Anonymous Attacks Justice Dept as FBI Shuts Down File-Sharing Site

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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted seven people and two companies which ran the file uploading site Megaupload.com. The site, which billed itself as “the leading online storage and file delivery service,” is now offline.
In the indictment, Megaupload and a company associated with it are accused of making $175 million while simultaneously causing approximately half a billion dollars in copyright infringement. Among the indicted are the site’s founder, Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz), who holds residency in New Zealand and Hong Kong. Employees Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, Julius Bencko, Finn Batato, Sven Echternach, Mathias Ortmann, and Andrus Nomm were also indicted.
New Zealand authorities arrested Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk. Officials said they have not yet captured Bencko, Echternach and Nomm.
According to the indictment, the accused are part of “the Mega Conspiracy, a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale.” They are being charged with participating in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.
Should they be found guilty, the seven accused could find themselves behind bars for a maximum of 20 years.
The indictment and subsequent arrests come only a day after major websites blacked out and rallies were held to protest SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act), two Internet piracy bills currently under debate in the U.S. Congress.
Some 15 minutes after the indictment, the online hacker group Anonymous tweeted from a Sweden-based account that it had retaliated against the DOJ:

Anonymous Sweden @AnonOpsSweden

#OpPayBack Target: DOWN justice.gov - 15 minutes after feds announce arrest of Megaupload 7, #Anonymous strikes #svpol

20 Jan 12

Soon afterwards, justice.gov was inaccessible — and it remains down at time of writing:

The websites of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and Universal Music Group were also experiencing either intense slowdowns or complete failure. Other Anonymous-related Twitter handles took credit:

AnonymousIRC @AnonymousIRC

mpaa.org got attacked by a close-hauled sailing pirate fleet. #Megaupload #StarveTheBeast

20 Jan 12

AnonOps @anonops

universalmusic.com & justice.gov & RIAA.ORG TANGO DOWN #Megaupload Fight for Internet Freedom!

20 Jan 12

The Anonymous group of the online community 4chan took down the MPAA’s website before in a 2010 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
UPDATE: Copyright.gov, the U.S. Copyright Office’s website, is also under siege. It’s loading, but very slowly and without images.
UPDATE: As of 8:18 p.m. ET, justice.gov, copyright.gov and the websites of the MPAA and RIAA are loading, while Universal Music’s site reads “The Site is under maintenance. Please expect it to be back shortly.”

Source : mashable
4.5

If Facebook Won't Stop SOPA, We Can Do It For Them

Update: Here’s the official Facebook event I just created for the censored image posting day on the 18th.  Invite everyone you can.

 
Yesterday,  I wrote a post about the upcoming Reddit blackout in protest of SOPA, and I urged larger sites like Google and Facebook to follow suit, if they are as serious about the killing of the internet censorship bill as they claim to be.
Though the post got a great deal of support, many were quick to point out the realities of such a thing happening. As both companies would stand to lose significant revenue for any sort of shutdown, it’s unlikely a full blackout would ever actually occur, whether its effect might be in their long term best interest or not.
This caused me begin to think about what alternatives to a full-on blackout might be for these sites. Though flipping the off switch would be the best way to get the public’s attention about the bill (who are hugely uninformed about the bill’s existence or its potential effects), I suppose there are alternative options to consider.
Google’s is relatively easy to imagine. Rather than a fun logo celebrating Mark Twain’s birthday or something similarly lighthearted, I think they could devote a large stretch of time to a main page that looks like this:

Simple enough, and though not as attention grabbing as a full blackout, it would definitely increase awareness. I have no sway at Google, but it seems like a relatively easy way to show their opposition to SOPA that would help educate a woefully uninformed public.
Now onto Facebook, which will undoubtedly not go dark as they’re still circling a possible IPO. But it’s a site where we, the users, can actually force people to pay attention to SOPA, should they participate in my little idea here en masse.
I thought about the typical “change your profile picture” maneuver that people use to support things like breast cancer awareness or promote their band’s upcoming concerts, but in the Facebook newsfeed, profile picture changes show up as a very tiny part of the timeline.

Not bad, but microscopic in the grand scheme of the entire newsfeed, considering that twelve peoples’ picture changes are crammed into about 50 pixels of height.
So what does Facebook give priority to? Posted photos. And that’s where my idea comes in.
I recently crafted the image below. If you can make a more official looking one, I implore you to do so and send it to me.

The idea is that you would either A) post the image as a wall photo or better yet B) post an entire ALBUM of this image under a normal title like “2012 Ski Trip!” or “A Crazy New Year’s Eve!”
I would also recommend making the description link for each photo this address, the same one I have in the image:
http://americancensorship.org/

It’s the most concise and clear explanation of the bill I’ve seen. An alternative is this informative video:
http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/
Though it focuses on SOPA’s counterpart PIPA.
By uploading the images as a photo or an album, it would take up much more real estate on the newsfeed.

That’s only one guy, and three photos, yet it takes up more room than twelve people changing their profile pictures.
Imagine if your newsfeed was covered in censored images. All it would take is ten or twelve friends out of hundreds, and it would be inescapable. I would think many people would begin investigating what SOPA was, and I’ve found that once people find out how bad it is, they tend to get passionate about it quickly.
If you’re with me, I would recommend doing this next Wednesday, January 18th during Reddit’s promised blackout (here’s the official event page). If enough internet events protesting SOPA happen in one day, I would think it would have to warrant media coverage, even if the networks are largely in the pockets of SOPA supporters.
I wasn’t responsible for the hundred thousand eyes that landed on my call for Google and Facebook blackouts yesterday, so I leave it to you to spread this post around as much as you can, and help create awareness for a serious issue that most people truly know nothing about.
Thank you, and email me at paultassi@gmail.com or tweet me (@paultassi) with any further ideas.

Source : http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/12/if-facebook-wont-stop-sopa-we-can-do-it-for-them/ (Forbes site)