http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/operation-titstorm-hackers-bring-down-government-websites-20100210-nqku.html

As you may know, Australia's gone censorship crazy in recent months with an unpublished list of banned websites for dubious reasons. My motorcycle forum was even threatened with the ban list because of pinup girls in user's galleries.

Today, Anonymous has finally started attacking government websites. The parliament website http://aph.gov.au was down last I checked. (You all should go check too, haha.) They're also supposed to be flooding fax machines and telephone lines with spam.

When they were last in the news, they held real street protests and all that happened was a few got arrested. Are DDOS attacks the only effective form of civil disobedience left?

If this were to really get big(which I doubt at the moment), would Australia just turn off the internet like China and Iran do?

It's strange, I always thought of Australia as the cooler version of the US and Britain. They still have cowboys and drive el-caminos.

Oh, and a related thought. The lunch counter protests in the 60's were mostly free of violence. If they happened today in the US, wouldn't they just call in the SWAT team?

2/9/2010 8:06:19 PM

they more or less called in the swat team then, too, dude

2/9/2010 8:09:07 PM

The "man" phoned in a fake bomb-threat to get the building evacuated, if I remember correctly.

2/9/2010 8:14:31 PM

oops, I was thinking of other protests, where they sprayed the folks down with water hoses and billy-clubbed them half to death.

2/9/2010 8:32:49 PM

I'm watching them on IRC. It seems to take about 1500 users and a few botnets to take down their parliament's website and keep it down. Media interview requests are pouring in to them. I wonder if the US Congress site would go down this easy.

2/9/2010 9:11:08 PM

Still down.

I wonder how many people get v& over this, and if any get v& in the usa for participating.

(v& = vanned = taken prisoner by the feds in an unmarked van...oooh learning this 4chan speak is so exciting!)

[Edited on February 9, 2010 at 10:47 PM. Reason : .]

2/9/2010 10:44:18 PM

Still down.

I'm certain my IP address has been recorded by several governments by now just for observing.

They've picked a powerful enemy here. I expect they're considered a terrorist organization by now.

2/10/2010 12:38:42 AM

don't flatter yourself.

but, interesting story.

2/10/2010 1:09:54 AM

There were about 100 people in the channel when I was there, about 60 or so from the US. It was open discussion about disrupting the government of a western nation. It'd be foolish to think the NSA wasn't listening in, which I assume would be perfectly legal without a warrant since it's international communication.

Speaking of which, the patriot act will be extended this week since it's buried in the jobs bill:
http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/09/reid-jobs-bill-really-a-nice-piece-of-legislation/

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http://aph.gov.au/ and http://australia.gov.au are both still down.

http://immi.gov.au was down for a long time, but is back up now. This was one of their main targets since it's necessary for visas and other tourism related issues. They were hoping to strand people at airports and really cause some $ issues. A dick move, but so is the whole strategy.

[Edited on February 10, 2010 at 1:26 AM. Reason : .]

2/10/2010 1:19:47 AM

Still down.

2/10/2010 10:24:23 AM

I wonder if they just shut down access outside the country.

2/10/2010 11:41:58 AM

Now australia.gov.au is back up but aph.gov.au and immi.gov.au are both down.

Apparently they can only keep down two or three at a time. I think they're past the 24 hour mark now.

2/10/2010 2:47:08 PM

still down

2/10/2010 6:59:55 PM

They've moved on to the australian business for some reason. austrade.gov.au is currently down. They're all registering accounts on asx, I guess to attempt transactions or just bog it down.

There is some internal debate on the matter:

Quote :

" <@pulser> ok i need to make one thing clear real quick <@pulser> we are walking a very fine line right now <@pulser> everyone needs to remember <@pulser> that we arent attacking AUSTRALIA, we are attacking the faggot government trying to censor the internet <@pulser> we want the population of australia on OUR SIDE <@pulser> please, everyone, remember that <+ophelia> media coverage will be most if ASX is down <@fullphaser> ASX would cripple an international Market <@fullphaser> We do NOT need to do that <+ophelia> which would be lulz "

From the start they've told their troops not to use proxies(because of course a DOS would just take down the proxy). So they're all unprotected, especially those within australia, but no response from the government yet.

