WikiLeaks: Anonymous takes down Swedish prosecution website

[Joanne98]

The Swedish prosecutor's website crashed late yesterday, moments after the authority announced its intention to fight the decision to grant WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange bail in the UK.

The website of the Swedish Prosecution Authority, Aklagare.se, was brought offline for almost 11 hours on Tuesday in the latest online attack by Anonymous, the loose-knit group committed to crippling the websites of companies and governments perceived to be acting against WikiLeaks. The site was back online at the time of publication.

At least three hackers linked to the Anonymous attacks, including two Dutch teenagers, have been arrested this week as authorities crack down on the illegal online assaults that have brought down the sites of Visa, Mastercard and PayPal in the past fortnight.

Assange this week issued a rallying call to his supporters, urging them to protect the whistleblowers' site from what he called "instruments of US foreign policy" – citing Visa, Mastercard and PayPal. Downing Street also put its websites on red alert in anticipation of being targeted by the group, though no substantial attack materialised.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-assange-swedish-prosecution-website-crash