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Tech Sunday, January 27th 2013 at 1:00 pm

Anonymous Says They’re Responsible for Taking Down U.S. Sentencing Commission Site

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Continuing a string of threats and attacks following the death of Aaron Swartz, Anonymous claims to be responsible for taking down the United States Sentencing Commission website yesterday. They also claim that ussc.gov is not the only government website they currently control. Shortly after the attack the site was taken down, and now appears to be running normally. In the message they posted on the site, Anonymous also claims to have sensitive government information that it will leak to the media.

The message, though removed from ussc.gov, can be read in its entirety on Reddit. Anonymous says they have an encrypted file of sensitive government information they call “Warhead – U S – D O J – L E A – 2013 . A E E 256” which they say is “primed and armed.” The author of the post says the file is already stored on several mirrors sites, and calls on other members of Anonymous to host it elsewhere as widely as possible.

The file is encrypted, but the post also claims that Anonymous has already begun sending heavily redacted pieces of the information to the media. It seems that Anonymous is trying to ransom the government to meet its demand by threatening it with the release of the information.

They’re calling for a reform of the Justice system, which they call “outdated and poorly-envisioned legislation,” with heavy focus on the proportionality of punishment relative to the crime. The nature of the information they claim to have has not been disclosed, but perhaps the redacted version being sent to the media (Geekosystem has not received any information from Anonymous) could allude to at least the subject of the full contents.

There have also been encrypted files named after members of the Supreme Court being distributed by Anonymous, but they haven’t released a key or said if those files are copies of the information. Despite the wide circulation of the encrypted file, Anonymous said in the message that “It is our hope that this warhead need never be detonated.”

It’s not likely that the government will give in to the demands made by Anonymous, so it may only be a matter of time before we all find out what’s really in their “warhead.”

(via Ars Technica, image via Schuilr)

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  • James

    Anonymous – bunch of useless script kiddies. Wow you are big and bad taking down a site and stealing useless information. No real damage. It will be back up in a few days.

  • Jack Bond

    And they do it all for the wrong reasons. Any time somebody tells them they can’t have everything their way, they throw a tantrum and start wrecking shit. They’re just immature children.

  • Anonymous

    It’s not like the government murdered Swartz. He killed himself because he couldn’t take on the pressures he put himself in.

  • Mike Legacy

    Their fight is about freedom of information, not Aaron Schwartz. What Aaron Schwartz did was not illegal and was unjustly prosecuted. The government was trying to make an example of him. It’s a protest, just like a picket on the street, anonymous just does it in their own way.

  • Mike Legacy

    Yeah, “script kiddies” hacked the Department of Justice and stole encrypted files. Not saying it’s right to release them, but their abilities deserve more respect than that. These kids are smarter than the people securing our government info so the last thing we should be doing is pissing them off.