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Anonymous blasts Government sites for second day

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Anonymous blasts Government sites for second day
By Ry Crozier
Feb 11, 2010 3:41 PM | 8 Comments
Tags: anonymous | operation | titstorm | government | aph | ddos | attack | hacker
Titstorm still listed as "in progress".

Hackers continued to bombard the Australian Parliament House website with traffic for a second straight day as part of Operation Titstorm.

A spokesman for the Attorney-General's department confirmed the attack "continued to affect the availability of the Parliament House website.

"Visitors to this site are receiving an error message stating that the service is unavailable," the spokesman said.click to view full size image

The Partyvan wiki, which carried a large amount of information on the attack, was updated to carry the message: "This raid is currently in progress, grab yourselves a LOIC.EXE and get on IRC for raid coordination."

LOIC - which stood for low orbit ion cannon - was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) client made by Praetox.

The main wiki page did not appear to load but was viewable via Google cache at the time of publication.

The Attorney-General spokesman said that agencies identified as potential targets in the attacks - which have been attributed to a loose collection of hackers known as ‘Anonymous' - had been "briefed in advance and were provided with suggested mitigation strategies".

It remained unclear how far in advance the Government had known of the attack.

The attack has been condemned on almost all fronts.

Moderators of the Why We Protest online activism forum, added their voice overnight.

"We don't like the censorship from Australia, but we don't condone the ddos attack from other portions of anonymous," the post read.

Electronic Frontiers Australia "naturally" condemned the attacks.

"Not only are they illegal, but they damage the cause by playing to stereotypes of filter opponents as juveniles motivated by a desire to keep the Internet safe for porn," the EFA said.

"It's true that the censorship plan has been thrust on the Australian public without consultation, research or a coherent policy objective.

"But this campaign just serves for Anonymous members to get a little revenge. It certainly won't persuade anyone; rather, it will hurt the anti-filtering campaign."

Stop Internet Censorship co-founder Nicholas Perkins agreed: "It would be much more helpful for these people to put their efforts behind legitimate action to stop this ineffective and inefficient attempt at censorship by the Australian Government."

But not everyone was critical. A Facebook page that sought support for the attacks had 91 members at the time of publication.

