Government sites brought down by anti-internet filtering activists
A group know for its anti-Church of Scientology stance brought down government websites today as part of its protest against the controversial internet filtering laws.
A flyer distributed by Anonymous
Dubbed “Operation Titstorm”, the group called Anonymous targeted sites including the Parliament of Australia website.
A spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Department also confirmed that the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s site has “been experiencing a degraded service”.
It is not clear how many other sites were also affected. The spokesman said that government agency the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) is monitoring the situation.
A spokesman for Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has slammed the attacks as “totally irresponsible”.
The Government welcomes public debate on the merits of ISP filtering, but Denial of Service attacks are not a legitimate form of political statement,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Department added:
The attack was a distributed denial of service attack by individuals belonging to the Anonymous Group. Australian Government agencies identified as potential targets by ‘Anonymous’ were briefed in advance and were provided with suggested mitigation strategies.
The Government continues to monitor the issue and DSD is continuing to work with affected agencies. DBCDE and APH are the only sites which are known to be affected at this time.”
In a move led by Conroy, the government recently signalled it would go ahead with its controversial plans for internet filtering in Australia, despite fears that it will slow down broadband speeds, while others have dubbed the move as internet censorship.
Anonymous is also expected to continue its campaign by spamming government offices with pornographic emails, faxes and prank phone calls.
Hungry Beast’s take on Operation Titstorm:
Previously Conroy had laughed at the likelihood of the group’s attack succeeding after a previous attemopt did not:
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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It’s about time somebody steps up for freedom of speech.
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The Australian people need to take a close look at the proposed policies, and then step up to the cause. The internet “filtering” will be ineffective in stopping any type of illegal activity. Nearly all censored content will be legitimate, legal content; criminals will find their way to get their illegal content despite whatever blockades are in place. This will effectively block legal content for all law-abiding citizens, while not deterring criminals at all. And once the government realizes that they can block out some content, what will keep them from blocking out (with or without telling their citizens) other content that displeases the government for any reason? It’s a case of a corrupted government serving its own needs at the cost of its citizens rights.
Besides, the most effective form of preventing internet crime will always be with the individual, not in gross generalization.
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Parents, just pay attention to your children and what they are doing.
There would then be no need for censorship/filtering/whatever it is called.
Our children are always monitored while accessing the Internet.
I think it’s called, “raising your children?”
We have no problems with them.
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Its not a big step from letting somebody decide what sorts of information we should be able to access to letting people tell us what to think.
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/b/ Anontards are talking about this right now. Keep up to date in their war room….
http://boards.4chan.org/b/
hang around long enough and you can figure out everything they are doing
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We don’t need censorship.
We need a society that knows the difference between right and wrong.
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jesushernandez…………Rules 1 & 2 STFU!
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As much as I think Asher Moses at Fairfax is possibly the best MSM tech journalist in Australia, rabbiting his incorrect “Anonymous = anti-scientology” line doesn’t make it any more right.
Sure, Anonymous targeted Scientology, but to suggest that they are a group, let alone a group that is best know for that shows a fundamental lack of understanding as to who and what Anonymous actually is.
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forget 1 & 2, if you google the opp name you find it fast.
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Ps: the link from 5: JesusHernadez to a certain site (rule 1+2 of the internet so I can’t mention it): under Australian law linking to a site on the blacklist means that your site is RC as well. Congrats Mumbrella, you’re now an RC site.
If that doesn’t highlight the stupidity of the law, nothing ever will.
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For those that don’t know I’ll tell you what we are. Just a huge group of people talking and making jokes on a forum. Some of the jokes are tasteless and some people do post illegal material, everyone on there is anonymous so people say things they wouldn’t normally.
I’m an anon and I don’t agree with all they do, but respect their right to do so.
While being tasteless and crude at times they are normal people. Any one that speaks on behalf of anon is not representing anon as a whole, You can’t there are just too many of us.
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I support this, if you want to censor the internet, so your children don’t have access to adult content, the government already offers the free consorship program.
Maybe instead of trying to control the people, and masking it as “censorship” they can spend half the funds in advertising the censorship disc.
This is just the Rudd Government trying to have more control over a “Free Country”, you promised to fix our Internet Rudd, not take it back another 10 years.
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This isn’t about porn, this is about freedom. Today they want to filter porn. What will they want to filter tomorrow? Criticizing the government? How soon till we’re China?
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Forgive me. I have come to understand what Anon stands for and i have to say that no government has the right to restrict or withhold information from the people. We do not live to serve but to live. Governments need to recognize that we are not sheep and we will not tolerate being treated as if someones else know what is better for me.
