Anonymous Hackers Take Down Child Porn Websites, Leak Users' Names

[Eugen Leitl]

http://www.securitynewsdaily.com/anonymous-hackers-child-porn-sites-1260/

Anonymous Hackers Take Down Child Porn Websites, Leak Users' Names

Oct 20, 2011 | 2:21 PM ET | By Matt Liebowitz, SecurityNewsDaily Staff Writer

anonymous v mask v for vendetta

Members of the Anonymous hacktivist movement are claiming responsibility for
taking down more than 40 secret child-pornography websites and leaking the
names of more than 1,500 members of one of the illegal sites.

The Anonymous campaign began Oct. 14, when members of the hacktivist group
found a cache of child-pornography websites while browsing a secret website
called the Hidden Wiki, a guidebook to hundreds of underground websites
invisible to search engines and regular Internet users. The hackers singled
out Lolita City, a file-sharing site used by pedophiles, and leaked the names
of the site's 1,589 active members to Pastebin on Tuesday (Oct. 18), the
Examiner reported.

Member of Anonymous deciding to hack a website whose stance they don't agree
with is by no means shocking news. In the past year, Anonymous-affiliated
hackers have gone after the New York Stock Exchange, the Westboro Baptist
Church, the Recording Industry Association of America and government sites in
Malaysia, Egypt, Tunisia and Zimbabwe.

However, in targeting child pornography sites, and in explaining its methods
of attack, these Anonymous-affiliated hackers have revealed a deeply
disturbing side of the Internet unknown to most people.

The so-called "darknet," from which this "Operation Darknet" hacking campaign
takes its name, is any part of the Internet that is hidden from view b not
just hard to reach, but deliberately concealed. In this instance, a darknet
appears to have grown out of the free TOR routing service, which offers
anonymous, encrypted Web browsing to any user.

The TOR-based darknet has reportedly grown into a private, encrypted
constellation of websites offering a variety of shady and illegal services,
from fake IDs and steroids to email hacking and tip on how to call in police
raids as pranks. There's even a hidden site called "The Last Box" that bills
itself as an "Assassination Market."

Only computers that have installed TOR browser plug-ins can access the
TOR-based darknet, including its guidebook the Hidden Wiki, the security site
Infosec Island reported.

In another Pastebin posting, the hackers explained that their campaign
against the child pornography sites took root when they found a site listed
on the Hidden Wiki called "Hard Candy," which "was dedicated to links to
child pornography." The group delved deeper and discovered that nearly all of
the pornography sites listed on the Hidden Wiki "shared a digital fingerprint
with the shared hosting server at Freedom Hosting."

The Anonymous-affiliated hackers then issued a warning to Freedom Hosting
asking it to remove the child pornography links from its server. Freedom
Hosting did not comply, so the group, at approximately 11:30 p.m. (CST) on
Oct. 14 shutdown Freedom Hosting's server. Freedom Hosting restored service
the following day, but it was attacked and taken down again that night.

In its statement, the Anonymous members explained their goals and how they
aim to achieve them through repeated pressure and consistent online attacks.

"The owners and operators at Freedom Hosting are openly supporting child
pornography and enabling pedophiles to view innocent children, fueling their
issues and putting children at risk of abduction, molestation, rape and
death," the message said. "For this, Freedom Hosting has been declared
#OpDarknet Enemy Number One. By taking down Freedom Hosting, we are
eliminating 40+ child pornography websites, among these is Lolita City, one
of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100 GB
of child pornography. We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting's
server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child
pornography."

The statement added a demand to Freedom Hosting and other Web servers hosting
child pornography.

"Remove all child pornography content from your servers. Refuse to provide
hosting services to any website dealing with child pornography. This
statement is not just aimed at Freedom Hosting, but everyone on the Internet.
It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or
supporting child pornography, you will become a target."

The trail goes cold in looking for whoever is behind Freedom Hosting. The
domain is currently offline; WHOIS domain-name lookups show that the
registration for freedom-hosting.com expired on Aug. 7, and the registrar is
holding the URL pending renewal.