Yesterday, the hacker group Anonymous hacked and crashed a web server containing a group of child porn websites. In the process, they also obtained a list of almost 1600 people who frequent the sites, and made those people's details available to law agencies.
After warning the server named Freedom Hosting to take down its content, Anonymous took down the sites for about five minutes. An administrator of the sites restored them promptly, but anonymous took down the sites again. They said: "We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting's server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child pornography."
Anonymous are regarded as controversial cyber vigilantes. They have hacked Sony, in protest to Sony's moves against chipping Playstations. They have hacked Visa, Mastercard and Paypal for their lack of support to Wikileaks. A member claimed to plan to take down Facebook on 5 November 2011, but apparently the plan is not widely supported by the group.
Anonymous have been hunted by law agencies for some time now, but famously claim "You can't arrest an idea."
It's great to see they're using their skills for good now.
[Source: PC Magazine]
[Image source: pilipinasatibapa]
