Police arrest five over Anonymous WikiLeaks attacks

Five people have been arrested in conjunction with an alleged Anonymous DDoS attack on websites including that of MasterCard. Photograph: Jonathan Bainbridge/Reuters

Five people in custody on suspicion of crippling the websites of MasterCard, Visa and PayPal

Five people were arrested yesterday in connection with a spate of online attacks last month in support of WikiLeaks.

Police said the five males, aged 15, 16, 19, 20 and 26, were arrested in a series of raids at 7am in the West Midlands, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey and London. All five are being held in custody at local police stations.

The five were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the group of "hacktivists" known as Anonymous, who temporarily crippled the websites of MasterCard, Visa and PayPal after those companies cut off financial services to WikiLeaks. The attacks followed the whistleblowing site's release of US diplomatic cables.

The distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks, which bring down sites by bombarding them with repeated requests to load webpages, are illegal in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act and carry a maximum fine of £5,000.

The arrests were co-ordinated by the Metropolitan police in conjunction with other UK forces and international agencies. "They are part of an ongoing investigation into Anonymous which began last year following criminal allegations of DDoS attacks by the group against several companies," Scotland Yard said. "This investigation is being carried out in conjunction with international law enforcement agencies in Europe and the US."

Anonymous leapt to the support of WikiLeaks after Amazon and other companies terminated business links with the site. The 1,000-strong group of activists launched what they called Operation Payback, vowing to give perceived anti-WikiLeaks companies a "black eye".

A statement purporting to be from Anonymous released last night warned the government that it was making a "sad mistake" in arresting the five men, and that the group considered it a "serious declaration of war".

"You can easily arrest individuals, but you cannot arrest an ideology. We are united by a common objective and we can and will cross any borders to achieve that," the statement said. "So our advice to you, the UK government, is to take this statement as a serious warning from the citizens of the world. We will not rest until our fellow anon protesters have been released."

More recently, the group has turned its attention to supporting the political uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, temporarily disabling access to 10 Tunisian and four Egyptian government websites.

Anonymous says the cyber attacks are in retaliation for censorship in both countries. Facebook, Twitter and other sites have been routinely blocked by the authorities in Tunisia and Egypt.

Ireland's main opposition party's website was also hacked into this month, with Anonymous claiming responsibility for the attack, which compromised up to 2,000 people's personal details. Authorities across Europe signalled an intention to identify those behind the attacks, the majority of which are traceable by their internet protocol addresses that connect each device to the internet.

The more sophisticated hacktivists use technology that makes their connection anonymous on the internet, so authorities and other internet users cannot see who is behind the computer. But most of those involved in the Anonymous attacks are understood to be "average internet citizens", whose location can be discovered through the IP address.

Source: Police arrest five over Anonymous WikiLeaks attacks


===============================

Anonymous

And yet, just as we promised, We, Anonymous, the people, are still here.  Many of us may fall, but that is nothing more than a price we promise to pay when and if necessary.  We are many, We are Legion and WE WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!

We Are Anonymous!

We Are Legion!

We Do Not Forgive, We Do Not Forget;

EXPECT US!!!