Operation Payback is back

[nsane.forums]

Earlier this week, anti-piracy group BREIN was subjected to a DDoS attack which took their website offline. BREIN boss Tim Kuik said he believed that supporters of the now defunct Usenet portal FTD were behind the attack.

Just hours later, Anonymous – the infamous loose-knit collective of Internet activists – announced they would revive Operation Payback, the series of actions that took down many anti-piracy related websites in the latter part of 2010.

One of their first targets was announced as BREIN and sure enough yesterday a DDoS attack took down the Dutch group's website yet again. It's not known if the attack earlier this week was Anonymous-linked, but there's little doubt that the overwhelming traffic experienced by BREIN yesterday was.

News site NU.nl is now reporting that BREIN boss Tim Kuik has told them that information will be gathered on the attackers and they will be reported to the authorities.

In fairness, Kuik probably has little option but, as framed by Stephen Colbert this week, if he wants to stick a part of his male anatomy into the Anonymous 'hornets nest', that's his business. Just as long as he knows it might sting a bit.

View: Original Article

[DKT27]

:rofl:

Finally. Finally we'll see this man crying. ^_^

[DKT27]

Anonymous resumes Operation Payback with attack on BREIN

Anonymous resumes Operation Payback with attack on BREIN.

Anonymous, while continuing their actions to support protestors in North Africa, the Middle East, and Wisconsin, has resumed their most infamous operation to date - Operation Payback. On Thursday, the mass protest started with a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on the Dutch anti-Piracy organization BREIN.

The attack on BREIN (anti-piracy.nl) started just after 12:00 a.m. on Thursday morning Eastern Standard Time. In a matter of minutes, 10 people using the LOIC software Anonymous is known for, were able to take the organization’s website offline.

From that point, it remained offline, only appearing intermittently around 04:00 EST. At the time this article goes to press, the domain is offline.

BREIN is the Dutch acronym for Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands. It’s also the Dutch word for brain. They have been linked to Hollywood anti-piracy efforts, and were selected by Anonymous for recent actions against a large Warez domain that impacted a legit business in the crossfire.

While targeting a Warez (illegal software) Topsite, BREIN seized several servers from hosting provider WorldStream. Among the equipment seized were servers owned by a legit ISP with no connection to the illegal software domain. According to reports, the ISP owner lost $138,000 USD worth of equipment in the BREIN raid.

TorrentFreak has more information here, including allegations of BREIN installing backdoors on the seized servers and hijacking the ISP owner’s GMail accounts.

In addition to the Warez raid that snared a legit business, Anonymous is also targeting BREIN for Operation Payback’s resurrection because of their involvement with the takedown of 11 Usenet related domains.

While the Usenet domains also included access to illegal software, BREIN’s actions resulted in cutting Usenet connections to legitimate groups, removing their right to communicate in the process. In all, the Usenet raids by BREIN impacted nearly a million people.

Right now, Anonymous is using the DDoS attack on BREIN to build momentum. They plan to stick with smaller targets until support grows. Once that happens, then the sky is the limit for them when it comes to selecting a new target for cyber protest.

“Since early 2011, Anonymous has busied itself with very successful operations which it can be very much proud of. Not only has Anonymous proven that it is a force to be reckoned with, it has grown in strength and diversity, and it continues to gain numbers and attract attention from all over the world,” a statement from Anonymous reads.

“Operation Payback has now begun its "researching" phase, due to some actions taken by some copyright organisations, including "BREIN", who have censored popular sites on the internet over the past couple of weeks. This censorship can't be taken lightly, it is time to avert some attention to them and enable them to [realize] that this kind of censorship will not be tolerated, Anonymous style.”

Operation Payback started as a campaign by Anonymous against the anti-piracy efforts of groups such as the RIAA, MPAA, ACS Law, AiPlex, and AFACT. In addition, the operation has also taken on, and taken out, MasterCard, Visa, the Swiss bank Post Finance, PayPal, and others.

Update:

Five minutes after this story was published, Anonymous started targeting ifpi.org.

From their domain: "IFPI represents the recording industry worldwide, with a membership comprising some 1400 record companies in 66 countries and affiliated industry associations in 45 countries."

View: Original Article

[lister]

Seems like a lot of effort to take down website(s) that are not necessary to the target company's business.

Brein's website doesn't DO anything, has no functionality relating to it's business.

I imagine a few of Anonymous's members getting knicked for this.