Anonymous, the hacking group, has disowned a campaign to attack Facebook on
November 5.
The group of hackers on Thursday claimed to have breached NATO security and accessed hoards of restricted material.
They hacking group is closely linked to the mischief-making website 4chan.org.
Anonymous does not have a leader or controlling group, but operates as a loose collective who share similar ideals and aims.
The name of the group reportedly refers to the fact that internet users can talk and act anonymously online.
Users of the 4chan website, where the group is said to have been founded, tend to remain anonymous when posting on its message boards.
The group has taken credit for numerous attacks, including against Bank of America, Sony and the Malaysian, Egypt, Tunisia and Iranian governments, Visa, Google, Police Departments and many more.
One of the difficulties authorities have had tracking down hacking attacks is that they can be launched from anywhere and can come from an individual who can mask his location.
US authorities on Tuesday arrested 16 people on charges they participated in major cyber attacks, including the crippling of eBay's PayPal website as retribution for dropping WikiLeaks as a client.
FBI agents arrested 14 people in nine states and Washington, DC, for the PayPal attack, which occurred last December and was allegedly coordinated by the hacking group Anonymous. It was the biggest response by authorities tied to a recent spate of high-profile cyber attacks.
Financial institutions like PayPal, Visa and MasterCard withdrew services from WikiLeaks last year after the website published thousands of sometimes embarrassing secret U.S. diplomatic reports that have caused strains between Washington and numerous allies.
Hackers responded with so-called distributed denial-of-service attacks that flooded the companies' websites with requests for information and rendered them unavailable to legitimate users, according to the indictment filed in federal court in San Jose, California.
PayPal suffered attacks for several days last December. Company spokesman Anuj Nayar said he could not comment on current legal action.
The group made its name with a series of hacks on websites related to the Church of Scientology, in response to the church's attempts to prevent the spread of a video interview with Tom Cruise which had been leaked online.
Anonymous members reportedly launched a number of denial-of-service attacks against Scientologist websites, making them unavailable to users, as well as making prank calls and sending black faxes to Scientology centres.
They have also been linked, either by the media or by their own members, to web attacks on YouTube, the Australian Government and anti-internet piracy organisations and law firms.
At public protests, members of the group wear masks of 17th century Englishman Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, but Time Warner owns the rights to the image used in the 2006 Warner Bros. film “V for Vendetta.”
NEW YORK – Anonymous, the hacker group that has taken on global corporations, the Iranian government and Scientology, is making entertainment giant Time Warner money in the form of licensing fees, the New York Times reported.
During public protests and appearances, members of the group wear masks of 17th century Englishman Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
It is the same mask worn by an anarchist challenging an authoritarian regime in V for Vendetta, the 2006 movie from TW’s Warner Bros. studio. Since TW owns the rights to the image, it is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask, the Times said.
The paper didn’t detail the amounts that Time Warner and Warner Bros. may earn. The paper said Warner Bros. declined to comment.
But the sales add to the $28 billion in revenue that TW made last year. The Vendetta mask is the top-selling mask on Amazon.com, beating out masks of Batman, Harry Potter and Darth Vader, the Times said.
“We sell over 100,000 of these masks a year, and it’s by far the best-selling mask that we sell,” Howard Beige, executive vp of Rubie’s Costume, a New York costume company that produces the mask, told the Times. “In comparison, we usually only sell 5,000 or so of our other masks.” The mask typically sells for about $6, he added.