more bothersome than your complete lack of competence in maintaining your own f*****g websites and serving the citizens you are supposed to be protecting, is the US federal government’s support of ACTA. You really want to empower copyright holders to demand that users who violate IP rights (with no legal process) have their Internet connections terminated? You really want to allow a country with an oppressive Internet censorship regime to demand under the treaty that an ISP in another country remove site content? Well, we have a critical warning for you, and we suggest you read the next few paragraphs very, very closely.”

The statement continues:

“If ACTA is signed by all participating negotiating countries, you can rest assured that Antisec will bring a f*****g mega-uber-awesome war that rain torrential hellfire down on all enemies of free speech, privacy and internet freedom. We will systematically knock all evil corporations and governments off of our internet.”

Anonymous has recently threatened to take down the whole of the Internet on March 31 in an effort called Operation Global Blackout. MSNBC reports that it calls for “supporters to download a denial-of-service launching tool, called “Ramp,” which will flood the 13 root Domain Name Servers (DNS) of the Internet with more requests than they can process.”

Should we be worried? According to Robert David Graham from Errata Security, no. He writes on his blog that the hackers could cause localized disruptions but the likelihood that they could take down all root servers is slim.

In the last few weeks, Anonymous has targeted other U.S. government websites, including the Department of Justice and the CIA. The hackers also were able to listen in and record a FBI conference call with British police.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Comments (107)

conservativesteve1960
Posted on February 18, 2012 at 11:11am
Maybe its government who’s anonymous!

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george carrier
Posted on February 18, 2012 at 9:19am
they should go after Holder and the rest of them to show all the on gun and drug runners that they are ,they steel your rights and they think its OK remember laws are only for us not them there abouve the law.

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gpnder99
Posted on February 18, 2012 at 6:54am
“We will systematically knock all evil corporations and governments off of our internet.”

And all this time, I thought Al Gore (Manbearpig) invented the internet!!!!

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gpnder99
Posted on February 18, 2012 at 6:12am
“We will systematically knock all evil corporations and governments off of our internet.”

And all this time, I thought Al Gore, aka Manbearpig, invented the internet!

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Rob_M
Posted on February 18, 2012 at 12:57am
Our internet? Yeah these guys pay for the servers that actually run the internet.

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alpha2omega47
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 10:11pm
If we had a real, conservative presidential administration; we would probably have most of these Anonymous and Occupy weirdos in prison. But; our present administration is to busy to do what it is supposed to be doing ~ instead it is busy with avoiding the borders, Anonymous and OWS and focusing on suing the states, protecting Holder and trying to find a way to get ObamaCare through the Supreme Court.

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Flashman
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 9:30pm
Time to consider proscuting these criminals under the RICO statutes. Let them spend some real time with other organized crime figures…in a cell.

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Jenny Lind
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 8:05pm
If you are readin this-hope you know you are hurting little people more than anyone else, it’s always the folks at the bottom of the totum pole who get screwed, and you are helping do it. Grow the hell up, and get off your ego trip. We can’t afford your “help”. Thanks a lot.

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hnuh
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 6:38pm
The man in the mask is a target. The mask is a mark of the criminal and should be dealt with as such.

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This_Individual
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 5:08pm
I don’t think these guys are what you think, yes they are attacking government websites, but assuming that they are Marxists or part of any other totalitarianist group would just be a guess. I’m sure that the FBI is doing their job, so relax :)

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Tea-Party-Amercan
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 3:53pm
I see this as an act of war on my country. We need to stop them now. You know what they will start doing next, atacking citizens. You just watch!

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- This_Individual
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 5:11pm
  That’s a bit much.
  
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- MammalOne
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 9:31pm
  wow.
  please never vote.
  please never have children.
  please.
  thanks.
  
  Report this comment
sjohnston
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 3:44pm
Setting up to pull the internet switch! The CIA probably behind the whole thing!

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lukerw
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 2:47pm
The ‘laughing man’… is still laughing :)

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One Man Progressive Wrecking Crew
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 2:45pm
These people are terrorists.

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MammalOne
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 1:38pm
The paranoid “Anonymous is orchestrated by the govt.” arguments are unfounded and based on an incomplete understanding of how these attacks are orchestrated and carried out.
Anyone can go on their website and download these DDoS programs that they’re using to shut down these sites. Furthermore, anyone can propose a new operation and people will follow suit if there’s enough support for it in the collective (these show up all the time on YouTube and the IRC channels they use). There are tons of operations going on in the swarm, all of them independently organized.
I know everyone would love to blame this on Obama somehow but you’ll have to bite the bullet on this one, y’all.

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Spinolio
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 1:36pm
Find ‘em and send in the Seal’s.

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MrKnowItAll
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 1:13pm
“Don’t ever insult anyone thinking it’s some young kid in Mommy’s basement”.
By the way. We have always lived in a crazy world. Worst in the past. Mass Instant Communication has just brought all this Violence and Nutso stuff out in the open for all to know of.

