Operation Titstorm
Encyclopedia
The February 2010 Australian Cyberattacks were a series of denial-of-service attack
s conducted by the Anonymous
online community against the Australian government in response to proposed web censorship
regulations. Operation Titstorm was the name given to the cyber attacks by the perpetrators. They resulted in lapses of access to government websites on the 10th and 11th of February 2010. This was accompanied by emails, faxes, and phone calls harassing government offices. The actual size of the attack and number of perpetrators involved is unknown, but it was estimated that the number of systems involved ranged from the hundreds to the thousands. The amount of traffic caused disruption on multiple government websites.
Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy
was the proposer of the proposed regulations that would mainly filter sites with pornographic content
. Various groups advocating uncensored access to the Internet, along with web-based companies such as Google
and Yahoo!
, object to the proposed filter. A spokesperson for Conroy said that the actions were not a legitimate form of protest and called it irresponsible. The attacks also drew criticism from other filter protest groups. The initial stage was followed by small in-person protests on 20 February that were called "Project Freeweb".
The attack began as a protest responding to a plan by Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy
that would require internet service providers to block Australian users from accessing illegal and what the government deemed as "unwanted" content. Websites to be blocked feature pornography
showing rape
, bestiality, child sex abuse, small-breasted women (who may appear under the legal age), and female ejaculation
. Drawn depictions of such acts
are included in the proposal. The proposed filter also includes gambling sites along with others showing drug use. A leaked version of the proposed blacklist (also referred to as the "refused classification" or "RC" list) also showed sites that did not include adult content. The name "Operation Titstorm" was in reference to the material that would be censored.
Google
has questioned the proposal, saying the prohibitions would be too broad. It is strongly opposed by free speech
groups. A poll conducted by McNair Ingenuity Research for the Hungry Beast
television program found that 80% of their 1000 respondents were in favour of the concept of the plan. The survey also found that 91% were concerned about the government's intent to keep the list of filtered websites a secret.
The Department of Defence
's Cyber Security Operations Centre discovered the attack was coming on 5 February. A statement released by Anonymous to the press two days before the attack said, "No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be 'unwanted'." It went on to read, "The Australian Government will learn that one does not mess with our porn. No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason." Anonymous had previously garnered media attention with protests against Church of Scientology
(Project Chanology
) and the Iranian government. In September 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
's website was hacked in a similar protest to proposed web censorship reforms.
s. The Communications Department said the hackers had not infiltrated government security, but had instead swamped government computer servers. Sites were left unavailable for sporadic periods throughout the attack. At one point, the Australian Parliament's website was offline for about 2 days due to the high-volume of requests. Rudd's government site was also inaccessible for some time. As a primary target, the Communications Department also received a large amount of traffic. Government offices were also flooded with e-mail spam
, junk fax
es, and prank phone calls. The Prime Minister's homepage was vandalized with pornographic images. The flyer released before the attack called for the faxes to focus on cartoon pornography, female ejaculation, and small-breasted pornography.
Reports of the actual size of the attack have varied. One cyber security expert described the attacks as “the equivalent of parking a truck across the driveway of a shopping centre”. A firm marketing security technology said that the peak of the attack was a relatively low 16.84 megabits per second. One writer described the 7.5 million requests per second that initially brought down the Parliament website as "massive". The site usually only receives a few hundred per second. It appears that botnet
s made up of compromised computers were not used. Estimates of the number of attacking systems involved have ranged from hundreds to thousands.
said that it "condemned DoS attacks as the wrong way to express disagreement with the proposed law." Anti-censorship groups criticised the attacks, saying they hurt their cause. A purported spokesperson for the attackers recommended that the wider Australian public protest the filter by signing the petition of Electronic Frontiers Australia
.
Anonymous coordinated a second phase with small protests outside the Parliament House in Canberra
and in major cities throughout Australia on 20 February. Additional demonstrations were held at some of the country's embassies overseas. The organizers called the follow-up protests "Project Freeweb" to differentiate them from the criticised cyber attacks.
Several supporters of the attack later said on a messageboard that taking down websites was not enough to convince the government to back down on the web filtering policy and called for violence. Others disagreed with such actions and proposed launching an additional attack on a popular government site. A spokesman for Electronic Frontiers Australia said he believed there was no real intention or capacity to follow through with any of the violent threats.
