Anonymous 'declares war' on Orlando

28 June 2011 Last updated at 21:57 GMT Members of the hacker group have warned of continued attacks against Orlando-related websites The hacker group Anonymous has taken down a US tourism website in Orlando, Florida as a protest against the arrests of people handing out food to the city's homeless.

Anonymous said the attack on orlandofloridaguide.com was retaliation for the arrest of members of the group Food not Bombs.

The website, which is not owned by the city, went offline for part of Tuesday.

Anonymous rose to prominence by hacking the sites of major corporations.

Anonymous is often seen as a political collective and has pledged to take action against those its members view as acting improperly.

They have been linked to several high-profile web attacks, including several on Sony websites as well as the Church of Scientology.

'Balance of needs'

Anonymous has warned that more attacks could follow as part of what it has dubbed "Operation Orlando".

In a news release, the hacker group promised to carry out a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on a separate Orlando-related website every day until the arrests come to an end, choosing orlandofloridaguide.com as its first target.

The collective also said it will email millions of people across the world asking them to boycott the destination.

"This is a declaration of war," said Anonymous, describing Operation Orlando.

"Anonymous will now begin a massive campaign against you and your city web assets," it added in a message directed at Orlando officials.

But orlandofloridaguide.com, which went offline for several hours on Tuesday, has no affiliation to the city, an Orlando spokesperson told the BBC.

"I don't know what the hackers' intentions are, but from the city's standpoint, we're just trying to balance everyone's needs," the spokesperson said.

'Difficult position'

The row between the city of Orlando and the non-profit organisation Food Not Bombs started when the group began feeding homeless people in a park in the city's downtown.

They did not obtain a permit to do so, a move which is required by law in Orlando.

Since then members of Food Not Bombs, including the group's president, Keith Mchenry, have been arrested several times in the past month for handing out meals.

"We're in a difficult position, and we've tried everything," the Orlando spokesperson said.

"If Food Not Bombs continues to violate the ordinance, they will be subject to the consequences of violating it, which is arrest."

Meanwhile, Food Not Bombs has said it has no affiliation with the Anonymous hacker group.

Spanish police arrested three suspected members of the Anonymous group earlier this month.

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Spanish police hit by Anonymous

13 June 2011 Last updated at 10:50 GMT A member of Spain's Technological Investigation Board displays an Anonymous mask The website of Spain's national police force has been briefly knocked offline by hacker collective Anonymous.

The attack on the site was carried out in retaliation for the arrest of three Spanish men the police claimed were 'core' members of the group.

The hackers managed to keep www.policia.es offline for about an hour from 2130 GMT on 12 June.

Spanish authorities would not confirm that Anonymous was behind the attack, saying only that the site was offline.

However, a statement was posted on a website linked to Anonymous, claimed responsibility for the hack, which it called #OpPolicia.

The group said it had used a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) which bombards a target website with so much data that it becomes overwhelmed.

A spokesman for the Spanish police said the cause of the outage had not yet been established.

"A website can collapse if too many people try to access it at once. I cannot confirm the link with the Anonymous group," said the spokesman.

In its statement, Anonymous said the DDoS attack was a "direct response to the Friday arrests of three individuals alleged to be associated with acts of cyber civil disobedience attributed to Anonymous."

The group said DDoS attacks were a legitimate form of peaceful protest. Some of its members are thought to have carried out similar attacks on Turkish government websites to protest against net censorship.

Anonymous also denied that the men arrested were part of the "core" of Spanish members of the group.

"They did not arrest any core group, because we don't have a core group," said Anonymous in its statement.

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Turkey arrests Anonymous members

14 June 2011 Last updated at 10:05 GMT Plans for national net filters in Turkey have led to demonstrations. Turkish police have arrested 32 people believed to be members of hacker collective Anonymous.

The group has been active in Turkey protesting against government plans to set up a national net filtering system.

Action against the group was started following a complaint from the Turkish directorate of telecommunications whose website was hit by Anonymous.

The arrests follow similar action by police in Spain who detained three members of the hacker group.

On 22 August, Turkey is planning to turn on a system that demands people sign up for one of four filtering packages designed for different types of users.

The Turkish government claims this system is needed to protect younger web users from net-borne dangers. Critics, including Anonymous, say the filtering system will be used to monitor web activity and suppress dissent.

Many Turkish people have mounted street demonstrations to protest against the introduction of the filters.

On 10 June, Anonymous took action in support of these protests by knocking several Turkish government websites offline. It used an attack tool known as the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (Loic) which bombards targets with so much data that they become overwhelmed.

The arrests came only days after the attacks were mounted and Turkish police may have exploited failings with Loic that allow users of it to be traced. Arrests were made in 12 cities around Turkey and eight of those detained are believed to be minors.

On 10 June, the Spanish national police announced that it had arrested three people believed to be members of Anonymous. In retaliation, Anonymous took the national police service site offline for a few hours.

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