Anonymous Targets Australian Government Over Proposed Changes to Privacy Laws

Anons supporting OpAustralia have taken down at least ten domains maintained by the Queensland government this week, in protest of proposed changes to privacy laws.

The attacks started over the weekend, as Australia’s Prime Minister was set to host a chat on Google+.

“The Australian Government is attempting to strip away its citizens’ internet rights by forcing them to surrender passwords and internet usage data…Unless the Government starts acting in the best interest of its people, it will continue to bring the noise… We no longer know about many of the activities of our governments while our governments have the means to accumulate unprecedented vast banks of data about us…,” OpAustralia said in a statement.

The proposed changes that the Anons were protesting would require electronic communications, such as email and data from social networking sites, or other Web platforms, to be collected and stored by local ISPs for up to two years. Additional details on the proposed changes can be seen here.

On Monday, OpAustralia’s Twitter account told the government to be prepared as “something big is heading your way…”

Earlier this week, data taken from compromised Queensland-based government servers appeared online. Included with the leaked data is a 194MB database, which is said to contain government tracking data. SecurityWeek was unable to confirm the details in this file with local authorities due to differences in time zones.

We’ll update with more information if it becomes available.