Anonymous Hacks One Hundred Turkish Government Websites

Members of the Anonymous collective have hacked and defaced over one hundred websites belonging to the Turkish government in a campaign against Internet censorship in the country.

In addition to defacing 74 websites with the Anonymous logo and a message for the government, the hackers also leaked information extracted from the compromised websites.

"Our vessel recently encountered a Turkish Government frigate, a chance we could not not let pass. So we simply boarded their vessel [...] and collected some booty.

"Find the dump of some 100 plus .tr domains in this release. For a good measure we also decided to remove 74 Turkish government websites and replace the content with a better message," the hackers wrote in the description of a torrent uploaded on ThePirateBay.

The attack is also in retaliation to Turkish authorities arresting 32 individuals believed to be connected to hacktivist group last month.

The message left on the defaced websites accuses the Turkish government of censoring the Internet and violating freedom of the press by harassing journalists.

Anonymous protests the country's new Internet filter which is expected to go live next month and will permit the government to collect records about people's online activity.

"Accessing and participating in the free flow of information is a basic human right. Anonymous will not stand by while the Turkish government violates this right. We will bring our support to circumvent censorship and retaliate against organizations imposing censorship," part its message reads.

The defaced pages bear the logo of Operation Turkey, a campaign that is part of the group's largest effort against Internet censorship known as Antisec. Anonymous calls for all users to join its cause and attack official websites worldwide, however, some supporters have hit seemingly random sites since the movement started.