CYBERSPACE—In a series of interviews with AVN late last year, members of the pirate-loving group Anonymous made clear their love of porn. Not only do they love it; they feel protective of it and have in the past targeted its enemies. So when the news broke that the group—under the Operation Payback banner—plans on initiating a DDoS attack against Hustler tomorrow in retaliation for a recent spate of ”John Doe” lawsuits the company has filed against alleged end user pirates, it seemed all too obvious that piracy had won out over porn. The cult of free trumps all. Targeting anyone who illegally downloads anything has been codified as the ultimate sin.
The specific target of tomorrow’s promised attack, which is supposed to commence at 8 p.m. GMT, is Hustler.com. It almost didn't happen. Anonymous had planned to launch more attacks this week against HADOPI.fr, the website for the French government agency that regulates internet access and enforces copyright law, but smelled a rat... or a mouse.
According to Myce.com, “The mission was called off after Anonymous became suspicious about the lack of defenses the agency’s web servers had, rousing speculation that there were plans to collect IP addresses for a counter-attack.”
In a message posted to an Operation Payback forum, a member of Anonymous explained, “Doesn’t this seem remotely suspicious? It’s like leaving your front door open, and leaving signs around the city, saying that your front door is open and where you live … Of course, this will pull the bad guys in, which means it’s a trap.”
Instead of walking into the mousetrap, a decision was made—however such things happen—to shift the focus of tomorrow's cyber hostilities to Hustler, at which point the requisite warning was issued, and media alerted.
Now it remains to be seen what methods, if any, Hustler employs to try to repel this attack, mute it, or, as HADOPI was suspected of plotting, entrap its perpetrators. But no matter what transpires tomorrow, picking a fight with Larry Flynt is something even the anonymous might want to think twice about.
Just ask all those John Does.
