14 DAY TRIAL // The Czech and the Slovakian divisions of the Anonymous hacker collective have attacked private companies owned by Andrej Babis, Czech Republic's Finance Minister, motivating their actions as a hacktivism campaign carried out because of the country's intentions to introduce new online gambling laws, local news media reports.
Babis is the main politician behind a controversial law approved in the Czech Republic that allows the government to block non-licensed gambling websites across the country.
While the legislation targets rogue online gambling sites, the hacker collective has sounded the alarm in a YouTube video, claiming that the new laws are nothing more than a test run for future campaigns to block Internet sites across the country under new, shady legislation.
The operation called #OpBlokada initially targeted companies owned by Babis, such as Agrofert, Hyza, Cepro, Preol, Penam, Uniles, and Wotan Forest, with DDoS attacks.
The DDoS attacks took place on August 1 and were short-lived, just to prove a point. The group promised more attacks in the following days.
"Once you have created a state blacklist, it's an easier way to create other blocklists," says the group [translated]. "The Finance Ministry led by Andrej Babis now gets an almost unlimited authority to censor the internet."
When the law was approved, the Czech government said it would help fight tax evasion in the country's gambling industry.
