Anonymous hacks government sites after Megaupload shutdown

Jan 20, 2012, 2:55 GMT

San Francisco - The hacker group Anonymous said it launched its largest-ever online attack in retaliation for the US government's shutdown of one of the world's largest file-sharing websites, Megaupload, for alleged copyright infringements.

More than 5,000 of its members had collaborated to bring down the websites of the Justice Department, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, the hacker collective said Thursday. All three sites were inaccessible Thursday.

The group said in a message on its Twitter account @YourAnonNews that 5,635 people were using denial-of-service attacks to target the websites, including those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the White House, although both those sites appeared to be working.

The action came after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against seven people connected with Megaupload, which they said earned 175 million dollars while costing copyright holders more than 500 million dollars in lost revenue.

Megaupload founder, Kim Dotcom, whose real name is Kim Schmitz, was among four of the accused arrested Friday in New Zealand.

Megaupload users could upload music, movies, television programme and digital books, a large part of which were illegally copied, US authorities charged.

The site claims it serves legitimate users by allowing them to upload files that are too large to be transferred via email and can be streamed or downloaded by others. The site allegedly paid users to upload popular movies and other content and charged other users for accessing the content via fast download speeds.

'This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime,' the Justice Department said.

The announcement came a day after prominent websites such as Google and Wikipedia took part in an online blackout to protest proposed US anti-piracy bills that they said would severely curtail internet freedom.

Megaupload is based in Hong Kong, but it has servers in the United States, giving US authorities jurisdiction in the case.

Those arrested outside Auckland appeared in court Friday and were remanded into custody until another bail hearing Monday.

US authorities identified them as Dotcom, 37, a resident of New Zealand and Hong Kong; co-founder and chief technical officer Mathias Ortmann, 40, of Germany; chief marketing officer Finn Batato, 38, also of Germany; and chief programmer Bram van der Kolk, 29, of the Netherlands.

The other people charged and who remained at large are a German, Slovakian and Estonian.

Dotcom's attorney initially opposed the appearance of cameras in court, but Dotcom said he didn't mind photos or video 'because we have nothing to hide,' Fairfax Media reported.

They were charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiring to commit copyright infringement and conspiring to commit money laundering. They each face a maximum of 55 years in jail if extradited and convicted in the US.

About 50 million dollars in Megaupload assets were seized, US authorities said. In New Zealand, they included a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe, other cars and paintings.

Detective Inspector Grant Wormald said in New Zealand that the arrests were the result of several months of coordination with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department.

Friday's raid was centred on a mansion Dotcom rents in Coatesville, north of Auckland. His application to purchase the property was declined by New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office because he did not meet the 'good character' test.

His application for residency, however, was approved last year after he invested 10 million New Zealand dollars (8 million US dollars) in government bonds and made a donation to the Christchurch earthquake fund.

At the time, Dotcom admitted two convictions, one for hacking and another for insider trading.