Hacking Backlash As Top 'Piracy' Site Shut Down

Anarchic freedom of speech campaigners from the "Anonymous" movement have launched what could be the biggest attack ever on US government websites and European targets.

Sites run by the FBI, the Department of Justice, the White House and several music industry websites were subjected to a wave of spam known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

The "hactivist" assault came after the closure of the Megaupload family of sites and the arrest of its owners for alleged internet piracy of movies and music.

Anonymous also targeted the Motion Picture Association of America , the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation, France's copyright watchdog HADOPI, the US Copyright Office, music firm BMI and the Warner Music Group.

Most of the sites were crashed by a tsunami of attacks by so-called Zombie computers - devices hijacked without the owners' knowledge which are then used to send a relentless flood of data into targeted websites.

Anonymous Tweeted: "We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites...The FBI didn't think they would get away with this did they? They should have expected us."

They have used new software requiring supporters or unwitting victims to simply click on a website to join the charge. Previous DDoS attacks needed programmes called Low Orbit Ion Cannons.

The action came after Megaupload's owner Kim Dotcom and three of his employees were arrested in New Zealand for what the US Justice Department (DoJ) alleges was a copyright infringement racketerering conspiracy.

The group are accused of facilitating millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content, costing copyright holders at least $500m (£320m) in lost revenue and allegedly making $175m (£113m) in "criminal proceeds".

Two other German citizens and one Dutch citizen were also arrested and three other suspects - another German, a Slovakian and an Estonian - remain at large.

Police have seized assets worth $50m (£32m), including guns, artwork, luxury cars and $8m in cash. Officials said one of the cars included a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe worth more than $400,000 (£260m).

The business was run by Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, 37, a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand, the DoJ said.

He founded Megaupload Limited and is the director and sole shareholder of Vestor Limited, which has been used to hold his ownership interests in the Mega-affiliated sites.

Supporters of the suspects insist they are victims of an attack on free speech, most "dangerously" reflected in the Stop Piracy Online Act (SOPA) in the US, which could undermine the whole nature of the internet.

Wikipedia blacked out its site on Thursday in protest over SOPA , which it claims could be used to impose world wide censorship on the internet.

On Friday Graham Cluley, an internet security expert at Sophos, posted warnings on Twitter to tell people not to click on links to websites Tweeted by Anonymous because they take the user to a site which will automatically launch an attack.

"Don't forget, denial-of-service attacks are illegal. If you participate in such an attack you could find yourself receiving a lengthy jail sentences," he wrote.

Dotcom, a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand and a dual citizen of Finland, is reputed to have earned £27m last year alone.

Although Megaupload is based in Hong Kong and Dotcom was living in New Zealand, some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Virginia which was enough for US prosecutors to act.