Anonymous

Anonymous is planning to launch a cyberattack this weekend against the website of the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations agency holding a meeting of 190 governments to discuss political and commercial control of the Internet, a security firm says.

The ITU-organized World Conference on International Telecommunications runs Dec. 3-14 in Dubai. The secretive meet has sparked rage within Anonymous and the blogosphere over a Russian proposal to hand control over the Internet to the ITU.

A 22-year-old U.K. man was convicted for his involvement in a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks launched by the hacktivist group Anonymous against PayPal, MasterCard, Visa and other companies in 2010.

Christopher Weatherhead, of Northampton, U.K., was convicted Thursday at London's Southwark Crown Court on one count of conspiracy to impair the operation of computers, contrary to the U.K. Criminal Law Act of 1977, the U.K.'s Crown Prosecution Service said in a blog post.

Activist group Anonymous, or persons using its insignia and name, claim to have taken down the website of the US schools that have made it compulsory for students to wear RFID tags.

Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore student at the John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio, last week refused to wear the tags, arguing her rights to privacy and freedom of expression, along with her religious beliefs, meant she did not want to wear the tracking devices.

A hacker that goes by the name of Hannibal, previously known for leaking the Facebook accounts of one million Arabs, claims to have published the details of one million Americans in response to Anonymous’ OpIsrael.

“Lately, Anonymous Group attacked for no reason Israeli websites and stuff. Do you want to play with me, Anonymous Group? Do you have forgotten that Israel stands alongside the world’s best hacker – Hannibal??? Who the hell you think you are?” he said in a statement obtained by CWN.

An Israeli cabinet minister's Twitter account was hacked by a pro-Palestinian outfit which posted messages in his name calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "murdering psychopath".

The string of tweets on the page belonging to Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom included messages reading: "FREE PALESTINE! END THE OCCUPATION! STOP THE MURDER OF PALESTINIANS NOW!"

Anonymous, who has been trying to go after Israel, has swallowed a big fish: Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom. Anon has hacked his Facebook account and replaced the cover photo with a Free Palestine picture. Pretty embarrassing for a high ranking official!

Anon has also hacked his Twitter account and have been teasing gaining access to Shalom's emails, saying:

"o_O So what would happen if a certain vice prime ministers email got released to the public? #OpIsrael #Anonymous"

The war going on now in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas has had Israeli sys admins working overtime – 24/7, actually – keeping Israel's computer systems up and running.

Last weekend, Anonymous and other hacking groups declared war on Israel's IT systems. What set off the hacker group, according to its press release, was a supposed Israeli threat to cut off internet access in Gaza (something that didn't happen). "We will use all our resources to make certain you stay connected to the internet and remain able to transmit your experiences to the world," Anonymous said.

In a press release published right after the US elections, Anonymous hacktivists claimed that they had managed to prevent American political consultant and policy advisor Karl Rove from stealing votes in Mitt Romney’s favor by utilizing the ORCA program.

The hackers stated that, in the weeks before the elections, they had created what they called The Great Oz, a “targeted password protected firewall” designed to prevent fraud.

Anonymous' hacking campaign against Israel to protest its attacks on Gaza escalated today with the release of a list of thousands of individuals who supposedly donated to a pro-Israel organization.

Anonymous hacktivists have united to stand with Gaza after Israeli forces on Wednesday launched a military operation against the Palestinian enclave.

The latest attacks in a decades-old Israeli blockade have resulted in more than 20 deaths on both sides, according to news reports, including a number of Palestinian civilians, such as the 11-month-old son of a BBC journalist.