The users at 4chan, a popular image board responsible for many Internet memes such as the Rickroll, lolcats, and the "Anonymous" assault on the Church of Scientology, publicly announced a coordinated DDoS attack against the Motion Picture Association of America in retaliation for the hiring of an Indian-based software firm, which carried out similar attacks on The Pirate Bay and other file sharing sites.
Girish Kumar, managing director of Aiplex Software, the firm in India, said that his company, which works for the film industry, was being hired to pretty much be hitmen who would launch cyber attacks on pirate sites that were hosting illegal material if they didn't respond to copyright infringement notices sent to them by the film industry. This is a cyber crime under American and other countries' laws.
The attacks have been ongoing since early September, with major websites taking falls and experiencing huge downtime for up to 24 hours. Websites and companies affected are the Motion Picture Association of America, WebSheriff, DG Legal, Davenport Lyons and the British Phonographic Industry, to name a few. The most recent attack is the Ministry of Sound, a British music service.
However, the most important attack was on the company responsible for hiring Aiplex Software (as a note, their website is still down), the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, or ACS. The attack on their website has caused a massive security breach that contained a list of emails linked to illegal pornographic videos that was procured and then distributed all over torrent sites by the attackers.
To find out more on what's going on and why it won't stop until the attackers 'stop being angry', hit the break. (WARNING: NSFW. Contains explicit language from original documents. Discretion is advised.)