Anonymous declares war on Japan

GlobalPost

“Greetings land of the rising sun, we are Anonymous,” began the hacker collective's latest press release, in which Anonymous declared war against the Japanese Government and the Recording Industry Association of Japan.

Anonymous said it was launching cyrber-attacks to protest the country’s new anti-piracy law.

The law allows courts to give a two-year jail term or fines of up to $25,000 for anyone convicted of piracy or illegally downloading copyrighted material.

In response to the law, Anonymous launched cyber-attacks on Tuesday against websites belonging to Japan’s Ministry of Finance, Supreme Court, the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party. Technicians shut down the finance ministry's website after detecting an intruder on the webserver, offcials at the ministry said.

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"We are aware of the Anonymous statement referring to the new copyright law, but we don't know at this point if the cyber-attacks are linked to the group," said Takanari Horino, a Ministry of Finance official, at a press conference. 

"We are investigating where the illegal item came from," he added.

Twitter account op_japan, created on June 25, first began instructing sympathetic hackers to attack Japanese websites on Tuesday.

“To the government of Japan and the Recording Industry Association of Japan, you can now expect us the same way we have come to expect you in violating our basic rights to privacy and to an open internet,” read a press release tweeted by op_japan, linking Anonymous to the attacks.

The same Twitter account then announced that the collective planned to conduct more attacks against Japanese websites in the near future.

On Wednesday morning it began directing hackers to attack the Democratic Party of Japan website. 

“What's next for #opjapan ? You'll just have to wait and see. #anonymous #anonfamily #infosec #media #mp3 #bittorrent #rt,” read a tweet posted Wednesday morning.

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