Justice Dept. website shut down in apparent hack

Updated 10:31 PM ET

The website of the U.S. Department of Justice was shut down Thursday in what the FBI called a denial of service attack following a piracy indictment involving the file-sharing site Megaupload.

The public websites of Universal Music and the Motion Picture Association of America were also shuttered. On Twitter, the loosely-organized hacking group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the hacks.

By late Thursday evening, the homepage of the Justice Department's website was back in operation.

Internet relay chats supported by the Anonymous collective show participants discussing the DOJ site being down and talking about other U.S. government sites to target, including the Recording Industry of America.

In addition to the Megaupload indictment, the activists are angry about two proposed antipiracy bills backed by the music and movie industries, SOPA and PIPA, that critics say would give authorities broad power to shut down websites for the mere accusation that they had pirated content on them.

Numerous websites including Wikipedia and Reddit "blacked out" on Wednesday, deliberately hiding their normal content and posting messages protesting the antipiracy bills. Many U.S. entertainment and media companies, including CBS Corporation, back the legislation.

Full coverage of SOPA, PIPA at Tech Talk

"Seems like some friendly ships are launching torpedos justice.gov as we speak. The site seems down to us! (via @AnonOpsSweden)," Twitter accounts associated with the Anonymous online activist group posted Thursday following the apparent hacks.

Another tweet by the AnonOps account said: "Tango down! universalmusic.com & justice.gov// #Megaupload."

Shortly before the outage, seven people were named in an indictment and four were taken into custody on online piracy charges, including Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, the founder of Megaupload, the internet file-posting service that claimed 50 million daily users.

The site allows users to post digital files - text, movies, music, computer programs, and more - and provide a link for others to download them for free. It charged users for premium accounts that permitted faster and more frequent downloads.

A DOJ spokeswoman said she was trying to get comment on the matter and Universal Music had no comment.

CNET's Elinor Mills contributed to this report

[chroniccomplainer]

This action just makes the hackers look like Terrorists to many Americans. The will have no mercy when the hackers are dragged to court.

[Toddwest]

terrorists? if many Americans believe stuff like this is terrorism, they live in fantasy land. It is called protesting, as small and noneffective as it may be, that's basically all it is. Yes it is illegal, but terrorism? Terrorism is destruction meant to harm the innocent of their right to life, tell me how this does that?

[Austin_Hoffman]

I can't believe they went and arrested him in ANOTHER country!!!

p.s. LOL @list of the owner's seized cars: (i call dibz on the royce!)
http://www.peeje.com/positivity/5666-megaupload-sued-defendants-property-lol

[berlinfoto-2009]

Some shut down the web sight of the "DEPARTMENT ON INJUSTICE, AND COVER UPS"!
The Department that covers up, government murder.

[nancy_naive]

It's the Code of Hammurabi...

[WiseAsOwl]

The news media gives me a pain.. Why give the little punks credit and publicity for hacking and shutting things down.. Hackers are simply abortions that should have happened... but didn't....

[Toddwest]

Dumbasajackass should be your handle....

[RayNeirson]

Well, Well, Well

http://www.facebook.com/rayn143

[Ngilbaz]

Well, I have to agree with hackers to some point but taking government websites down is a wrong way to deal with the problem. There is a book I want to read but it is prohibitively expensive. It is not available in the libraries. What can I do. Nothing. Thus, instead of promoting SOPA and other outrageously wrong acts make the copyright material accessible and affordable to the masses instead of defending greedy corporations. There are books that cost over one thousand dollars. It is ridiculous or episode of a show that costs 1.99 while if you pay one hundred for the cable you can watch all of them for free. I believe government should support such companies like netflix. I am ready to wait for a month for a new movie to come out on netflix but licensing is also very expensive. Please do something about it. Government will never be able to tackle hackers. There are hundreds of them all over the world. It will exhaust all resources and affect consumers at home in the United States.

[rwsmith29456]

The Anonymous group are destructive criminals.

[hammer1one]

Far worse.

[markag55]

It's so interesting how little people know about the internet, the World Wide Web, and other networking systems, yet shout out, "It's the Dems!" "It's about freedom!" The Republicans have been the party that is most responsible for shutting down or cutting out the freedoms we once enjoyed.

I just find it all amusing that a group of highly intelligent "hackers" can shut down government agencies, half of Hollywood, and just about anyone or anything else. I think the government should be spending a bit more to make it harder to "hack" their systems. Maybe those people who are a part of "Anonymous" should be offered high paying jobs in our Federal Government to come up with "hacker-resistant" measures. But, then, they wouldn't be anonymous. But "Anonymous" people do it for fun, to shake people up to let us know that no computer system or network is infallible.

Thank goodness, they're on "our" side, whatever side "we're" on. That's the absurdity of it all. It is a farce that Joe Orton, if he were alive today, would find much humor in: a farce more absurd that anything he could have written. As the younger Brits say: "Brilliant!" As the younger Americans say, "Awesome!" I just say, "Pretty neat, guys and gals. Job well done. No foul, no harm. Just a lot of fun you guys must be having!"

[fedup12]

by legacyABQ2 January 19, 2012 6:41 PM EST

But, when a big bad government-oppression organization gets its ass handed to them by teenagers, I have only one thing to say:

LuLz
===============================================
So. Not being able to use their web site for a little while is an azz handing moment?

Man I would hate to see you get in a real fight. You would think you were dying.

[fedup12]

Ooooh Scary dudeette...

[fedup12]

Shaz is a dude?