{"id":23757,"date":"2013-01-27T14:05:47","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T13:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=23757"},"modified":"2013-01-27T14:05:47","modified_gmt":"2013-01-27T13:05:47","slug":"anonymous-hacks-us-government-agency-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/anonymous-hacks-us-government-agency-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous hacks US government agency website"},"content":{"rendered":"

JAMES LEGGE
\n<\/a>Independent<\/a><\/p>\n

Internet hackers yesterday took over the US Sentencing Commission’s website, in anger over the death of cyber-legend and internet freedom advocate Aaron Swartz.<\/p>\n

\n

Anonymous, a web of loosely connected “hacktivists” which rails against controls on internet freedom, appears to be responsible.<\/p>\n

The commission’s website home page was replaced with a statement from the group saying they, “have been watching and waiting.”<\/p>\n

After decrying the state of the American justice system, it continues: \u201cTwo weeks ago today, Aaron Swartz was killed. Killed because he faced an impossible choice. Killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win \u2013 a twisted and distorted perversion of justice \u2013 a game where the only winning move was not to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swartz, 26, gained fame for his involvement in the social news site Reddit, and in the development of RSS feeds.<\/p>\n

He killed himself a fortnight ago while facing trial for hacking a university’s trove of online journals, intending to release them for free online.<\/p>\n

Though he had a history of depression, his family and friends say the threat of 30 years in prison motivated the suicide, and at a memorial service last weekend, supporters called for the prosecutors to be held accountable for their actions.<\/p>\n

It has since emerged he was offered a plea deal of six months, and officials have insisted they did not over-reach in their pursuit of Swartz.<\/p>\n

The commission is an independent agency of the judicial branch involved in sentencing.<\/p>\n

The hackers also said they had infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information they threatened to make public.<\/p>\n

Saying the information was like a nuclear weapon, the group said it had “enough fissile material for multiple warheads” which it would launch against the justice department and organisations linked to it.<\/p>\n

By late Saturday morning, the website was offline, but cached versions could be found where the message appeared.<\/p>\n

The FBI’s Richard McFeely, executive assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, said: “we were aware as soon as it happened and are handling it as a criminal investigation. We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person’s or government agency’s network.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Internet hackers yesterday took over the US Sentencing Commission’s website, in anger over the death of cyber-legend and internet freedom advocate Aaron Swartz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}