Officials in Turkey have arrested 32 members of clandestine Web group Anonymous for their alleged involvement in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Turkish government Web sites.
Suspects were arrested in a dozen Turkish cities, including Ankara and Istanbul, according to state-run news agency, Anatolia.
Anonymous announced Friday that it had "launched a successful DDoS attack against the Turkish government, taking down several official government Web sites." That attack was in response to Internet censorship in the country; the government plans to implement a filter on Internet browsing on August 22.
"Though it remains opaque why and how the system will be put in place, it is clear that the government is taking censorship to the next level," Anonymous said in a statement. "These acts are inexcusable. Accessing and participating in the free flow of information is a basic human right. Anonymous will not stand by while the Turkish government violates this right. We will bring our support to circumvent censorship and retaliate against organizations imposing censorship."
According to Al Jazeera, Turkish ISPs will be required to offer four Internet filters: family, child, domestic, and standard. Detractors worry, however, that the filter will allow the government to more closely monitor users' Web habits. Turkey's regulatory body has issued a list of 138 terms that cannot be used in Web domain names.
Last month, more than 50,000 people gathered in Istanbul's Taksim Square to protest the filters, while 600,000 people joined a Facebook group that translates to "Don't Touch My Internet," Al Jazeera said.
Anonymous has not yet commented on the arrests. In its statement, the group said "the free flow of information won't be stopped. Sharing of knowledge won't be stopped."
But as Sophos analyst Graham Cluley pointed out, it appears that Anonymous members used a Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) attack tool, which "doesn't do a very good job of covering your tracks—making it potentially easy for computer crime authorities to track those behind the attacks."
The arrests come several days after police in Spain announced that they arrested three people in Barcelona, Alicante, and Almeria in connection with the Sony PlayStation hack. A server hosted in the city of Gijon was also seized. Anonymous quickly vowed revenge, and on Saturday, the group said it had taken down the National Police Web site.
"The attack is a direct response to the Friday arrests of three individuals alleged to be associated with acts of cyber civil disobedience attributed to Anonymous," the group said in a statement. "Operation Policia (#OpPolicia) is the name for the successful DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack that paralyzed the Official National Police website (Página Oficial del Cuerpo Nacional de Policíawww.policia.es) for hours on Saturday, making it inaccessible to visitors."