Anonymous wages war on ‘darknet’ hidden pedophiles, 40+ websites down

By Jeff Hughes Published October 24, 2011

Pedophiles beware; in their latest effort called #OpDarknet, well-known hacktivist group Anonymous is on a campaign against child pornography. The group took down servers which they claim hosted the largest collection of child porn on the internet. Over 40 websites were disabled, including Lolita City, which were operating via the anonymized Tor project.

The Tor network, birthed by the U.S. Navy, is a secure network used by many to avoid surveillance by governments and other agencies as it does not leave a trace of an IP address. The technology has been invaluable to journalists needing secure communications, dissidents overthrowing regimes and also to those pushing pirated material. Tor’s .onion top-level domain, pretty much only visible to Tor users, has also attracted seedy pedophiles and their pushers.

Recommended Videos

Anonymous’ began their campaign on October 14 according to a Pastebin press release. While wading through the .onion Hidden Wiki, the hackers noticed links to child porn, which they removed but were back up within 5 minutes. So then Anonymous took down the Hidden Wiki.

Armed with their “Chris Hanson Cannons” they identified digital fingerprints from the Hidden Wiki leading back to a server at Freedom Hosting. After issuing warnings to remove content, the group eventually shut down services to Freedom Hosting clients. After Freedom Hosting installed backups and restored service to the child porn sites, Anonymous shut them down again.

Anonymous says that by taking down these servers, 40+ websites were shut down, which counts for 100GB of eliminated content depicting children being sexually exploited. In another Pastebin release, the hacktivists said they managed to snag the user database, publishing the account details of 1,569 pedophiles

In a YouTube video detailing their manifesto, Anonymous announced: “Many of us have lingering traumatic images of the material that these pedophiles were hiding on the darknet. Anonymous took a pledge to defend the defenseless and fight for the fallen…the darknet is a vast sea of many providers. However, we fully intend to make it uninhabitable for these disgusting degenerates to exist.”

via Ars Technica

Former Digital Trends Contributor

I'm a SF Bay Area-based writer/ninja that loves anything geek, tech, comic, social media or gaming-related.

Mobile

PayPal vs. Venmo vs. Cash App vs. Apple Cash: which app should you use?

PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and Apple Wallet apps on an iPhone.

We’re getting closer every day to an entirely cashless society. While some folks may still carry around a few bucks for emergencies, electronic payments are accepted nearly everywhere, and as mobile wallets expand, even traditional credit and debit cards are starting to fall by the wayside.

That means many of us are past the days of tossing a few bills onto the table to pay our share of a restaurant tab or slipping our pal a couple of bucks to help them out. Now, even those things are more easily doable from our smartphones than our physical wallets.

Computing

How to change margins in Google Docs

Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content -- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Computing

What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app

A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

nproxy.org