The nightingales rose from a weary death as shadows left the autumn sky. They rose with all other little birds that dwelt in the garden of life. In chorus they sang the morning tune. The tune that brought them no joy but only grief unto their fragile hearts. They sang but found no joy within their art. So, in the garden of life they searched for love. In came the gardener with his usual mow. He cut the grass with his obsolete scythe and made a harsh sound devoid of any love. And the nightingales could find no love in the garden of life. So they sang in the chorus of the lack of love in the garden of life. And the night fell by, and the moon set high. Poor nightingales in their songs still could find no joy. With the amber sun they had to die. The over-stretched backdrop refers to the dreams of benign hackers that are currently being crushed as Japanese authorities, currently bedazzled by their blasts, are planning on continuing harsh measures against cyber crime.
Numerous internet attacks have been launched against the Japanese authority web sites in response to the ruthlessness from the gardener…I mean Japanese authorities, towards the lovely group of hacking nightingales that goes by the name Anonymous. These attacks can be attributed to the introduction of strict laws against issues related to the piracy issues and hence can be seen as reactionary to them.
Virtual Warheads headed towards Japan
This group of hacking activists, or hacktivists if you will, in their prior pronouncement asserted that a mammoth of an attack would be launched by them titled “Operation Japan” in a web statement, the title clichéd as it is, has been a brainchild of the group in response to the revision of copyright laws on 20th June, which has made these virtual spearheads point in the direction of Japanese government organizations. This particular revision of the Copyright Law limits illegitimate downloads by the use of the classical negative reinforcements, for example, there can be a prison sentence for up to 2 years regarding such downloads. Still, the Anonymous group is viewing this change to have the potential of resulting in unjust imprisonments or sentences against clean-handed web users.
The authorities affected
The Yomiuri Shimbun, in a Thursday report, was informed about the finance ministry’s access suspension to parts of its web site, by government sources, after it was illegally accessed. Along with the unlawful breach there was a document saying that “We are Anonymous” and “We do not forgive” carved on the site, which provided details on nationally owned lands. Other Japanese companies like Sony have been attacked prior to these events by Anonymous, according to the news site, however, for the Japanese government organizations it is the first time that they have been targeted in this regard. A regional office at the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry also came under the attack of this cyber crime. The ministry explained that there was an English message found and consequently the website was suspended on a web page displaying rainfall data on the website of the Kasumigaura River Office of the Kanto Regional Development Bureau in Itako, Ibaraki prefecture on Tuesday night. Similar to the aforementioned government authorities, the website for the Supreme Court suffered from the same turbulence, whereas according to the sources, the sites of the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party and the ruling Democratic Party of Japan had not been easy to access.
Whatever the Laws might be, in terms of the bigger picture, there are policing measures where there are those who cross legal bounds, what we can take out from this is that if Government websites can be attacked this way, we should be extra cautious while on the web and beware of the computer spy software and cell phone spy apps, as carelessness in this regard can cost us a great deal.
