Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous Australia collective have
posted a video warning their counterparts in Indonesia that if they do
not stop infiltrating private Aussie web sites the two factions could
engage in an all-out cyber-war.
The group known as “Anonymous Indonesia” took responsibility last
week for hacking more than 170 websites in Australia. Anonymous
Indonesia told the website Tempo that the hack was in response to a
report that the Australian government granted the US National Security
Agency access to its embassy in Jakarta to spy on Indonesians.
Yet instead of retaliating against the Australian government
Anonymous Indonesia seems to have disturbed the operations of private
Australian businesses including a dry cleaner, a bouncy castle business
that provides inflatable party toys, and others that obviously had
nothing to do with any NSA activity.
The warning issued Monday was not the first video addressed to the Indonesian hackers.
“Innocent businesses should not be attacked,” the first video
declared. “We all bound together in an effort to bring down our tyrant
governments to shape our world as a better place.”
“You have not stopped your attacks against the Australian public
where we have tried to plead with you,” Monday’s video said. “What is
there to prove? We do not want a cyber-war, do you? …We have been
patient with you, Anonymous Indonesia. There will be no more warnings if
you choose to attack again.”
The message goes on to suggest that Anonymous Indonesia instead focus
its efforts on the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the
Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), and the Australian
Signals Directorate (ASD).
That advice seems to have taken hold, as the ASIS website was knocked
offline for hours on Monday. The other pages seemed to be operating as
normal but Heru Satudi, executive director of the Indonesian technology
think tank the Indonesia ICT Institute, told the Sydney Morning Herald a
distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack crashed the site.
Frustration with the Australian government’s complicity in the NSA
spying has stretched far past Anonymous, though. The clandestine
activity was first exposed by a leak from NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden last month and reverberations from the revelations are still
echoing throughout the region.
“Enough is enough,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told
reporters last week. “While [the US and Australia] are not able to
confirm or deny past activities, at least they should be able, and I’m
making a public expectation here, I think they should be able to
henceforth say they are not going to do it anymore.
“In the absence of assurances that such [spying] activities never
took place, then of course we must assume that such activities are
taking place, and draw our own conclusion in terms of their view of
Indonesia as a partner,” he continued.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYLq5HpYFwM&feature=player_embedded
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