Obligatory:

http://xkcd.com/932/

It's even worse than that, unfortunately, as it's already being reported (by people that should know better) as a "hack":

http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/19/anonymous-hacks-doj-univer...

NYTimes syndicates Venture Beat so it makes sense for that audience at least.

Please, post something more substantial! If I didn't know better, it would make it look like the actions of Anonymous are directly related to the anti-SOPA protests yesterday and it will only harm us in the end. Yes, there are issues with the megaupload.com take down - but let's not give MSM or the pro-SOPA senators a reason to forget about what was accomplished - and to me a posting on a domain like proteststopa.com with just those screenshots is detrimental to the cause.

(Also - don't take this as me being for or against any of these actions - I just can't help feel yesterday becoming a waste of everyone's efforts.)

You are right. There we go, giving the SOPA supporters, some excellent excuses to picture the Internet as a wild land that needs to be civilized through more laws and control.

When fighting in the politics game, you have to be VERY clever and cold. You don't have to act guided by anger or impulse. Be smarter than them.

Good point! Edit: "Anonymous takes down FBI.gov. This movement by Anonymous is interesting, however it may overshadow the point of the January 18th blackout against SOPA. Some Congressmen may see their actions as positive renforcement for censorship on the web."

Thank you! I would hate to see someone use this as a reason to convert peoples opinions on SOPA.

No problem! Thanks for your input.

Taking down www.FBI.gov is not that big of a deal. It is almost certainly an externally hosted CMS that is completely independent of any day to day FBI operations.

This is analagous to claiming victory by DDOSing a blog.

That's the point. Notice their message about the stunt. They're not interested in attacking the FBI.

I wonder: when did Anonymous prepare this attack?

They are very efficient at pointing LOIC and all other weapons to the targets they want in a couple of hours. Were they waiting for the next event to happen?

Keep in mind that newer versions of LOIC can be run idly in the background, connected to a control channel on IRC for remote activation by someone else. The amount of "coordination" necessary for a massive LOIC attack is limited to getting someone to download the software and enter the relevant channel information.

If memory serves, it's even easier than that: the version currently being distributed comes pointed at the CnC channel by default.

Yes, probably not this specific event, but maybe they were coordinated just in case something happen around the protest that went down yesterday.