At the time of writing (8:20pm AEDT) aph.gov.au isn’t completely down (that is, with a down message) but in our testing hasn’t loaded after 15 minutes.

The publicity during the day across the Australian and International media would have appeared to increased support for the raid, with more participants adding to the DDoS attack against key Australian Government websites. Notably there are significantly more participants in the raid chat room this evening than several hours after the raid (as we reported at 12 noon AEDT.)

Earlier in the day there were stories within the Operation Titstorm IRC channel that fax machines at Parliament House in Canberra may have been taken offline. We are currently trying to confirm this with multiple sources.

There is some suggestion that the raid activities could go on for days, at least according to participants. How long though isn’t clear at this stage.

We will continue to keep an eye on things and report back with the latest when available.

Per the last post, Editors Note to News Corp: the last time I wrote about a raid like this, you published defamatory stories suggesting this site was behind it; so just to be clear here: this is called reporting with some fact checking, something your organization is incapable of at the best of times. Better still, the best you guys could put together today was the Reuters feed. Lazy…so very very lazy.

Anonymous has targeted the Australian Government today in a co-ordinated protest raid against Australia’s ban on small breasts and proposed introduction of Internet censorship.

The raid started at 8am AEDT (1pm US PST) and involves denial of service attacks against key government sites, spam, black faxes and prank phone calls.

According to The Age, several sites were taken offline this morning as part of the attacks, including aph.gov.au and the website of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

At the time of writing (noon AEDT), Operation Titstorm remains ongoing, with Anonymous members continuing to target aph.gov.au, although aph.gov.au remains online. According to their live IRC chat, the attack may have started to wane due to a lack of numbers.

While I can never condone illegal activities like this, I remain sympathetic to their overall goal of highlighting the proposed introduction of totalitarian censorship in Australia.

Update at 12:07pm AEDT: aph.gov.au still up, but very slow in loading, at least from Melbourne over an ADSL 2+ connection.

Editors Note to News Corp: the last time I wrote about a raid like this, you published defamatory stories suggesting this site was behind it; so just to be clear here: this is called reporting with some basic fact checking, something your organization is incapable of at the best of times.

In two minutes from when I type this, Anonymous is declaring war on the Australian Government over its decision to implement Draconian internet censorship. We’re tracking the attack blow by blow, without taking part.

Tick tick tick.

Update: 7pm: and so it begins.

7:05pm (AEST), Ministers page is slow to load, but still up

7:10pm ACMA still up, but slow. The DoS isn’t working, least on the Australian end.

7:11pm weve confirmed on site (via a source) that the sites due to be attacked have been taken down from the coordination page, possibly before the raid.

7:15pm: Conroy’s pages are all up. The raid looks like it might fail.

7:18pm pm.gov.au DOWN!

7:21pm Kevin Rudd’s page is down completely. Strike one to Anonymous

7:25pm Kevin Rudd is back up.

7:27pm either Anonymous failed, or the Australian Government over prepared. Sadly the raid failed because the target sites remain up.

7:28: that’s it for our live coverage, Anonymous had failed today. They’ll learn though from this, and be more powerful next time.

Update Feb 2010: This post details the 2009 Anonymous attack. If you’re looking for details of the Feb 2010 attack, see:
Anonymous Targets Australian Gov. Over Censorship In Operation Titstorm
and
12 Hours Later, The Anonymous Campaign Against The Australian Government Continues

Original post:
Anonymous is planning to launch an attack on Australian Government websites to draw attention to Australia’s proposed draconian internet censorship laws.

The DoS attacks are due to begin at 7pm Australian Eastern Time (2am US PDT) Wednesday and will target the websites of The Department of Broadband, Communications & the Digital Economy (DBCDE), Minister for DBCDE Stephen Conroy, and the website of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA.)

In a message attached to the raid information posted to the “Operation Didgeridie” page on Insurgen.info, those behind the attacks start by noting that “Australia’s internet future is at stake. Kevin Rudd is attempting to execute a plan in which every part of Australia’s internet will be censored; even though you may not care about Australia, the world (i.e. USA and others) will eventually follow suit until free information ceases to exist.”

