denial of service - The Art of the Prank

High School Pals Targeted In FBI Hacktivist Probe
The Smoking Gun
August 10, 2011

Three teens eyed in “Anonymous” attack on Koch sites

A trio of high school buddies are among the targets of on ongoing FBI probe into an online “Anonymous” assault carried out earlier this year against web sites of Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, the influential Republican benefactors, The Smoking Gun has learned.

In simultaneous raids last month, federal agents searched the Long Island homes of three teenagers who have excelled academically at Bellport High School on Long Island”s South Shore. Agents removed an assortment of computer equipment from the respective homes in connection with the criminal investigation being run from the FBI”s Kansas City field office (Koch Industries is headquartered in Wichita).

As TSG reported last month, the FBI is probing a coordinated series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Koch Industries web sites in February and March. The assault–organized by the so-called hacktivist group “Anonymous”–flooded several Koch Industries web sites with so many requests that it left the sites unavailable for legitimate visitors. Continue reading “Anonymous No More?”

Inside the Anonymous Army of ‘Hacktivist’ Attackers
by Cassell Bryan-Low and Siobhan Gorman
Wall Street Journal
June 24, 2011

Hoogezand-Sappemeer, Netherlands””In this sleepy Dutch town last December, police burst into the bedroom of 19-year-old Martijn Gonlag as he hurriedly pulled on jeans over his boxer shorts. He was hauled away on suspicion of taking part in cyber attacks by the online group calling itself Anonymous.

Mr. Gonlag admits taking part in several attacks on websites, but he recently had a change of heart as some hackers adopted increasingly aggressive tactics.

“People are starting to grow tired of” the hackers, he said in an interview. “People are also starting to realize that Anonymous is a loose cannon.”

Now he appears to be a target himself. A chat room he hosts faces frequent hack attacks, he says.
Mr. Gonlag’s role reversal provides a glimpse of the unruly hunt-or-be-hunted world underpinning a string of online attacks against major companies and government bodies””incidents that have sparked a digital manhunt by law-enforcement agencies in several countries.

What once was just righteous rabble-rousing by Anonymous in the name of Internet freedom has mutated into more menacing attacks, including by a splinter group of Anonymous called LulzSec, which is alleged to have moved beyond paralyzing websites to breaking in to steal data. Continue reading “Anonymous Hacktivism”