 
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Comments: 8
at least these people are doing something about it unlike the efa
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by berty bassettFeb 11, 2010 4:38 PM
This is not about porn. This is not about cheap internet vices. This is not about juvenile revenge. This is about freedom of information. This is about standing up to blatant corruption pushed onto a society too weak and apathetic to wake up and realize that what they take for granted is about to be snatched away and transformed into a distant memory of from the past. The Australian government will not listen to reason. It will not listen to legitimate protest. It refuses to acknowledge that it does not have the right to control something as powerful and ubiquitous as the Internet. It is time they learned.
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by AnonFeb 11, 2010 5:04 PM
no one seems to understand the point behind the attacks. the point being that we are doing to the goverment what they plan on doing to us, denying access to sites deemed unwanted. and raising awerness of the filter as evident of all the news articles about it, as for the porn emails etc all i can say is oh the irony.
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by AvengerFeb 12, 2010 10:11 AM
We sensor what is allowed to be printed in the paper media, we sensor what can appear on broadcast media we sensor what can and can not be shoved into our letter boxes. I would prefer to live in a society that cares about and is prepared to sensor what appears on our broadband media as well. IT IS ONLY CIVILISED TO DO THIS. All those who think that anybody has the right to post anything they like on to our broadband media is only condoning such filth and immorality. Why should my children not be allowed to purchase Playboy from a newsagency but can freely download any porn including child porn? Only the very sick (mentally) would object to such moral censorship. Apart from that is seems that the most use of the internet is made by crack pots who would not be given a seconds notice anywhere else on earth but can post any old bullshit and millions of nut cases will automatically think it is all the truth.... must be true, it was on the net...... Anyone who calls themselves anon is really saying that they condone all sorts of filth and untruths but doesn't have the guts to identify themselves.
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by The BruceFeb 12, 2010 2:00 PM
To The Bruce. The main concerns are this. The RC classification is not defined at all, thus absolutely open to abuse. Something can currently be RC'd if it is "offensive" or "gratuitous" fetish material. These terms are worthless and meaningless thus allowing just about anything at all to be blocked. A site that "promotes" a crime can be RC'd. What does "promote" mean? Could a site giving instructions on cleaning dirty syringes be blocked? You bet it can. Lets punish the victims 'eh? What about the very very detailed websites detailing the procedures for surrogate parenting? This is regulated by law and legal in NSW, but illegal in Victoria. These sites surely fit the "promotion" of crime in Victorian law. Steven Conroy and his wife had to travel to NSW to access surrogacy services to have their child. What happens there? Do we impose a system to block one state accessing another states sites? What about information and discussion on abortion options/alternatives? The RC needs desperately to be clearly defined, or it is a blank check for silencing political/social discussion/debate/information on very important issues. The MANDATORY nature of the filters are also a worry. Should you wish to contact your ISP and have your account placed on a filter, good for you. The ISPs are happy with this. The system is entirely bypassable anyway, so it's a voluntary means of stopping accidental access to some materials, but may help reduce exposure to material considered unwanted in YOUR household. To use your example, the filter is the plastic/paper bag or 'under the counter' nature of buying Playboy these days, it stops accidental exposure, but allows choice. Or is it the magazines existence at all that upsets you?
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by ConcernedFeb 13, 2010 1:06 PM
CORRECTION: To use your example, the filter is the plastic/paper bag or 'under the counter' nature of buying Playboy these days, it stops accidental exposure. However, it also blocks choice, by banning the whole magazine. Or is it the magazines existence at all that upsets you?
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by ConcernedFeb 13, 2010 1:12 PM
Dear Concerned, What exactly is it that you are concerned about? From the general gist of your remarks it seems that you are very concerned about loosing the ability to do something you know is either morally wrong or legally wrong. If you really don't know the meaning of the word 'Promote', then the concise Macquarie dictionary (Australian version) is available for a very low price from just about all good bookshops and most newsagents, it's also available, legally, on line. Any person responsible for promoting a crime should not only have their web site censored but should also be arrested, charged and if found to be guilty, punished. If you honestly think that any smack (heroin) addict that is going to log in to learn how to clean their pick is an innocent victim then you should go and talk to the hundreds of innocent victims who have their homes and businesses robbed every day. I can assure you that all heroin addicts I've come across in the many years that I have travelled the world, and that numbers in the thousands, are victims of their own choosing. Now let's not bullshit about that. Besides, any addict that ducks out to knock off the local 7-11 to score another hit to shoot up in their freshly cleaned syringe is more likely to die sooner rather then later. As for mandatory censorship, film censorship is mandatory, TV censorship is mandatory, Print censorship is mandatory. It has to be, else it would never work. I didn't ring or visit my local newsagent to ask them to put the adult mags into plastic bags, it's the law. Mandatory. But just for the record, the main point to remember here is not legal porn, and personally I'd prefer to see images of naked humans then dead ones murdered in wars or images of blood and guts in the name of art. The most important issue and the one you seem to be afraid to to discuss is child porn, Is that your fear, loosing your ability to view child porn? or is the ability to view immoral guts and gore violence or maybe you want to learn how to make a dirty weapon of mass destruction, maybe you want to post hate or racist material? or find out how to hack a legal web site with a ddos attack. mmmmmm.
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by The BruceFeb 15, 2010 10:21 AM
So Bruce, you're encouraging using heroin as a form of euthenasia? Surely then you should take yourself and SecureComputing offline, by whatever means possible. As for accessing information, it is illegal to access child porn (and so it should be!) but filtering it at the Internet level imposes more problems than good in that child porn still gets accessed by the more commonly used channels while laws allowing the government to ban not-actually-illegal-to-view content comes into place and we subsequently have a Net Nanny. It's important to know how dirty bombs are made and how dDOS attacks are conducted for those that need to be educated in defending against them...take away that information and you're left in a really tragic position, aye :/
SC Magazine - comments icon Posted by Bruce the GooseFeb 15, 2010 3:30 PM
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