14 DAY TRIAL // Anonymous continues its missions to do justice, this time by attacking a private file-sharing network that allegedly hosts tons of materials accessed by child abusers.
According to SC Magazine, they published the information of 1,500 members of a site hosted on Freedom Hosting, which is accused by the hacktivists of storing illegal content.
“We infiltrated the shared hosting server of Freedom Hosting and shut down services to all clients due to their lack of action to remove [child abuse content] from their server,” Anonymous revealed in a post.
On the other hand, even if the group's actions might seem just, law enforcement representatives claim that these types of operations can easily interfere with their investigations.
“If police were investigating, it could destroy evidence. They shouldn’t be acting as vigilantes. If they find this content, they should notify authorities. As enticing as it may be, don’t DoS,” said Nigel Phair, co-founder of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre.
Because the IP addresses of those who visit such websites are constantly monitored by the police, the IPs of the hackers could be mixed up with the ones belonging to the child abusers and even though hacking is a crime, it's not as bad as child abuse.
Phair believes that vigilantes should alert the proper authorities instead of taking matters into their own hands.
In their justification video, Anonymous claims that these criminals hide behind a part of the Internet called the “darknet” where law enforcement has little access, allowing for molesters to get away unpunished.
Their latest attack is part of their campaign called #OpDarknet in which they plan on bringing down such illegal websites. This is the second operation after they took down Lolita City, another popular name that promoted illicit content.
Now, they seem determined to carry on their mission, especially since one of their own was a victim of child abuse.