RIP Megaupload. You will be missed.

Man, you do not want to mess with Anonymous these days.  The collective of hackers or whatever you want to call them seems to be growing more and more powerful as a force for justice and freedom on the Internet.  For example, the Department of Justice shut down file-sharing website Megaupload and drew the ire of Anonymous again.  Anonymous not only knocked offline the DoJ website, they also struck out at the MPAA, the RIAA, Universal Music Group, the US Copyright Office, EMI, HADOPI (the French RIAA), and even the FBI website.  Here’s a list of their successfully downed targets.

It’s a staggering amount of sites taken down in one night, and some sources are calling the Anonymous response the largest collection of DDoS attacks ever.  There were over 5600 DDoS attacks going on at once last night, each one organized by a different user.  This dwarfs previous organized actions by the group, including the attack on Amazon and Operation Payback (the Wikileaks revenge).

Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation came to the defense of Kim Dotcom and other Megaupload employees that got arrested in the sweep:  “This kind of application of international criminal procedures to Internet policy issues sets a terrifying precedent.  If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?  The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay.  If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue.  We have some good ideas.  Please get in touch.”

Yeah, good luck with that.

Tags: DOJ, Department of Justice, Anonymous, Megaupload, Mega Upload, Department of Justice shuts down filesharing website Megaupload, Megaupload shut down, MPAA, EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, DDoS attacks organized by Anonymous, Kim Dotcom, New Zealand

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