FBI Arrests 16 Anonymous Members in Hacking Crackdown
July 20th, 2011
We reported earlier this month about the hacking group Anonymous’ attempts to attack the Orlando municipal government over the unfair arrest of a charity group’s leaders for violating a city ordinance. This group of faceless internet bandits make a living off hacking websites and internet databases as a means of avenging those that have been the victims of unjust and pointless laws. This week, however, it seems the FBI has had enough of their shenanigans, and have begun a wide sweep of some of its members in the United States in an effort to end the hacks.
The 16 members of the hacking troupe were arrested in a nationwide sweep, charged with attempting to hack PayPal’s main server. The operation, named “Operation Avenge Assange” by the hackers, was an attempt to shutdown PayPal’s main server as a retaliation for PayPal’s decision to halt all donations from WikiLeaks, the secret-busting website previously run by Julian Assange, who is awaiting trial for a major document dump last fall. More recently, Anonymous has gone after websites owned by embattled media mogul Rupert Murdoch, as a revenge for the phone-hacking scandal committed by Mr. Murdoch’s British tabloid News of the World.
According to sources, the reason for this wide sweep of supposed members of by going after an organized group like Anonymous. The problem with this is that Anonymous is…well…anonymous; nobody knows who they are. It doesn’t make sense then to go after a group of people that could be anybody and everybody, especially when they are keen on remaining secretive and far-flung. Essentially, if one has a computer, one has the ability to hack, and if the FBI really thinks knocking out a loose confederation of hackers is going to end the problem of hacking, they’re going to be in for a rather nasty shock.