The attack also resulted in criticism of Australia's terrorism laws from the The University of New South Wales Law Journal. One writer wrote that the provisions leave "no place for legitimate acts of online protest, or at least sets the penalty far too high for relatively minor cybervandalism."
An Australian teenager was charged with four counts of inciting other hackers to impair electronic communications and two of unauthorised access to restricted data for his role in the attack. He was ordered to pay a bond instead of being convicted after pleading guilty and showing good behaviour.
In July 2010, Conroy delayed implementing the plan pending a 12-month review into how refused classification content was rated. The proposal is not expected to go forward due to the opposition from The Coalition
and the Greens
. Internet service providers Telstra
and Optus
have both agreed to voluntarily block some content.
Denial-of-service attack
A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
s conducted by the Anonymous
Anonymous (group)
Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
online community against the Australian government in response to proposed web censorship
Internet censorship in Australia
Internet censorship in Australia currently consists of a regulatory regime under which the Australian Communications and Media Authority has the power to enforce content restrictions on Internet content hosted within Australia, and maintain a "black-list" of overseas websites which is then...
regulations. Operation Titstorm was the name given to the cyber attacks by the perpetrators. They resulted in lapses of access to government websites on the 10th and 11th of February 2010. This was accompanied by emails, faxes, and phone calls harassing government offices. The actual size of the attack and number of perpetrators involved is unknown, but it was estimated that the number of systems involved ranged from the hundreds to the thousands. The amount of traffic caused disruption on multiple government websites.
Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy
Stephen Conroy
Stephen Michael Conroy is an Australian politician and the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in the Gillard Ministry...
was the proposer of the proposed regulations that would mainly filter sites with pornographic content
Internet pornography
Internet pornography is pornography that is distributed by means of various sectors of the Internet, primarily via websites, peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups...
. Various groups advocating uncensored access to the Internet, along with web-based companies such as Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, object to the proposed filter. A spokesperson for Conroy said that the actions were not a legitimate form of protest and called it irresponsible. The attacks also drew criticism from other filter protest groups. The initial stage was followed by small in-person protests on 20 February that were called "Project Freeweb".
Background
Stephen Conroy
Stephen Michael Conroy is an Australian politician and the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in the Gillard Ministry...
that would require internet service providers to block Australian users from accessing illegal and what the government deemed as "unwanted" content. Websites to be blocked feature pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
showing rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, bestiality, child sex abuse, small-breasted women (who may appear under the legal age), and female ejaculation
Female ejaculation
Female ejaculation refers to the expulsion of noticeable amounts of clear fluid by human females from the paraurethral ducts through and around the urethra during or before an orgasm...
. Drawn depictions of such acts
Cartoon pornography
Cartoon pornography is the portrayal of illustrated or animated fictional characters in erotic or sexual situations. Cartoon pornography includes but is not limited to parody renditions of famous cartoons and comics.-Non-parody artists:...
are included in the proposal. The proposed filter also includes gambling sites along with others showing drug use. A leaked version of the proposed blacklist (also referred to as the "refused classification" or "RC" list) also showed sites that did not include adult content. The name "Operation Titstorm" was in reference to the material that would be censored.
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
has questioned the proposal, saying the prohibitions would be too broad. It is strongly opposed by free speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
groups. A poll conducted by McNair Ingenuity Research for the Hungry Beast
Hungry Beast
Hungry Beast is an Australian television program, that is broadcast on Wednesday nights on ABC1 and repeated on Thursday night on ABC2. It is produced by Andrew Denton's production company,...
television program found that 80% of their 1000 respondents were in favour of the concept of the plan. The survey also found that 91% were concerned about the government's intent to keep the list of filtered websites a secret.
The Department of Defence
Department of Defence (Australia)
The Australian Department of Defence is a Federal Government Department. It forms part of the Australian Defence Organisation along with the Australian Defence Force . The Defence mission is to defend Australia and its national interests...
's Cyber Security Operations Centre discovered the attack was coming on 5 February. A statement released by Anonymous to the press two days before the attack said, "No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be 'unwanted'." It went on to read, "The Australian Government will learn that one does not mess with our porn. No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason." Anonymous had previously garnered media attention with protests against Church of Scientology
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
(Project Chanology
Project Chanology
Project Chanology is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous...