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jwmarietta
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 1:09pm
as long as they dont hack in and risk military info I am all for it. Why would our dumb ass govt have everything on hackable comp. these people are supposed to be leaders and at least have some semblance of common sense. what a joke. I could take a ****, flush.. and watch the same thing that goes on in Washington.

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Wat Tyler
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:31pm
Very good news. Keep the globalist NWO on it’s toes! Keep up the good work, Anonymous!

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Firesaber
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:05pm
Has anyone noticed that their list of evil governments and corporations seem to all be American? What about the Chinese, Russians, North Koreans, Iranians, et cetera. Their rhetoric and actions give them away. There are so many more countries out there with much worse “human rights” violations. Why do they keep attacking America then? Because they want to take it down. They are just terrorists and are either wanting a totalitarian leftist government or they are useful idiots. Either or.

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- Wat Tyler
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:32pm
  They hack them all. I heard Russia is PO’d at them, too.
  
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- Wat Tyler
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:36pm
  As for North Korea: Do they even have computers? That’s one way to keep from being hacked.
  
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kevin
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:03pm
the internet will shut down on march 8th compliments of the u.s. govt., sure sure there is a virus on the servers this is a temp. intteruption

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capitalismrocks
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:02pm
The US Government needs to come down HARD on these script kiddie a-holes! They are cyber-terrorists, they need to give them the “Kevin Mitnick” treatment, and by that I mean no offense to Kevin Mitnick whatsoever, what I mean is he was so severely treated by the govt because they were terrified of him, he wasn’t allowed phone priviledges because they thought he was going to start a nuclear war from a telephone and he was put in solitary confinement…. all of which was so unnecessary and uncalled for against Mitnick….

these Anonymous script-kiddie DDoS terrorsts, need to be caught, publicly humiiliated and then given Gitmo-class penalties against them and send a stern warning that if you DDoS, you will want up in a Supermax !!!

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- Wat Tyler
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:45pm
  I disagree. Quite the opposite in fact. Anonymous needs to come down hard on these USSA Constitution violators who are systematically erasing our rights one alphabet agency at a time.
  
  Vive la Resistance!
  
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- Wat Tyler
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:58pm
  As for the Orwellian “terrorist” label attempt. It’s Patriot Act mission creep. We all know a “terrorist” makes a population fear for it’s physical safety by committing acts deemed to put the lives of that population in fear for their lives. Hence the root “terror”.
  
  Orwellian Spooks are trying to expand that “terrorist” label to any political resistance that inconveniences the system and to any political opinion that doesn’t fit the New World Order agenda.
  
  Soon, if not already, opinions such as this I’m writing will be deemed “terrorist”, yet it’s nothing more than a reasonable opinion, albeit not in lockstep with the treacherous globalist/Zionist NWO agenda that has treasonously usurped this once great republic.
  
  It’s becoming like Chile or Argentina in the 1960′s,. complete with goon squads to formed to eradicate these “terrorists”.
  
  Anonymous is a good first step in taking our nation back.
  
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- capitalismrocks
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 2:04pm
  The Patriot Act is clearly an evil law in and of itself, with that, I will totally agree with you and its interesting how Obama opposed it as a Senator, but has renewed it twice as President which clearly shows his insidious agenda side.
  
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marhee9
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:00pm
And let’s not forget that Obamacare aims to put every American citizens health records online. It didn,t sound like a good idea back in 2008, and it sounds even worse every time I read a story like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMbxtBIQX-I

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OperationNorthwoods
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 12:00pm
What better way to push for identifying everyone on the internet then a group called anonymous that hacks into corporate and government computer and creates disruption.

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Vitalissue
Posted on February 17, 2012 at 11:56am
Remember LightSquared: Might have something to do with all this with Obama’s approval

Testimony Under Pressure

U.S. Air Force Gen. William Shelton dropped a bomb this week when he alleged that the White House had pressured him to modify testimony before Congress to make it more favorable toward a company that made donations to Democrats. The four-star Air Force general oversees U.S. Space Command, and he was scheduled to testify before a House committee on Aug. 3 regarding a new wireless project of a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared. Shelton’s testimony was leaked in advance, revealing that he was prepared to tell the committee that LightSquared’s project would interfere with the military’s sensitive Global Positioning Satellite capabilities.

The majority owner of LightSquared, however, is an investment fund run by Democrat donor Philip Falcone. The company saw that the testimony could damage their business, and the White House intervened. Shelton says the White House requested that he alter his testimony to voice support for the administration’s policy of adding more broadband for commercial use and to say that the Pentagon would work to resolve questions regarding LightSquared with testing in only 90 days. It seems that this administration will stop at nothing to politicize any issue in favor of their donors. Congress has a duty to investigate and find out just who pressured Shelton, and from whom those orders came.

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- Wat Tyler
  Posted on February 17, 2012 at 1:07pm
  According to some idiotic stooges posting here, this corruption should remain hidden forever because those exposing this BS are “cyber-terrorists”. How gullible can sheeple be?
  
  I think what it is is that a certain segment of the population identifies with the NWO and feels empowered by it. I suppose the same was true in Nazi Germany, USSR, North Korea, etc.
  
  Some of us aren’t buying into it, though.
  
  Report this comment

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