DCAWD.com

everal Sony PlayStation sites are unavailable this morning thanks to what looks like a distributed denial of service attack launched by Anonymous.

The hacktivists have left the Scientologists alone in order to harass the console-makers because of Sony's action against two lads for jailbreaking PS3s.

In a strangely self-important and sanctimonious message, the hackers said:

Congratulations, Sony.

You have now received the undivided attention of Anonymous. Your recent legal action against our fellow hackers, GeoHot and Graf_Chokolo, has not alarmed us, it has been deemed wholly unforgivable....

Now you will experience the wrath of Anonymous.

You saw a hornets' nest, and stuck your penises in it.

You must face the consequences of your actions.

Anonymous style."

zaxrex wrote:add an ASCI hornet's nest

After 32 raids across Italy (and one in Switzerland), 15 alleged members of Anonymous have been arrested. The detainees, aged between 15 and 28 with five under 18, have been accused of performing denial of service attacks on Italian Web sites belonging to the government, and on both state and private broadcasters.

The Italian authorities are describing one of the suspects, a 26-year-old Swiss-Italian going by the monkier "Phre," as a "leader" of the hacking group. A further 30 suspects are still being sought.

As was the case with the Anonymous arrests in Spain and Turkey, the AnonOps faction within Anonymous has been swift to both promise revenge and dismiss claims that there are "leaders" of the group.

The AnonOps response ends with a call to arms for other Italian Anons, imploring them to "Let [the government] have it, stronger than ever." In Italy, as with Spain before it, further denial of service attacks are likely to be the chosen response.

In spite of the arrests, hacking under the Anonymous banner continues unabated. The "Anti-Security" movement, promoted by breakaway Anonymous faction Lulz Security, and subsequently picked up by Anonymous after LulzSec returned to the fold, has resulted in the compromise of numerous poorly secured Web servers around the world. Over the past few days, AntiSec hacks have included huge numbers of defacements of Turkish websites—a few dozen government sites here, a thousand here, and another few hundred here, database dumps from 20 Italian universities, and futher attacks on the Arizona Department of Public Safety.