In a section titled “Decleration of War,” Anonymous writes

On the morning of September the 9th, the Government of Australia, pursuing its course of internet censorship, have shown to us that they have no response nor intend to provide one concerning their plan. The long-known and the long-expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to belittle and undermine the freedom of the internet are now moving towards their final goals. Never before has there been a greater challenge to freedom of information, liberty and civilization. Delay invites great danger. Rapid and united effort by all of the peoples of the world who are determined to remain free will ensure a world victory of the forces of justice and of righteousness over the covert powers of censorship and of oppression. Australia is not alone in this regard: countless governments from across the world can also be exposed as fascists and dictators in this regard. Therefore a state of war between Anonymous and the Australian Government, and between Anonymous and all other governments which find themselves so inclined to impose censorship upon the internet, will be recognized.

I legally can’t say I’m in favor of what Anonymous is doing here, and I won’t be participating in the raid, however there will be many who support any effort to highlight the Australian Government’s attempt to introduce Chinese style censorship in a country that is suppose to be democratic and free.

The means used here are illegal, but likewise so should any attempt to censor free speech in Australia be as well; Anonymous are no more criminals morally than the Rudd Government and Stephen Conroy are, and I wouldn’t be the only person to suggest that Rudd and Conroy are the bigger criminals in this case.

More info on the raid when we have it.

Like Hansel and Gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs, we all leave a trail of personal information as we navigate the internet.

Your friend sent you a birthday drink! A post about taxes in your hamlet, another about your toddler’s eating habits, a flight or hotel reservation, your Netflix queue… I think every internet user has a bit of a creeping bit of nervousness about what the web collective “knows” about their lives.

Ars Technica has an interesting post on this very subject today, summed up in a slightly jarring quote here:

“For almost every person on earth, there is at least one fact about them stored in a computer database that an adversary could use to blackmail, discriminate against, harass, or steal the identity of him or her. I mean more than mere embarrassment or inconvenience; I mean legally cognizable harm. Perhaps it is a fact about past conduct, health, or family shame. For almost every one of us, then, we can assume a hypothetical ‘database of ruin,’ the one containing this fact but until now splintered across dozens of databases on computers around the world, and thus disconnected from our identity. Reidentification has formed the database of ruin and given access to it to our worst enemies.”

Luckily for all of us, we’re Joe Average. The majority of us will never run for office or be in the headlines, but woe betide those of us who do. Google knows who you are, and it doesn’t keep secrets. Everyone laughed at Caribou Barbie Sarah Palin when some enterprising /b/tards youths hacked her e-mail account. But how secure are your security questions?

We all think we’re careful, not spilling an awful lot in public space and hey, my Facebook profile is set to private! (But as the ACLU pointed out not too long ago, our random FB tidbits also leak out through the profiles of our friends, of which I have over 150. I haven’t even met 150 people, in my life.) The linked Ars Technica article points out that even the benign stuff is not necessarily benign, when combined with other data that’s readily available. For instance, 87% of Americans are identifiable by birth date, zip code, and gender alone. How many places on the internet is that information readily available about you?

Perhaps the most worrying part is that information leakage seems to be trending toward being perpetuated forward but becoming relevant backwards. Let me explain with another anecdote from the article. In the mid-90s, a grad student in Massachusetts took an admittedly dopey initiative to study “anonymized” medical records data for all state employees to try to identify one. She was quickly successful in finding and delivering the Governor’s personal data to him:

Only six people in Cambridge shared his birth date, only three of them men, and of them, only he lived in his ZIP code. In a theatrical flourish, Dr. Sweeney sent the Governor’s health records (which included diagnoses and prescriptions) to his office.

So while you may be anonymous for now, bear in mind that almost unlike the fairly recent past, most of the information you release is leaving a trail. Could a forum post made in haste about a chronic cough affect your health coverage in 15 years? Could an old Netflix queue be used against you in court?

The “Church” of Scientology has called upon the Australian Government to censor the internet and media locally in direct response to protests from Anonymous.

