Anthony De Rosa

Earlier today Reuters reported that file sharing website Megaupload.com was taken offline and charged with copyright infringement by a U.S. grand jury.

In response, the loose knit hacker collective “Anonymous” has organized a protest using a brute force method of flooding a website with so many requests it falls under its own weight, a tactic they call a LOIC (low orbit ion cannon) or DOS attack (denial of service).

The victims of their attack so far: the Department of Justice, the RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music. As of the publishing of this post, only the MPAA had regained its footing and the other sites remained inaccessible.

The FBI issued this press release about the Megapupload arrests.

Hacker collective Anonymous has been involved in some of the highest profile hacks in the last couple of years. I talked to Cole Stryker who recently wrote a book about the group.

I had a chance to meet and interview Kevin Mitnick, who at one time was the most wanted hacker in the world. Today he’s one of the most sought after security experts, helping others to understand how hackers break into computer networks.