Anonymous Puts Fed in Its Crosshairs

The increasingly bold online hacking group known as Anonymous appears to be making the Federal Reserve its next target, with a video on Google’s YouTube attributed to the group calling on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to resign.

In a video uploaded Saturday that is gaining media attention today, a clip of Bernanke in a recent 60 Minutes interview about the economy is followed by a voice representing the group that said today would mark the “first step” of engagement in what it calls “Operation Empire State Rebellion.”

The distorted voice on the video intones its threats in a creepy monotone, reading what sounds like something ripped from a movie script: “Ninety days ago, we requested Ben Bernanke’s resignation as Federal Reserve Chairman. Mr. Bernanke has not complied with our request. The Federal Reserve’s policies are systematically looting the country to enrich one 10th of 1 percent of the population...”

After discussing Bernanke, the Fed's unusually vocal chairman, the Anonymous video goes on to criticize the nation’s top bank, claiming it manipulates the stock market, allows record bonuses to go to executives at top banks, and has deliberately driven millions of people into poverty.

Why all the drama? Anonymous is a coalition of hackers bent on "hacktivism," purposely targeting the websites of companies and entities that it deems guilty of transgressions involving Internet freedom, or in the case of the Fed, the economy.

Its AnonOps Communications blog features news of its latest activities and people wearing masks reminiscent of the graphic novel and movie, V for Vendetta, a futuristic tale of a freedom fighter named V who fights back against a totalitarian society. It's not the only hacking group inviting publicity lately. Another group called LulzSec has also made news this spring for coordinated hacking attacks, including on PBS, Nintendo, and on a security company that works with the FBI.

Sony has blamed Anonymous for the massive attack on its PlayStation Network in April. The group said it was not involved, but it did take credit in December for taking down the websites of PayPal and Visa among others as revenge for the payment processors’ decision to suspend use of their networks by secret document publisher WikiLeaks.

The group's targets seem to have spanned the globe, with several arrests announced overseas over the weekend.

On Sunday, police in Turkey detained 32 alleged Anonymous members, including eight minors, in the wake of what they say was an attempt to take down the website of Turkey’s directorate of telecommunications, reports the New York Times.

Anonymous says it was protesting the Turkish government's censorship of the web, specifically plans to introduce a new Internet filtering system in August that will require Internet users to sign up for one of four filters: domestic, family, children and standard.

Spanish police also arrested three suspected members Friday after the websites of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, Spain’s second largest bank, and Enel SpA, the Italian owner of Spanish power company Endesa SA, were hacked. Those arrests led to Anonymous's claims to have shut down the Spanish National Police website for an hour via a successful “distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack on Sunday, Wired reports.

---

Get more business intelligence from Portfolio.com:

• With Friends Like These: As word comes that Facebook's IPO could hit early in 2012 and may give the company a $100 billion valuation, one piece of news threatens to temper the good times—Facebook continues to add users, but at a significantly lower pace.
• Fighting Off Hack Attacks: Companies can never completely protect themselves against hackers, but having good passwords helps, says CodeGuard CEO David Moeller.
• Play It Again, Simon: American Idol creator Simon Fuller has partnered with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, the music executive behind U2 and Bob Marley, on a new digital media consultancy.

---

Teresa Novellino writes for Portfolio.com