[Edited on February 10, 2010 at 10:31 PM. Reason : .]

2/10/2010 10:12:41 PM

Their updated manifesto(less talk about small breasts in this one, haha)

Quote :

"To the members of the Australian government, This is a message concerning the recent actions directed at high profile government websites by members of the organization that has become known as anonymous. We are delivering this message to inform you of the reasoning behind these actions, to enlighten you to the mistakes that you have made. Your attempts to construct a government mandated blacklist has been under our watchful eyes for quite some time, but your steps to finalize this plan have finally allowed us to take action. Your choice to ban material under the guise of the good of your people, your notions of right and wrong have forced us to remind you of the purpose behind the internet. We have tolerated your single minded ideology for long enough, and will see to it that you are informed of the issues that are clear to the rest of the internet as a whole. Your choice to make moves against the pornography industry are not the sole focus of our actions, rather this is the final straw in a long chain of choices that inform us that you are preparing to censor your people, that you are no longer acting in their best interest. You are acting in direct opposition to the best interest of your citizens, and we intend to help them realize this, along with the rest of the globe as a message that we will not allow the internet to be censored by any group, organization, or government. We shall free your people from a country that is oppressing their right to access information; we shall be the shining beacon in the darkness that you are casting over the single most powerful tool available to humanity. Your decision to censor ideas in the vein notion of protection, are only serving to harm the complete freedom of information that is present. As such, until you have acknowledged your failures to your people, we will continue our actions to free them from your attempts to censor information. Knowledge is free. We are anonymous, We are legion, We do not forgive, We do not forget... Expect us."

2/10/2010 10:38:27 PM

You be evil a couple times, and then everyone wants you to be evil for them too.

Quote :

"Google says it will not "voluntarily" comply with the government's request that it censor YouTube videos in accordance with broad "refused classification" (RC) content rules. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google's censorship on behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the company to impose censorship locally. Google warns this would lead to the removal of many politically controversial, but harmless, YouTube clips. University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt, one of Australia's top communications experts, said that to comply with Conroy's request Google "would have to install a filter along the lines of what they actually have in China". As it prepares to introduce legislation within weeks forcing ISPs to block a blacklist of RC websites, the government says it is in talks with Google over blocking the same type of material from YouTube. YouTube's rules already forbid certain videos that would be classified RC, such as sex, violence, bestiality and child pornography. But the RC classification extends further to more controversial content such as information on euthanasia, material about safer drug use and material on how to commit more minor crimes such as painting graffiti. Google said all of these topics were featured in videos on YouTube and it refused to censor these voluntarily. It said exposing these topics to public debate was vital for democracy. In an interview with the ABC's Hungry Beast, which aired last night, Conroy said applying ISP filters to high-traffic sites such as YouTube would slow down the internet, "so we're currently in discussions with Google about ... how we can work this through". "What we're saying is, well in Australia, these are our laws and we'd like you to apply our laws," Conroy said..."

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-baulks-at-conroys-call-to-censor-youtube-20100211-ntm0.html

2/11/2010 12:03:05 AM

http://images.4chan.org/b/src/1265864657931.png

2/11/2010 12:21:07 AM

Still down.

Quote :

