Anonymous hactivists likely to attack Everything Everywhere

Anonymous hactivists likely to attack Everything Everywhere Hactivist group has already caused problems for Virgin Media and Talk Talk * Dinah Greek * News * Law * 11/05/2012 * * * * pirate-bay ISPs blocking Pirate Bay battle DDOS attacks from Anonymous Orange customers are likely to be the next victims of attacks by hactivists targeting internet service providers (ISPs) that are complying with a High Court ruling forcing them to block The Pirate Bay. Part of the Everything Everywhere group, the ISP told us: "Following a High Court order issued to prevent Orange's fixed broadband customers from accessing The Pirate Bay, we can confirm our fixed broadband customers can no longer access this website. "This is a legal obligation that we must comply with as the Court has found that the site and its users infringe copyright material in the UK. "We'd like to point out that Orange does not monitor its home broadband customers' activities nor will we disclose personal details or any information about our customers to any third party unless legally compelled to do so." Virgin Media, which was the first to implement the legal order, has already suffered nearly a week of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks from Anonymous. Because of this it has been forced to take its site offline repeatedly and the ISP told us it expected the attacks to continue over the weekend and possibly into next week. According to Anonymous it has also forced Talk Talk to periodically take down its site, a fact confirmed to us by the company today. Next in line for attack are likely to be Sky and O2 which will have been given a similar 14-day deadline to Virgin Media's, which ends today. On the @AnonSkill Twitter account the hactivists said "Virginmedia, TalkTalk, BT, expect us. We are @AnonAteam". The Pirate Bay has spoken out against attacks. It said on its Facebook page that even though "it strongly disagrees" with the legal moves to block the site, it "does not encourage" launching DDOS attacks. It urges people not to "fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship." Instead it suggests that people rebel in other ways, such as setting up their own pirate party or writing to their MP; not forgetting to "give your mom a call to tell her you love her". In a statement Talk Talk voiced the anger of the ISPs that feel Anonymous is behaving unfairly. "We can confirm that the Talk Talk website has been targeted by a hacking group. Phone and broadband services are unaffected but DDOS resulted in our website being intermittently unavailable. "We understand that individuals protesting against the recent Court Order compelling ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay took this action. "Talk Talk has always fought against the use of inappropriate measures to tackle internet piracy. For instance, no ISP was more strident in its opposition to the Digital Economy Act than Talk Talk and we take pride in the fact that many of its more draconian provisions did not pass into law due to our stance. "However, we are obliged to obey this Court Order and we are disappointed that we have been targeted." Read more: http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2174138/anonymous-hactivists-attack#ixzz1uv5V5oJK Software, gadgets, magazines and more in our webstore. Click here to see our latest offers.