Anonymous leaders arrested, face jail time

[Tinman]

Spanish police arrest 3 Anonymous "leaders"

PSN attack coordinators each face 3 years of possible jail time

 

[steaksauce]

Good news for Sony and all PS3 owners I guess. No more downtime for the next 3 years at least ey?

 

[Blackhand]

These guys were arrested for DDoSing the Spanish government's websites in response to police violence in Spain. There was a protest against their government and the police started attacking the protesters.

"Friday, peaceful protests which began in Spain on May 15th turned violent, as police used rubber bullets and clubs on protesters camped outside in Barcelona’s Plaza de Catalunya. In response to the police violence, Anonymous launched a DDoS attack against a Spanish government website Saturday."

"The protests across Spain over the past two weeks have been a demand for jobs, economic equality, and “real democracy.” Unemployment in Spain is out of control. NPR reports the jobless rate among Spain’s generally well-educated young people has reached nearly 45 percent, a record in any industrialized country."

They are part of Anonymous, but they weren't the guys involved with the PSN outage. Its similar to the recent Anonymous attacks against government websites in Egypt and other Arab countries.

 

[Rambo919]

Viva la Revolution

The Malcontent won't be stopped that easily, the flood will continue.

 

[shadowfox]

They are part of Anonymous, but they weren't the guys involved with the PSN outage. Its similar to the recent Anonymous attacks against government websites in Egypt and other Arab countries.

The server was also found to be instrumental in attacks against Sony.

They claim to have evidence - that's enough reason for arrests. Also,

... as well as BBVA, Bankia and Enel.

BBVA and Bankia are financial institutions, in which millions of people trust their financial business and life-savings. I'm not sure about Spain, but in most countries that's a criminal offence.

I don't see that their using of their equipment to "protest" against Arab governments offsets that.

 

[shadowfox]

Here's an update - note the bolded line - I lol'd. Just like kids.

Clandestine Web group Anonymous on Friday vowed revenge for the arrest of three of its members over their alleged involvement in the hack of Sony's PlayStation Network and various government Web sites.

In a brief blog post titled "V for Spain," Anonymous said simply, "Expect us," under a large image of the "V for Vendetta" logo. Anonymous has adopted the Guy Fawkes mask used by the title character in the "V for Vendetta" series as its symbol.

Earlier today, police in Spain announced that they arrested three people in Barcelona, Alicante, and Almeria. A server hosted in the city of Gijon was also seized, according to information posted on the Twitter feed of the Spanish police.

The hackers attacked the Playstation Network, as well as government Web sites in Egypt, Iran, Colombia, and Chile, officials said. They also targeted Spain's Central Election Board on May 18. Police released a screenshot that showed an IRC chat where organizers urged Anonymous members to attack the election board Web site, as well as those for the Spanish police and broadcaster RTVE, among others.

Police said they have been investigating since October 2010, when the country's Ministry of Culture was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack over an anti-P2P bill that would have made it easier for the government to shut down Web sites that provide access to infringing content.

Police did not release details about those arrested, except to say that one of the individuals is 31 years old.

The fact that Anonymous is retaliating isn't all that surprising. Panda Labs analyst Luis Corrons said he expects Anonymous to retaliate since they are not used to being held accountable for their actions.

As Sophos analyst Graham Cluley pointed out, authorities are no doubt "hoping that that [the Gijon server] may yield clues which will help reveal the identities of other Anonymous activists."

Spain isn't the only target for Anonymous at the moment, however. The group said that on Thursday, it "launched a successful DDoS attack against the Turkish government, taking down several official government Web sites."

"Anonymous is protesting Internet censorship in Turkey. The Turkish government plans to implement a filter on Internet browsing on Aug. 22 under the pretense of protecting the youth from 'harmful elements on the Web,'" Anonymous said.

Sauce : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386742,00.asp