"Australia cyber attacks could last 'months': hackers (AFP) – 7 hours ago SYDNEY — A shadowy group of cyber-activists who succeeded Thursday in jamming key Australian government websites for a second consecutive day warned they could shut down the sites for months. The group, Anonymous, blocked the main government website http://www.australia.gov.au and http://www.aph.gov.au, the Australian parliament's homepage, for a second day running in protest over controversial plans to filter the Internet. Codenamed "Operation: Titstorm", the hacking campaign involves hundreds of people from around the world and used a technique called Distributed Denial of Service to jam web traffic, one of the protesters said. "It is effectively a lot of computers around the world all trying to access the same sites all at once making so that no one can access them," the activist, who calls himself Coldblood, told AFP. "I believe that the government websites will remain down as long as we can keep them down. That could be anywhere from a few hours to a few months at the most," he added. Coldblood, who would reveal only that he was based in Europe, said the campaign would last "as long as the individuals that make up Anonymous decide that action needs to be taken to protect the freedom of the internet." Anonymous has previously campaigned against the Church of Scientology and helped get information out of Iran during last year's election unrest. Coldblood said its members wished to "keep the internet a place that is open and available to everyone without censorship". "Titstorm" follows Australia's announcement in December that it plans to introduce a sweeping national Internet filter blocking access to sites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse. Close to 1,000 people from across the globe were believed to be involved in the campaign, which Coldblood said "allows us to impact something as large as a government with a handful of people. "Going through the official channels you just get pushed aside, this way they have to listen," he said. "I believe it won't completely get the government to remove the filter they are planning on, but as long as something changes -- for example the list (of banned sites) being made public -- we will have succeeded anyway." Canberra has condemned the cyber-attacks as irresponsible and not a legitimate form of political protest against the filter, which is opposed by Internet groups and the pornography industry. Search engine Google has said it could block harmless material on areas of legitimate debate such as euthanasia, sexuality and terrorism."

Interestingly, the parliament website has been down continuously, but they can only bring down http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/ temporarily. It's the executive agency responsible for the censor and they must have some incredible servers.

[Edited on February 11, 2010 at 11:07 AM. Reason : continually was the wrong word]

2/11/2010 11:01:18 AM

Parliament, immigration/visa and broadband ministry sites all down at the moment.

2/11/2010 4:26:07 PM

Quote :

"If they happened today in the US, wouldn't they just call in the SWAT team?"

They'd tazer the hell out of them, assault them during the arrest process, and then charge them with crimes that have intentionally vague wording and carry ridiculously long sentences.

2/11/2010 4:45:35 PM

That part is coming up here too. I'm watching their irc chat...they're starting to organize real life protests. Their number has dropped down to a couple hundred, but these seem to actually know what they're doing. They're kicking around plans for their next step, but it looks like they're going to try to actually shut down the government's email servers now instead of just spamming them...they're hoping to get government employees sent home early tomorrow.

They've also started to do some real hacking. Nothing major yet, just posting their manifesto video on lower government webpages for things like city libraries. They argue about not wanting to piss off average australians but they want them to take notice so they haven't reached agreement yet.


[Edited on February 11, 2010 at 5:03 PM. Reason : .]

2/11/2010 4:59:28 PM

Still ongoing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown/anonymous-australia-and-t_b_457776.html

Quote :

"Ten years ago it would have been infeasible for tens of thousands of individuals with no physical connection or central leadership to conceive, announce, and implement a massive act of civil disobedience against a significant Western power, crippling a portion of its online infrastructure in the process - and to do all of this in a matter of days, and without anyone involved having to contend with the tear-gas-and-horseback response with which states have traditionally been in the habit of contending with mass action. But such a thing as this is happening today, and having been done once will almost certainly be done again - repeatedly, increasingly, and with potentially significant consequences for the nation-state and implications regarding that which will perhaps someday come to replace it."

[Edited on February 12, 2010 at 11:07 AM. Reason : .]

2/12/2010 11:05:40 AM

the funny thing is they are running this browser script that sends something like an f5 refresh at some crazy rate. so they have people all over the world just running dozens of open tabs at a time
attacking the specified sites.

the Australian gov. made some remark that they cant keep it up forever and most of those /b tards have taken that as a challenge.

i do find it funny that moot removed the poster / wonder if the thread is still active on 4chan?
lol ... it is

[Edited on February 12, 2010 at 12:46 PM. Reason : http://boards.4chan.org/b/res/196623122]

2/12/2010 12:42:44 PM

It's interesting, 4chan has been actively banning anyone who mentions this or creates threads about it. They want no part of it. This is the government, man.

In the IRC they were saying things like, "ATTENTION ALL GOVERNMENT AND POLICE SPIES WHO ARE READING THIS. 4CHAN IS OUR CENTRAL BASE OF OPERATIONS. PLEASE DON'T SHUT IT DOWN OR THROW US INTO THE BRIER PATCH!"

2/12/2010 10:15:21 PM