Spanish police arrest 'anonymous' hacktivists

Spanish police arrested three suspected members of the "Anonymous" hacktivist group that had been linked to attacks on high-profile sites. The three, whose names were not immediately public, were detained in Alicante, Almeria and Barcelona, computer security site Sophos reported Friday night. Citing information from Spain's Technological Investigation Brigade (BIT), Sophos said that the men allegedly operated a cell of Anonymous, "directing Internet attacks against the likes of the Sony PlayStation store, and websites belonging to the governments of Egypt, Chile, Iran, Colombia, Algeria and Libya." The web page containing the Sophos report included screenshots of IRC logs "that appeared to show plans to attack Spanish police websites and the electoral board with a distributed denial-of-service attack." Also, Sophos said Spanish police had reportedly seized a server hosted in the city of Gijon. "No doubt the authorities are hoping that that may yield clues which will help reveal the identities of other Anonymous activists," Sophos said. Meanwhile, Anonymous' site remained inaccessible as of 9 p.m. Friday (Manila time). It was not immediately clear if this was related to the arrests and seizure. Still, Sophos said the Spanish computer crime cops should be congratulated for their investigation into the more malicious activities of Anonymous. "If nothing else, these arrests may encourage others to think twice before participating in distributed denial-of-service attacks against websites and online organisations - an activity which some forget is against the law," it said. - TJD, GMA News