Alleged Spanish, Turkish Anonymous members arrested
News that three Spanish nationals linked to Anonymous have been arrested has been followed by the announcement of the Turkish police that it has detained 32 individuals thought to be connected to the hacktivist group.
The Spanish police has arrested three Spaniards in their early 30s, in Almeria, Barcelona and Valencia, who are thought to have been behind the attacks on the Sony PlayStation online gaming store, and part of the attacks against two Spanish banks, Italian Enel and a number of government sites all over the world (including Spain).
According to the NYT, one of the three arrested men had a computer server in his home which has been tied to the attacks.
During the investigation that lead the police to these suspects, police officers went through more than two million chat logs and analyzed the Web pages used by the group. The police believes that the three are not merely participants of the DDoS attacks, but the ones that made decisions and directed the attacks.
Anonymous has responded by launching a DDoS attack against the website of the Spanish police, downing it for a while.
“You have not detained three participants of Anonymous. We have no members and we are not a group of any kind. You have, however, detained three civilians expressing themselves,” said the group in a press release. “Arresting somebody for taking part in a DDoS attack is exactly like arresting somebody for attending a peaceful demonstration in their hometown. Anonymous believes this right to peacefully protest is one of the fundamental pillars of any democracy-¦”
The arrests in Turkey have followed a number of DDoS attacks on sites belonging to the Turkish parliament and the prime minister made in protest against the government’s plan to introduce Internet content filtering.
According to IT Pro, 32 individuals from a dozen of Turkish cities have been arrested during raids executed by the police, and they have all been taken to the Security Directorate in the capital. No further details about the investigation and the arrested individuals are known.
“Over the last few years, we have witnessed the censorship taken by the Turkish government, such as blocking YouTube, Rapidshare, Fileserve and thousands of other websites. Most recently, the government banned access to Google services,” said Anonymous before the attacks against the Turkish government’s websites. “These acts of censorship are inexcusable. The internet is a platform for freedom, a place where anyone and everyone can come together, discuss topics, and share information, without the fear of government interference.”