In a long, rambling submission made to the Australian Human Rights Commission made earlier this year, the Church dedicates two and half pages of its six page submission to attacking Anonymous, calling Anonymous among other things “a hate group” of “cyberterrorists” that is engaged in a “malicious campaign of hate” that is “an anathema to democracy.”

The submission plays the we do nothing wrong card, stating:

In Australia Anonymous have mounted a sustained campaign of misinformation against the Church. As we are a minority religion with the vast majority of the population unaware of our true beliefs and humanitarian programs, their campaign has no justifiable purpose and violates the Church of Scientology’s and parishioners rights to human dignity and religious freedom under the Constitution.

Whether you’re sympathetic to the cause of Anonymous or not, what comes next in the submission is truly disturbing: Scientolgy wants the Internet and media in Australia censored to prevent any negative stories being told about the church, and more, including:

- Banning the use of domain name registration anonymity tools such as WhoisGuard by sites who talk about the church
- The introduction of criminal sanctions for “vilification of religion,” including jail time for “serious religious vilification.”
- The prohibition of concealing ones indenty with a mask by “people engaged in campaigns of harassment and vilification against religions” (which they specifically mean Guy Fawkes masks.)

The section on the media is staggering in what it asks: “Restriction on Religious Misinformation and Misrepresentation known or reasonably known to be untruthful, in the Media.” The section specifically names Australian Current Affairs Show “Today Tonight”

It is recommended that a law be enacted to prevent the dissemination of antireligious propaganda in the media, which is based on unfounded hearsay and either known or reasonably known to be untruthful. Such dissemination shall be the subject of a civil penalty provision in favour of the defamed Church, and/or its individual parishioners if they are individually named or otherwise identified.

Scientology doesn’t stop at censorship though, and finishes off by calling for a Bill of Rights in the Australian Constitution which prevents the Federal Government “from making any law, which ‘directly, indirectly or incidentally’ prohibits the free exercise of religion to the extent of such prohibition.

The full submission as follows, and details on the next round of anti-Scientology protests are listed on www.whyweprotest.net

Sub 1931

(spotted on Slashdot)

People across the web gleefully anticipated the telecommunications giant getting its ass handed to it for censoring /b/. AT&T quickly backed down, but not after letting us all know they were censoring sites for the hell of it. At the time of the incident, 40-60 million Americans were prevented from accessing parts of the site.

But is there anyone who could take on 4chan fearlessly? (NSFW language.)

[Image: XKCD]

Hey man, this is Bart Simpson, there’s aliens flying DC-9s into volcanoes. Give me all your money.

OK, so it doesn’t go exactly like that, but the voice of Bart Simpson Nancy Cartwright is heading a robo-call campaign for Scientology, delivered in Bart’s voice.

Says Bart: “I’m now auditing on New OTVII…I’ll share my many wins…”It’s gonna be a blast, man!

Here’s Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson promoting Scientology.

(via)

A member of Anonymous (the name applied to and used by forum users and internet activists, Anonymous is not a group as such) has raided two Scientology offices in New York, while covered in pubic hair and nail clippings.

The stunt, naturally filmed, shows a raider covering himself in vaseline and applying the pubic hair and nail clippings before the raid, and the raid itself. Walking shirtless while covered in pubic hair in New York in the middle of winter though may be more on the side of insane than brave.

The raider was arrested Wednesday and charged with burglary, criminal mischief and aggravated harassment as a hate crime.

Here’s the Anonymous New York Scientology raid clip, complete with contextual singing.

(via NY Daily News)

According to Wikileaks, which as posted proof of the attack, the hack came in retaliation for remarks O’Reilly made condemning the attack on Palin’s Yahoo email account. O’Reilly said among other things

“I’m not going to mention the website that posted this, but it’s one of those despicable, slimy, scummy websites…Everybody knows where this stuff is, OK, and they know the people who run the website, so why can’t they go there tonight to the guy’s house who runs it, put him in cuffs and take him down and book him?”

Screenshots on Wikileaks show the admin interface from O’Reilly’s site, including including names, email addresses, passwords, and home town details of 20 subscribers of the website. The Register reports that details of 205 subscribers were intercepted, according to the company that maintains the O’Reilly website.