Matthew Lillard and his rollerblade gang — more specifically, the branch known as ‘Anonymous’ — have struck again. Late Tuesday night, the hacker collective best known for a) targeting credit card companies that had shut off donations to WikiLeaks and b) promoting bad Alan Moore adaptations made their next move as part of “Operation Payback,” launching a distributed denial of service attack on the website of royalty-collecting organization BMI. After being taken offline temporarily, BMI.com returned to the internet and assured everyone that the Sheriff of Nottingham was back to making his rounds.
Anonymous have issued an open letter explaining the DDoS attack:
We have seen BMI consistently legislate copyright and consequently have decided to take action to show the people will not stand for its crimes against the public. This is a message to you and other corporations like you: We will not stand this abuse anymore. No company shall take advantage of our government to churn out profits and censor information in any form. This is unacceptable and will be dealt with accordingly by Anonymous. We are not pirates, we are not hackers in our mother’s basement. We are Anonymous. We do not forgive, we do not forget, you should have expected us.
Nerds these days… they’ve got panache! This week’s scuffle with BMI marks a return to the sorts of copyright-related attacks Anonymous was launching fairly frequently a year ago as part of “Operation Payback,” when they aimed their digital crosshairs at the likes of Web Sheriff, the MPAA, and the RIAA. Man, with all the publicity these guys are getting, I’m thinking of starting a rival group called ‘Synonymous.’ Who’s with me? Our first target: Discogs.com!
• Anonymous: http://anonnews.org
• BMI: http://bmi.com
