The company has become a target because it uses minerals from Congo

Jun 11, 2012 08:17 GMT  ·  By

Anonymous-affiliated hacktivists have turned their attention to Intel, accusing the company of “increasing slavery, war and nature devastation in Congo.” As a result, the hackers breached the Intel Consumer Electronics (intelconsumerelectronics.com) website, leaking information from its databases.

The attack is part of Operation Green Rights and Operation Coltan, campaigns in which hackers try to raise awareness of the fact that Coltan (columbite–tantalite), the metallic ore used to manufacture consumer electronics, causes a lot of problems for the people of Congo.

“Enormous corporations buy from Congo, however there is a large problem. There is a war in Congo, children get kidnapped, turned into slaves, and forced to work the mines to mine this precious mineral,” the hackers wrote.

“Firms like Apple, Intel, IBM, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, etc... use great amounts of Coltan in order to produce computers and cellular phones. We know that also in 1998 Intel used lots of coltan, and that coltan comes from Congo. So we can say that Intel contributed indirectly to create the Congo's war in 1998,” they added.

“We underline that also in 2011 Intel promise to stop immediately to use Congo's minerals. This never occurs. So in 2012 Intel promises another time, to produce conflict free processors from 2013.”

According to the hackers, the dump from Intel’s Consumer Electronics website represents the site’s complete database and includes names, passwords, usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, and contract details.

Another victim of this operation is Traxys, a company that focuses on the marketing and sourcing of metals, minerals and other material.

“Also Traxys sustains that from 8 Mai 2012 its minerals would come from conflict free areas, but we shows that Traxys is laying,” they explained.

To prove their point they also leaked some information from Traxys’ databases.

Currently, visitors of intelconsumerelectronics.com are being redirected to intel.com