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#OpIndia Is Anonymous’ New Campaign Against Internet Censorship

Anonymous is kind of like a global Batman that uses a computer instead of batarangs to fight what they perceive as injustice. They have started up operations in various countries like China, but their...
#OpIndia Is Anonymous’ New Campaign Against Internet Censorship
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  • Anonymous is kind of like a global Batman that uses a computer instead of batarangs to fight what they perceive as injustice. They have started up operations in various countries like China, but their newest campaign is pretty ambitious – #OpIndia.

    As the name implies, Anonymous is now attacking the Indian government. Why? They feel that the government is squashing its citizens’ rights to a free Internet. The Indian government has already blocked access to sites like The Pirate Bay and Vimeo.

    The main source of information for this operation comes from @opindia_revenge. The Twitter handle has been tweeting the various Web sites that Anonymous has been taking down since May 10. Here’s the rally cry announcement of the first operation:

    Operation indiaTarget : Department of telecomReason: blocking file sharing sites in India
    6 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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    It’s made obvious over the next few days that the Indian government is pretty much just ignoring the sites being taken down. The person running the Twitter account obviously wants their actions to show up on national news, but it seems that the national Indian media isn’t picking up on it either.

    TANGO STILL DOWNCorrupt government still unaware of attack on http://t.co/8Li3g8PV #Anonymous @shivendravats
    4 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    It wasn’t until the today, however, that they started to get the results that they wanted. They began taking down the major government Web sites that could stand up to a smaller DDoS attack. The Web sites taken down now include the Supreme Court, Department of Telecom and the All Indian Congress. Here’s a sampling of the attacks just from the past few hours.

    http://t.co/JfAIcrDJ has been added to #TANGODOWN list.#opindia on #RAMPAGE!We wont let government function
    7 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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    http://t.co/wbqPtrzCCourts must know #internet belongs to us!FUCKING STOP #CENSORING IT!!We will take down more government websites now
    7 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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    We will become a #PAIN in the #ASS for the government until they stop #censoring our #INTERNETIT BELONGS TO US!
    4 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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    It seems that many people in India are new to this DDoS thing. The account has just recently started answering questions about DDoS attacks and what they are. It seems that a few people are worried that these kind of attacks permanently damage a Web site. They even let a Web site come back up to prove that they aren’t doing any lasting damage.

    Look http://t.co/wbqPtrzC is back up!For ffs, We ain’t permanently damaging the sites. You get it now?
    3 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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    Their latest target has been Copyright Labs which is an anti-piracy company in India. They offer tools that allow movie distributors to prevent the sharing of Bollywood films over torrents and file-sharing services like Rapidshare.

    Anonymous #India– Tango down: http://t.co/sWKE95Fh | Reason: for promoting #Censorship & lobbying / bribing the politicians to pass the bill
    39 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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    The last update from OpIndia was from 11 minutes ago. It seems that they’re still taking down Web sites and alerting the local Indian media of their attacks. They claim to be getting more support from the Indian citizens on their side. Their follower count is only at 437 though, so I don’t know how popular they really are.

    The recent censorship of The Pirate Bay has not been India’s first foray into the world of Web censorship. We reported back in March that Google and Facebook were set to stand trial in India over their failing to remove offensive religious content off of their networks. The trial has been continuously pushed back with the latest court date now set for August 7.

    Anonymous hasn’t mentioned this in their campaign against the country, but I think that The Pirate Bay might be more important to them since that’s already blocked. Considering how slow the Google and Facebook trial is moving, they may not even go to court. You got to keep your priorities straight, right?

    We’ll continue to follow #OpIndia like all other Anonymous operations and update you if anything big happens. For now, they seem to be more or less in a loop of taking down the same few Web sites over and over again.

    [h/t: The Next Web]

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