) and the Iranian government. In September 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
's website was hacked in a similar protest to proposed web censorship reforms.
Attacks
Flyers distributed to recruit participants said the attack was to begin at 8:00 pm AEST on 10 February. On that day, government websites were targeted by denial-of-service attackDenial-of-service attack
A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
s. The Communications Department said the hackers had not infiltrated government security, but had instead swamped government computer servers. Sites were left unavailable for sporadic periods throughout the attack. At one point, the Australian Parliament's website was offline for about 2 days due to the high-volume of requests. Rudd's government site was also inaccessible for some time. As a primary target, the Communications Department also received a large amount of traffic. Government offices were also flooded with e-mail spam
E-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
, junk fax
Junk fax
Junk faxes are a form of telemarketing where unsolicited advertisements are sent via fax transmission. Junk faxes are the faxed equivalent of spam or junk mail...
es, and prank phone calls. The Prime Minister's homepage was vandalized with pornographic images. The flyer released before the attack called for the faxes to focus on cartoon pornography, female ejaculation, and small-breasted pornography.
Reports of the actual size of the attack have varied. One cyber security expert described the attacks as “the equivalent of parking a truck across the driveway of a shopping centre”. A firm marketing security technology said that the peak of the attack was a relatively low 16.84 megabits per second. One writer described the 7.5 million requests per second that initially brought down the Parliament website as "massive". The site usually only receives a few hundred per second. It appears that botnet
Botnet
A botnet is a collection of compromised computers connected to the Internet. Termed "bots," they are generally used for malicious purposes. When a computer becomes compromised, it becomes a part of a botnet...
s made up of compromised computers were not used. Estimates of the number of attacking systems involved have ranged from hundreds to thousands.
Response
A spokeswoman for Conroy said such attacks were not a legitimate political protest. According to her, they were "totally irresponsible and potentially deny services to the Australian public". The Systems Administrators Guild of AustraliaSAGE-AU
SAGE-AU is an Australian non-profit professional association of system administrators. SAGE-AU was originally formed to provide the same services for Australian system administrators as the SAGE organisation did in the United States, but is completely independent of that entity, and has been since...
said that it "condemned DoS attacks as the wrong way to express disagreement with the proposed law." Anti-censorship groups criticised the attacks, saying they hurt their cause. A purported spokesperson for the attackers recommended that the wider Australian public protest the filter by signing the petition of Electronic Frontiers Australia
Electronic Frontiers Australia
Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. is a non-profit Australian national non-government organisation representing Internet users concerned with online liberties and rights...
.
Anonymous coordinated a second phase with small protests outside the Parliament House in Canberra
Parliament House, Canberra
Parliament House is the meeting facility of the Parliament of Australia located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. The building was designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects and opened on 1988 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia...
and in major cities throughout Australia on 20 February. Additional demonstrations were held at some of the country's embassies overseas. The organizers called the follow-up protests "Project Freeweb" to differentiate them from the criticised cyber attacks.
Several supporters of the attack later said on a messageboard that taking down websites was not enough to convince the government to back down on the web filtering policy and called for violence. Others disagreed with such actions and proposed launching an additional attack on a popular government site. A spokesman for Electronic Frontiers Australia said he believed there was no real intention or capacity to follow through with any of the violent threats.
The attack also resulted in criticism of Australia's terrorism laws from the The University of New South Wales Law Journal. One writer wrote that the provisions leave "no place for legitimate acts of online protest, or at least sets the penalty far too high for relatively minor cybervandalism."
An Australian teenager was charged with four counts of inciting other hackers to impair electronic communications and two of unauthorised access to restricted data for his role in the attack. He was ordered to pay a bond instead of being convicted after pleading guilty and showing good behaviour.
In July 2010, Conroy delayed implementing the plan pending a 12-month review into how refused classification content was rated. The proposal is not expected to go forward due to the opposition from The Coalition
Coalition (Australia)
The Coalition in Australian politics refers to a group of centre-right parties that has existed in the form of a coalition agreement since 1922...
and the Greens
Australian Greens
The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, is an Australian green political party.The party was formed in 1992; however, its origins can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia and the formation of the United Tasmania Group , the first Green party in the world, which...
. Internet service providers Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
and Optus
Optus
SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
have both agreed to voluntarily block some content.