When Hacking Changes Politics

How do we protest? We go on the street and shout our demands loudly so that politicians could hear us. We have tried exceedingly and quite ineffectively to find a way to successfully alter politicians minds so that they could serve us and not themselves. Surprisingly, the answer of this quest comes from the hacking communities. The quiet hackers operating from their hidden dark rooms, seem to have found the most effective way of revolting against various government practices.

The new way of protesting seems to bring very good results as already several governments have changed their policies due to the fact that their websites have been brought down or completely taken over by the hackers group “Anonymous”. This name has been echoing quite often in the news lately. And from what we see on the media everyone would agree that Anonymous does not consist of some teenage geeks, but as their actions have shown these are mature people with a mature purpose.
We present the latest most significant victims of the Anonymous hackers. Notice that almost all of them forced various governments and organizations to change their policies and intentions, or in other words – they did the job.

Australian Government Promoting democracy and censorship at the same time: this is a quite familiar formula. Therefore one of the very first attacks of Anonymous was against Internet censorship. The target was the Australian government. The protesters reacted “in order to protect civil rights” after the Australian government announced its plans for ISP-level censorship of the internet. The hacktivists took down the prime minister’s website with a distributed denial-of-service attack. Anonymous also defaced the prime minister’s website, and took down the Australian Parliament House website for three days and also demolished the Department of Communications’ website.
	Zimbabwe Government Censorship is quite a common thing in this South-East African country. However this time Anonymous quickly responded to the attempts of the government to impose a more strict control on the internet, particularly on websites like WikiLeaks. The group of hackers attacked the government website of Zimbabwe and quickly brought it down form the internet.
Bank of America The Bank of America also became a target of Anonymous. The hackers broke into the website and began releasing emails that were obtained from the bank’s stuff. According to the group, the files show evidence of “corruption and fraud”, and are connected to some improper foreclosures. These materials quickly sparked the interest of the authorities and the media.
	Malaysian Government The tentacles of the hacktivists can reach everywhere. Anonymous group also launched attacks on ninety-one websites of the Malaysian government in response to the blocking of websites like Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay within the country. Anonymous labeled the act as censorship of a basic human right to information.
Illegal adult content websites Fighting for justice and trying to make the web more decent members of the Anonymous hacktivist movement also took down more than 40 secret websites containing illegal adult content involving children. The group also published the names of over 1500 people who were visiting those websites; all of them were subsequently arrested. The Anonymous campaign began when members of the hacktivist group found a cache of websites with illegal adult content while browsing a secret website called the Hidden Wiki.
	Muslim Brotherhood Islamic extremists also did not escape the wrath of Anonymous. The hacktivists launched an attack on some websites belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and brought them down for few days. The reason for the attacks was outlined in the statement issued by Anonymous” The Muslim Brotherhood has become a threat to the revolution Egyptians had fought for, some with their lives.”
Operation Blackout In response to the increased recognition of the Stop Online Piracy Act bill, Anonymous decided to take drastic action. It called for emergency action and mass protests. Many sites were blacked out for 24 hours, while others responded to the call in less extreme ways e.g. by posting a black banner at the top of every page that said “Stop SOPA!”. The campaign produce marvelous results, as the bill was not passed in the Senate.
	Nigerian Government Anonymous does not only try to defend the freedom of speech but also fights for the welfare of the people. The hacking group performed “a relentless and devastating assault upon the web assets of the Nigerian government”. This was in protest against the removal of the fuel subsidy. Because of this new policy the price of fuel has skyrocketed, causing extreme hardship for the majority of Nigerians. In response to the government’s decision the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission website was hacked by Anonymous. The normal page was replaced with a false report about the arrest of people involved in the oil sector.
Operation Megaupload In response to the shut down of the file sharing service Megaupload, Anonymous launched “Denial of Service” attacks on the websites of UMG (the company responsible for the lawsuit against Megaupload), the United States Department of Justice, the United States Copyright Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the MPAA, and Warner Brothers Music.
	Hacking FBI and Scotland Yard Anonymous particularly concentrated its attacks towards criminal and investigation agencies because of the Megaupload raids. The hackers published some confident information stolen from the FBI and Scotland Yard websites. The hackers also said that FBI might be curious how Anonymous were able to read their internal communication channels. “We sincerely hope you like your own medicine!” Anonymous added in a comment directed at the FBI.
French Government The hacking collective Anonymous has also defaced a French government website in protest against the international copyright law and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Anonymous carried a wave of attacks against rgpp.gouv.fr, replacing the home page and installing background music.
	European Parliament After sending a warning the internet hacker organization Anonymous has also brought down the European Parliament’s website. This was also done in a protest against the signature of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Parliament spokesman confirmed that there has been a “denial of service” attack on the website and this means “co-ordinated massive access”.
Polish Government After the Poland signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) The anger of Anonymous was unleashed upon the government websites of the country. The launched attacks hit the websites of the Polish parliament, president, and prime minister, leaving them inaccessible to visitors for few days. Anonymous took credit for the hacks via a message on Twitter that said, “Dear Polish government, we will continue to disrupt and interfere with your government official websites. Do not pass ACTA!” Poland backed down and suspended the ratification of ACTA.
	Czech government After putting their signature on ACTA the Czech government have also become a target of the hacktivist group. Anonymous released personal details belonging to ministers and defaced some government web sites. As a result of this Czech Republic is backing away from the treaty.
Neo Nazi websites Anonymous also puts a lot of effort trying to silence and expose those responsible for spreading anti-Semitic and racist hate speech around the web. The hackers associated with the group have taken down and defaced the American Nazi Party website. Anonymous posted the names and addresses of NPD donors as well as their email addresses, email messages and names taken from several American white-supremacist online groups.
	Greek Government Few days ago the computer hacking group Anonymous also launched a cyber-attack on the Greek Ministry of Justice website. The hack was apparently a protest against the Greek government’s signature on the infamous Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. “You have 2 weeks to stop ACTA in Greece otherwhise we will do CYBERWARFARE by defacing 300 sites and all the media and ministries.” – said Anonymous.
Website of the Syrian President The latest news from Anonymous are connected with Syria. The hacker collective released emails from the office of the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Anonymous broke into the Syrian Ministry of Presidential Affairs’ server and accessed the inboxes of 78 members of the staff. The hackers said that this wasn’t too difficult since many people used “12345″ as their password.

Impressive isn’t it. Is Anonymous more powerful that governments? Will the hackers become the new guarding angels of society? Will this be the new activists, fighting for freedom of expression? Quite strange I would admit. But the results show the effectiveness of protests involving cyber-attacks. So, instead of shouting at the neighbor because his dog messed up your lawn again… why don’t you try and hack his wireless network?

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