#WIKILEAKS LEAKS
Friday, January 28, 2011
Anonymous hacking suspects released on bail
Five UK people arrested in connection with online attacks in support of WikiLeaks have been released, as the FBI issues 40 search warrants in the US
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Josh Halliday
guardian.co.uk
,
Friday 28 January 2011 14.04 GMT
Article history
People protest outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
The five people arrested in the UK
in connection with a spate of online attacks
in support of
WikiLeaks
were today released on police bail, while in the US the FBI has issued search warrants as part of its investigation into online group
Anonymous
.
The FBI yesterday issued more than 40 search warrants across the US as part of its Anonymous probe, where the distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks the group carried out on the websites of companies including MasterCard and Visa are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Last night Anonymous issued a statement branding the UK arrests "a serious declaration of war" against the group of
internet
"hacktivists".
Yesterday's arrests are the first in the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit investigation in the UK.
Two teenagers, aged 15 and 16, were held along with three others in a series of raids in the West Midlands, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey and London early yesterday. The teenagers have to return to their local police station on 13 April and the three men the following day.
The five were arrested in connection with the thousand-strong group known as Anonymous, which last month launched a series of crippling attacks on the websites of companies that had withdrawn support for WikiLeaks, along with a number of government sites in Tunisia and Egypt.
DDoS attacks, which bring down sites by bombarding them with repeated requests to load webpages, are illegal in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act and carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a £5,000 fine.
"You can easily arrest individuals, but you cannot arrest an ideology. We are united by a common objective and we can and will cross any borders to achieve that," Anonymous said in its statement.
"
So our advice to you, the UK government, is to take this statement as a serious warning from the citizens of the world. We will not rest until our fellow anon protesters have been released."
A Europe-wide investigation being carried out in conjunction with Scotland Yard has so far led to two Dutch suspects being arrested and subsequently released.
Anonymous was catapulted into public spotlight last month when it managed to
bring down the websites of some of the world's most powerful financial institutions
, including Visa and Mastercard. The group targeted these companies after they cut off ties with WikiLeaks, following the whistleblowers' site's release of confidential US diplomatic cables.
The group is understood to have
grown significantly in number
and firepower since its support of WikiLeaks, with the overwhelming majority of users simply volunteering their computer to be used in the attacks.
Most of those involved in Anonymous operations do not disguise their internet protocol (IP) address, meaning they can be easily identified by police authorities.
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