Anonymous hacks Sentencing Commission site; is it releasing info on SCOTUS justices?
The hacker group that calls itself Anonymous took over the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission over the weekend and threatened to release files named after U.S. Supreme Court justices.
The group acted to protest the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide as he awaited a felony trial for allegedly downloading scholarly papers to make them accessible for free. The Los Angeles Times, Ars Technica and ZDNet have stories, while How Appealing links to the group’s statement.
Anonymous took over the website on Saturday and replaced it with a video criticizing Swartz’s prosecution, the stories say. After the website was restored, Anonymous hacked the site again, supplying a code that could be used to change the site into the Asteroids video game, ZDnet says.
Anonymous is also reportedly distributing encrypted files named after U.S. Supreme Court justices, but it has not offered a key or explained what is within the files, Ars Technica says. “At a regular interval commencing today,” the group wrote on Saturday, “we will choose one media outlet and supply them with heavily redacted partial contents of the file encrypted information in nuclear metaphor, before asking for reform of the Justice system.”
The group says de-encryption keys to the files will be released absent legal reform. The Los Angeles Times refers to a tweet attributed to Anonymous encouraging support for a bill known as “Aaron’s law” that would limit the computer fraud law used to charge Swartz.
