Update: CNN is reporting that sites affiliated with Mexico’s mining ministry and the state of Alabama were also taken down. They’re also reporting that the CIA’s site was back up by this morning, but cia.gov is currently down from where we are sitting.

What you’re seeing is a screenshot of what happens when you try to access the CIA’s website — CIA.gov — as of the time of this posting. As per usual, Anonymous is taking credit for the takedown.

No, the outage probably won’t last for a long period of time, but even if Anonymous is erroneously taking credit for the site being down, the connection is being interrupted by some entity. As the news of this particular takedown spreads, it will inevitably lead back to the “is Anonymous helping when they do things like this,” and while that’s valid, the ease at which they, or whatever entity they are covering for, accomplishes these takedowns says a great deal.

For one, these nuisances, even if they are using tools developed by “real hackers,” have a knack for taking down big targets and doing it in a very public manner:

Furthermore, these takedowns are making an absolute mockery of the security the United States government uses to “protect” their multitude of sites. This isn’t a small, random government department being temporarily removed from the Internet, it’s the CIA, perhaps one of the most infamous, most powerful acronyms in world, especially the one we currently reside in.

And Anonymous, or whatever group they are covering for/taking credit for, is toying with their secure web presence.

The only problem is, the CIA has many more resources than these hacker groups do, and if they find out who is responsible, we’ll probably never find out about it, but the world will, in all likelihood, have one less hacker to worry about.

H/t to Boing Boing for the heads up.