US Justice Department's website taken down, Anonymous claims responsibility

[Ghundal]

US Justice Department's website taken down, Anonymous claims responsibility
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
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Several high-profile websites have fallen victim to Anonymous hackers in the past.
The US Justice Department's website, justice.gov, went offline around 4:30 PM EST on Thursday. The hacker group Anonymous claims to have taken down the site.
"The government takes down #Megaupload? 15 minutes later #Anonymous takes down government & record label sites. #ExpectUs", reads a tweet by an account with ties to Anonymous, referring to the FBI's takedown of the popular Megaupload.com site earlier in the day on copyright infringement charges.
The DoJ site remains inaccessible as of this writing.
The White House's website, whitehouse.gov, was also reported to be under attack.
US Justice Department's website taken down, Anonymous claims responsibility - OpenGlobe

[Ghundal]

Payback: Hackers down DOJ, Universal Music sites
January 19, 2012

The Web site of the U.S. Department of Justice was inaccessible this afternoon following the arrest of a group accused of piracy crimes by operating the Megaupload site and it appeared to be the work of supporters of the Anonymous online activist collective.
Online chat sessions operated by Anonymous show participants discussing the DOJ site being down and talking about other U.S. government sites to target. The activists are angry about two proposed antipiracy bills backed by the music and movie industries, SOPA and PIPA, that critics say would give authorities broad power to shut down Web sites for the mere accusation that they had pirated content on them.
"Seems like some friendly ships are launching torpedos justice.gov as we speak. The site seems down to us! (via @AnonOpsSweden)," Twitter accounts associated with the Anonymous online activist group posted today.
Shortly before the outage, seven people were named in an indictment and four were taken into custody on online piracy charges, including Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, the founder of Megaupload, a popular Internet locker service.