Legalize freedom!
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Thank you Anon for taking the initiative and showing them what the internet censorship will be like. I’ve got to admit, an anti censorship group is fighting censorship by taking down aph is actually kinda ironic….
I am against the censorship idea ever since it was announced that banned video game websites would be blocked. The fact that my already crappy net connection will slow down is not a point in the plan’s favour either. I also find the entire concept of a blacklist that cannot be seen by the public as a very bad idea.
Incidentally, the original Wikileaks blacklist didn’t actually have 4Chan on it, what’s the bet it will now?
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“Forgive me. I have come to understand what Anon stands for and i have to say that no government has the right to restrict or withhold information from the people”
No goverment except China, Burma, and now perhaps Australia that is…
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hopefuly the rest of the so called free world can help the poor Australian Convicts break out of there shackles that there Australian, Labour in Government holds them to a ball and chain Socialist Attitude..and now is going to use methods of suppressing free speech .on its hardworking countrymen
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Citizens need to protest like crazy. Seriously folks, prancing around the websites you’re not going to be able to go to soon with your thumbs up your ass isn’t going to solve anything. Get as many people as possible to just protest, forgetting about your jobs. Money is the only things politicians care about. A huge strike is definetly going to say more than, “Excuse me, can we please retain our rights, if it’s alright with you?”
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Child porn is not “free speech.” Senator Nick Xenophon endorsed these cyber terrorists when they were attacking the Church of Scientology. Two of them, Brian Mettenbrink and Dmitry Guzner have since been sentenced to a year in federal prison for exactly the same type of computer attack the group just launched against the Australian government. And its not just about “pornography” — the Anonymous group’s websites are full of ILLEGAL CHILD pornography. Yes, Senator Xenophon, it’s all about freedom of speech. Tell that to the children exploited in these videos. Your support for this group is repulsive.
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@ Xenophobia
“the Anonymous group’s websites are full of ILLEGAL CHILD pornography”
Why don’t you go check out the actual site and have a look? You do realise that even 4chan doesn’t allow CP on it’s servers and it’s actually ore of a runing joke than anything serious. (Posts containing CP are normally removed by admin)
“Child porn is not “free speech.””
Truem but the filter doesn’t only block CHild porn. It also blocks any porn with women with small breasts and any female ejaculation. And the idea of an unseeable blacklist with no way to remove sites that remove said content is terribly stupid, 4Chan is joking when they say that are there for the porn. It’s a joke, but they are there for a relevant reason.
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Yea….f*&k the establishment! Rock on.
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It makes me Laugh when i see Australian diggers Fight for freedom abroad and then Coming Back to a country that denies its Free speech and supports censorship
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Internet censorship is not helpful to anyone including the people who want to prevent child pornography. Deepnet – where most of the ‘bad’ stuff goes down – remains untouched.
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@Micae
I know, torrents are completely untouched. It’s surprising how stupid the plan is. (Incidentally, I could always just use a proxy in the US or UK to see everything anyway…..Google Translate would also work)
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The rules of 4chan state that posting CP gets you perma banned. They have mods who patrol it and ban those who do, and usually make examples of them, i.e.
Post was “Requesting CP”
MOD – This user was banned for this post
So just requesting it, not posting can get you banned.
However this isnt about just a 4chan ban. People dont realise what this actually means for their internet use. It will effect everyone in Australia negatively.
This is possibly the most influencial topic/decision for Australia in the 21st century and no one knows about it or cares.
Im going to openly vote against the govt. souly based on this decision next election. And that means for a CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST. /may god forgive me
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Maybe they should get a spelling filter for people like me
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@OP is a fag :
Or you could use a browser with an inbuilt spell check. Hehe. Seriously though, I have talked to quite a few who seem to think that the filter is designed to only block porn sites and haven’t yet realised the difference between porn and “materials deemed inappropriate” as the filter bias has been described by some sources. Not to mention the fact that the idea of a non-viewable blacklist with no allowance for questions is probably the absolute worst way to do said blocking. I’m just thankful that I will be able to use USA/UK proxy services and tunnelling to get around the asinine crap (Yay for easily ignorable filters).
I just find it hilarious that torrent services and….other places that I wish to not name…are being completely unrestricted and they just happen to be the main location of illegal content. If seems the government just wants to stop the casual internet user from viewing inapropriate material….as well as advertising for games and video that are unrated in this country.
Incidentally, JesusHernadez may have just gotten this site on the blacklist for posting a link to a black listed site.
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