Anonymous, the clandestine group that operates "Operation Payback" and reportedly includes members of the "/b/" bulletin board 4chan.org, accused the UK government of making a "sad mistake" when it arrested five individuals associated with recent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on companies that severed ties with WikiLeaks.
"Not only does it reveal the fact that you do not seem to understand the present-day political and technological reality, we also take this as a serious declaration of war from yourself, the UK government, to us, Anonymous, the people," Anonymous wrote in a Thursday press release.
Earlier this week, British police arrested five men for their alleged involvement in a string of DDoS attacks that targeted the Web sites of Visa, MasterCard, Amazon, and PayPal. The companies stopped processing payments and cut hosting ties with WikiLeaks after it released 250,000 State Department cables in late November, a move with which Anonymous disagreed.
The Metropolitan Police Central e-Crime Unit said in a statement that the arrests were "part of an ongoing MPS investigation in to Anonymous which began last year following criminal allegations of DDoS attacks by the group against several companies." The investigation is being carried out in conjunction with international law enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States.
Two men, ages 20 and 26, and three teenagers, ages 15, 16, and 19, were charged with violating the Computer Misuse Act of 1990, which prohibits impairing the operation of a computer or the readability of data.
On Thursday, the FBI said it executed more than 40 search warrants throughout the U.S. related to the DDoS attacks.
Anonymous said that DDoS attacks are simply the digital equivalent of a protest or sit-in.
"As traditional means of protest ... have slowly turned into nothing but an empty, ritualised gesture of discontent over the course of the last century, people have been anxiously searching for new ways to pressure politicians and give voice to public demands in a manner that might actually be able to change things for the better," the group wrote. " Anonymous has, for now, found this new way of voicing civil protest in the form of the DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service, attack."
Like in traditional protests, Anonymous blocks "access to our opponents infrastructure to get our message across," it said. "Whether or not this infrastructure is located in the real world or in cyberspace, seems completely irrelevant to us."
Anonymous also took issue with having DDoS attacks described as hacking. Hacking is an unauthorized access to a computer or network whereas a DDoS attack is thousands of people making a legitimate connection to a Web server at the same time, which overloads the server and takes it down, Anonymous said.
"Arresting somebody for taking part in a DDoS attack is exactly like arresting somebody for attending a peaceful demonstration in their hometown," the group said.
Anonymous was also annoyed that no one has been arrested for the DDoS attacks on WikiLeaks - only those who have executed attacks in support of WikiLeaks. " We can therefore only assume that these arrests are politically motivated, and were being carried out under pressure from the US government," the group said.
The maximum sentence under the Computer Misuse Act is 10 years, which Anonymous said was "ridiculous."
Finally, Anonymous said the large amount of support its organization has for pro-WikiLeaks attacks "should be something that sets you thinking."
"Our advice to you, the UK government, is to take this statement as a serious warning from the citizens of the world. We will not rest until our fellow anon protesters have been released," Anonymous concluded.