Hackers connected with the anti-Scientology group Anonymous this morning launched a broad attack on government websites.
They are protesting against forthcoming internet filtering legislation and the perceived censorship in pornography of small-breasted women (who are thought to be under age) and female ejaculation.
Several government sites were down this morning and the hackers have promised to follow up by spamming government offices with pornographic emails, faxes and prank phone calls.
The Attorney-General's department this morning confirmed the attacks and said the Department of Defence Cyber Security Operations Centre was monitoring the situation.
The attacks, organised under the banner "Operation: Titstorm", come five months after hackers connected with the same group briefly brought down the Prime Minister's website. At the time the hackers said they would regroup and launch new attacks.
Flyers distributed to recruit participants for the operation said the denial of service attacks on government servers would begin at 8am today.
The Parliament of Australia website, aph.gov.au, was down for a period this morning, while kevinrudd.com.au was also inaccessible at the time of writing. Access to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy's website was patchy.
It is not clear how many other sites were targeted but it appears a wide range of government servers were flooded with traffic.
The attacks come as the government prepares to introduce its controversial mandatory internet filtering legislation and just after the Australian sex industry claimed porn films were being banned from sale in Australia because they featured small-breasted women and female ejaculation.
The Classification Board confirmed that pornography could be banned if participants simply "appeared" to be under age, while female ejaculation was considered a form of urination, which is banned under content classification guidelines.
In an email sent to media yesterday afternoon foreshadowing the attacks, Anonymous referred to the internet filtering legislation and the perceived pornography censorship.
"No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be 'unwanted'," the email read.
"The Australian government will learn that one does not mess with our porn. No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason."
In the flyer recruiting people for the attacks, Anonymous said the attacks on the websites would be followed by "a shitstorm of porn email, fax spam, black faxes and prank phone calls to government offices (emails/faxes should focus on small-breasted porn, cartoon porn and female ejaculation, the 3 types banned so far)".
A spokesman for the Attorney-General's Department said government agencies identified as potential targets by Anonymous were briefed in advance and provided with suggested "mitigation strategies".
"Australian Parliament House website (www.aph.gov.au) was unavailable this morning for approximately 50 minutes due to a distributed denial of service attack by individuals belonging to the “Anonymous” group. It is now back on line," the spokesman said.
"The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s website has also been experiencing a degraded service.
"The Department of Defence Cyber Security Operations Centre continues to monitor the situation."
Comment is being sought from the offices of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.
Anti-censorship groups in Australia, includingstopinternetcensorship.org and the System Administrators Guild of Australia, have condemned attacks on government websites, saying it hurts their cause.
"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," said Stop Internet Censorship co-founder Nicholas Perkins.
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发表于 2010-2-10 08:42
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