Anonymous on the offensive as it records FBI call, hacks government sites

ATHENS/LONDON/STOCKHOLM/SALT LAKE CITY

REUTERS photo

Trading jokes and swapping leads, investigators from the FBI and Scotland Yard spent the conference call strategizing about how to bring down the hacking collective known as Anonymous, responsible for a string of embarrassing attacks across the Internet.

Unfortunately for the cyber sleuths, the hackers were in on the call too and now so is the rest of the world.

Anonymous published the roughly 15-minute-long recording of the call on the Internet on Friday, gloating in a Twitter message that "the FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now." 

The hackers' successful attempt to spy on the very people charged with tracking them down remained the most dramatic coup of the day, with sensitive police conversations broadcast across the world.

The FBI said the communication "was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained," but added that no FBI systems were breached.

Worldwide attacks on government sites

Hackers from the Anonymous collective have taken over the websites of several government and law enforcement agencies worldwide on Friday and Saturday, including the Swedish government's website, the official website of the Greek justice ministry, a website belonging to Slovenia's largest bank and those belonging to law enforcement agencies in Boston and Salt Lake City in the United States. 

The attacks in Sweden, Greece and Slovenia were in an apparent protest of a planned global copyright treaty, known as ACTA.

Hackers who brought down the Greek justice ministry website were also protesting the harsh austerity measures the Greek government was implementing to secure loans from its European partners and the IMF. 

"You have joined the IMF against your people's acquiescence ... democracy was given birth in your country but you have killed it," said a two-minute video in English which said it was from Anonymous and was posted on the ministry website.

The hackers threatened new attacks on government and media websites if Greece implemented the ACTA anti-piracy treaty.

In the United States, Boston police department's site was defaced and Salt Lake City police reported personal information of confidential informants and tipsters had been compromised.

Data stolen from law firm defending civilian-killing Marine 

Anonymous also claimed credit for stealing a mountain of data from the Virginia-based law firm that defended a U.S. Marine recently convicted for his role in the bloody 2005 raid in Iraq that became known as the Haditha massacre.

Compiled from AP and Reuters by the Daily News Staff