Anon furious: Megaupload shut down, 7 arrested!

[Killing_Time]

In one of the U.S. government's largest anti-piracy crackdowns ever, federal agents on Thursday arrested the leaders of and shut down Megaupload.com, a popular hub for illegal file sharing.

Hours later, Megaupload's fans turned the table on the feds. "Hacktivist" collective Anonymous said it set its sights on the U.S. Department of Justice and apparently knocked the agency's website offline.

"We are having website problems, but we're not sure what it's from,"
a DOJ spokeswoman told CNNMoney.

The DOJ website glitches came soon after various Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous took aim at the agency.
Anonymous's favorite weapon for these attacks is what's called a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack, which directs a flood of traffic to a website and temporarily crashes it by overwhelming its servers. It doesn't actually involve any hacking or security breaches.

"One thing is certain: EXPECT US! #Megaupload" read one tweet from AnonOps that went out mid-afternoon.

One hour later, the same account tweeted a victory message: "Tango down! http://universalmusic.com & http://www.justice.gov// #Megaupload"

Universal Music's website also went down Thursday afternoon. The music company had been locked in a legal battle with Megaupload over a YouTube video that featured many of Universal Music's signed artists promoting Megaupload's site.

The websites of the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America also went down Thursday afternoon. On Twitter, AnonOps took credit for the crashes.
The Anonymous attack came soon after the DOJ announced the indictment of seven individuals connected to Megaupload for allegedly operating an "international organized criminal enterprise responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of copyrighted works."

Source + More info

Updates as things progress from Gizmodo

Update: Anonymous says they've also knocked off the RIAA's site—looks down for us at the moment as well.

Update 2: Universal Music Group has also fallen off an e-cliff.

Update 3: Goodbye for now, MPAA.org.

Update 4: Affected sites are bouncing in and out of life, and are at the very least super slow to load. Anon agents are currently trying to coordinate their DDoS attacks in the same direction via IRC.

Update 5: The US Copyright Office joins the list.

Update 6: This Anon sums up the mood in their "official" chat room at the moment:

Danzu: STOP EVERYTHING, who are we DoSing right now?

Update 7: Russian news service RT claims this is the largest coordinated attack in Anonymous' history—over 5,600 DDoS zealots blasting at once.

Update 8: the Anonymous DDoS planning committee is chittering so quickly, it's making my laptop fan spin.

AnonOps' Twitter

I haven't seen such a powerful reaction from Anon since 2008 during the Scientology protests. It kinda makes me squee a little over what a group of unorganized people can do with a strong opinion and means of getting heard.

This is getting serious though. I've followed the whole SOPA/PIPA ordeal fairly closely since December. From what I understand feds would not be able to take down this site without these laws being passed.
There are rumors out there they have been passed secretly but that sounds too insane for me to believe!

I know there's not a whole lot of people in here who are American but that doesn't mean we can't do something! This affects us too and this will not stop piracy. Megaupload has/had more than 150 million users and now those who used it legitimately will suffer needlessly from the loss of their files.

Stop American Censorship

[Victory]

VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

[Aval]

you know, I honestly have never used megaupload for anything other than personal file sharing.

[Zolen]

This time I am actually in favor of Anon's actions.

As for MegaUpload, I never really used it, yet the pretense of why they were taken down, and the fact a music video was taken down(had no copyrights on it and was posted by the people who made it, yet was taken down under claims of copyright violations, by the company that was involved in Mega Uploads take down. )

[Yurlyn]

The take down of MU is as messed up as the war in the middle east.

[Killing_Time]

The take down of MU is as messed up as the war in the middle east.

Leave and don't come back before you've informed yourself, Jesus Christ.

[RustyMagnum]

Leave and don't come back before you've informed yourself, Jesus Christ.

Yeah, Jesus, it ain't they time for you second coming yet!

I'm not gonna form an opinion on this subject yet, i'll let it hang and see which way it develops. Hopefully not the wrong way.

[Yurlyn]

I meant that they're impacting the wrong people -__-

[Rockonman]

I've never really been in favor of Anon's actions. From what I know, it doesn't really have a solid set of beliefs, it just acts on what it doesn't like. In this case, however, it is mostly good - it is acting out against SOPA.

I never heard of Megaupload until now, so I'm not too impacted by the site shutting down.

[Yurlyn]

Well, think of Mediafire for instance and other sites like that. They could be next but the gov-retards don't stop and think they're not just fighting the pirates but also the innocent bystanders. People who actually just share documents from themselves and what not. Their whole reason to take down MU just stinks imo. Plus, shouldn't the arrested people be found guilty before taking their company down? I reckon they can't just say "whoops, our bad" and think everything has been restored :L
So many sites have means to pirate although they're not meant for it. I read that MU is actually sponsored by some artists like Alica Keys and Kanye West so they should be booked too because of that but I don't think that's gonna happen. And what about Dropbox and Rapidshare? Are they gonna come up with some reason to take them down as well?

Even if they are guilty of money laundering and shit, this was probably not the best time to act.

[Paperback Writer]

Oh God... The Great Internet War I begins...

[Rockonman]

It's already started, with SOPA.

[Paperback Writer]

It's already started, with SOPA.

Nah, SOPA was the equivalent of Austrian aggression to the Balkans. This is Franz Ferdinand shit, yo.

[Rockonman]

It's the thing that really got things going, though. Well yea, actually it is the Franz Ferdinand equivalent now that I think about it.

[kingmiami]

Megaupload they took down megaupload? O_O

You guys dont understand how much I use megaupload. I use it for everything I download i'm not gonna mention exactly what I download but trust me I use that site alot. I mean come on why megaupload this sucks I really hope Anonymous's actions make them put the site back up. For once i'm in favor of anon for what they're doing.

Does anybody else think this SOPA thing is getting out of hand?

[Ivyn]

I made a bet with a friend that the Internet will go to war in this decade. I'm thinking I may be right...

[Rimmy]

I agree with you there, Ivyn.

, and the fact a music video was taken down(had no copyrights on it and was posted by the people who made it, yet was taken down under claims of copyright violations, by the company that was involved in Mega Uploads take down. )

This is probably what makes angry the most about the whole megaupload thing. It just doesn't make any sense to do this.

[Shinoi]

I wonder what's next? Other filesharing services like Dropbox, Fileshare, Mediafire?
This stupidity must die.
Edit: I signed the petition and am spreading the word.
Edit MkII: Damn, DQ could get shut down because of SOPA, since Oscar used copyrighted music in Castle III

[Rimmy]

if that happens, there's gonna be bloodshed.

[Killing_Time]

I wonder what's next? Other filesharing services like Dropbox, Fileshare, Mediafire?
This stupidity must die.
Edit: I signed the petition and am spreading the word.
Edit MkII: Damn, DQ could get shut down because of SOPA, since Oscar used copyrighted music in Castle III

Swedish site hosted on a Danish server. SOPA only affects american sites.

[Victory]

Yeah, right. Next you're going to tell me that the American government can't arrest people in different countries for crimes that aren't illegal in their country, right?

[Polo]

Mega what?

[Oscar]

I thought about that a few times. If anything, NG would be shut down since long because of it. I'm just a drop in the water.

[Jedi-L]

Welcome to America, folks. Here's a picture of U.S Federal employees going to work.

[Mattbot]

Mega what?

Megaporn, you gonna stand there and let them take that from us!?!?