Hackers attack Indonesia's information ministry's website

Mar 31, 2008 08:49 GMT  ·  By

Hackers are always looking for new targets for their attacks but, in case somebody instigates them, hacking a certain website becomes their main priority. This is what probably happened in Indonesia where some hackers attacked the official website of the country's information ministry after the government tried to promote a law that prohibits the distribution of pornographic material on the web. According to Reuters, any person who is found guilty of "transmitting pornographic material, false news or racial and religious hate messages" on the web may spend his next six years in prison or pay a fine of approximately $100,000.

On Thursday, the hackers managed to break into the website and posted a message saying: "Prove that the law has not been made to cover government stupidity" along with "a mocked-up photograph of a local information technology expert, who has been advising the government on the new law, depicted with a bare chest," Reuters reports. Although the website has been taken offline, several screenshots were captured and posted on the Internet.

At this time, the page is supposed to be up and running, but it doesn't work for me although I've tried to load it at different times of the day.

This is not the first time when hackers manage to infiltrate into a government website and this should trigger an alarm for the people in charge with the security of these pages. Just think that hacking these official websites and accessing the data stored on the server may also mean opening some sort of private information which would obviously be quite a critical moment for the national security of the affected country.

However, let's just hope that pornography is not a reason to make too much damage no matter how addicted you are and what laws your government is trying to promote.