Aside from a few international operations and participating in the NATO protests currently happening in Chicago, Anonymous has been pretty quiet. That all changed today as Anonymous has leaked the database for the Bureau of Justice.
The 1.7 GB file contains what Anonymous calls “shiny things such as internal emails and the entire database dump.” They claimed that the Bureau of Justice took down their Web site as a sign of acknowledging the hack.
In classic Anonymous fashion, they have released another video that details the entire attack. The reason behind the attack is thus:
We do not stand for any government or parties, we stand for freedom of people, freedom of speech and freedom of information. We are releasing data to spread information, to allow the people to be heard and to know the corruption in their government. We are releasing it to end the corruption that exists, and truly make those who are being oppressed free. The price we pay very often is our own freedom. The price governments pay is the exposure of their corruption and the truth being revealed, for the truth will set us free in the end. So once more we call on you. Hackers, activists, and freedom fighters; join us in our struggle against these corporate hypocrites.
I will say that Anonymous has gotten much better at creating videos. It was only a few weeks ago that they would just post their message and be on their way. Now they’re making videos full of special effects with star lions and Anonymous imagery.
Oh, and before you ask, the database leak is real and is hosted on The Pirate Bay. We won’t link to it, but it’s easy enough to find. It remains to be seen if there’s actually anything incriminating in it since the Bureau of Justice is just an arm of the Department of Justice that collects stats on crime.
It’s also worth noting that this leak seems to be part of a new movement called #MondayMailMayhem or #MMM for short. The verdict is out on whether or not it’s related to #FuckFBIFriday.