Online sources are reporting the latest from the biggest disruption Anonymous has brought about on the web ever.
Anonymous were able to take down CBS.com website. It was not disabled but the entire website content was removed from the web.
They took down Universal Music Group website once again. They are also targeting some government operated websites in Brazil.
Vivendi used to own UMG previously. Their website was also taken down by the group.
This latest round of attack is in response to the shutdown of Megaupload.
Megaupload shutdown is causing ripples all across the web. Filesonic has for example shut down all sharing features on their file storage platform.
Users can access the files they themselves uploaded on the servers.
Filesonic has also discontinued all reward programs for affiliates.
With this switch, all the links from the network shared across the web are disabled for now. The links would not work if you have not uploaded the files from your own account.
The company has not made a statement but it is very clear that they are concerned about the developments with the rival platform Megaupload.
Filesonic and Megaupload have too many similarities and it is pretty clear that the US law enforcement bodies are going to expand their operations targeting file sharing services spread across the web.
Twitter and other sources are highlighting the plight of users who used Megaupload for legal purposes.
There are tons of people out there who were using the service as a file locker for their personal files.
Some of them probably had important data backed up in the cloud on Megaupload servers. They are unlikely to get access to these files again.
FBI and the likes might claim that Megaupload was a piracy haven but they seems to be forgetting the fact that the service was essentially an online file sharing service that probably had millions of users accessing it for sharing legit files.
This is a sad day for the cloud as something similar can happen with other services like Dropbox, Box and others. Even Google Docs and Google Music are not safe. Flickr and Picasa? They are probably under a threat too.
Megaupload.com has become the latest file sharing service to be shut down by the US law authorities.
This service has been shut down by federal prosecutors in Virginia.
They have also charged the founders of the company for copyright violation.
The charges claim that the service caused damages worth more than USD 500 million to the content creators.
The service had been facing the heat for a while. Megaupload.com defended their platform by claiming that they were complying with all complaints related to copyright violation as specified by the laws.
From the FBI Press Release:
Seven individuals and two corporations have been charged in the United States with running an international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works through Megaupload.com and other related sites, generating more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and causing more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI announced today. This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime.