Hacked: Anonymous Takes Down Hundreds of Chinese Web Sites

Activist cyber-warfare group Anonymous has hacked hundreds of Chinese websites, many belonging to the Chinese government, officials say.

A number of the government sites were still not working as of today. Many of the hacked sites had messages from the activist group in both Chinese and English, stating "Chinese people: The government controls the Internet in your country and strives to filter what it considers a threat to it. Be careful."

Some of the sites have also had their administrative accounts, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses hacked and posted publicly for the entire world to see. One site claims that almost 500 Chinese sites were hacked, making it the largest cyber-attack in Chinese history.

A message on the Pastebin site contains the following information regarding the reasons behind the Chinese attacks:


Hello, we are Anonymous.
All these years the Chinese Government has subjected their people to unfair laws and unhealthy processes.
People, each of you suffers from tyranny of that regime.
Fight for justice, fight for freedom, fight for democracy!

The attack follows after several days of threats and salvos launched by Anonymous via their twitter feed.

Cyber World War III: Anonymous Attacks Federal Websites in Retaliation for Megaupload Closing

The hacker group known as Anonymous declared Cyber World War yesterday, attacking a myriad of websites in response to the closing of online file sharing website Megaupload.com in a shocking anti-piracy clamp-down, obviously in response to the public's growing concern over the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Four of Megaupload's operators were arrested yesterday and the site was promptly taken offline. Almost immediately, members of Anonymous began to openly plot an organized attack to shut down sites yesterday evening, targeting recording industry sites BMI, RIAA and Universal Music, which are all three still offline as of early this morning.

They also targeted US Department of Justice as well as the CIA and FBI sites, knocking them offline for several hours yesterday. These sites are currently back up and running.

The hacker collective announced its ominous attentions on Thursday."We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. Lulz," the group said in a statement posted late Thursday on an associated Twitter account. "The FBI didn't think they would get away with this did they? They should have expected us."

Many people believe the shutdown of Megaupload was the first salvo in a planned federal operation to limit Internet freedoms within the United States. Popular website Wikipedia shut-down for a 24-hour period on Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act currently under consideration in Congress, with thousands of other sites joining the protest. The following day, a large number of Congress members decided not to support the act after the loud and angry public outcry.