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    28
    Feb
    2011
    3:33pm, EST

    'Anonymous' attack

    From NBC's Doug Adams and Mike Isikoff
    Last night, the hacker group called "Anonymous" brought down the Web site of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group heavily funded by the billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.

    AFP has been very active in the Wisconsin standoff over collective bargaining rights,  spending more than $400,000 in TV ads in support of Gov. Scott Walker's plan.

    Anonymous temporarily disabled the AFP site for a few hours through a DDOS or "distributed denial of service" attack. The group targeted AFP and the Koch brothers because of their support of Gov. Walker, saying in a statement: "Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw."

    Anonymous has carried out dozens of computer attacks in recent months in defense of liberal causes, especially Wikileaks. Last December, the group brought down the web sites of Mastercard and Visa, because the companies had stopped processing donations for Wikileaks. The FBI is investigating the Mastercard/Visa attacks, and a grand jury in San Jose is considering charges this week.
     
    On Friday, Anonymous pressured PayPal to back off its refusal to process donations for Army PFC Bradley Manning's legal defense fund. Last month, they hacked into the computers of a major cyber security firm, HB Gary, and published tens of thousands of embarrassing emails.

    Here's the press release condemning the attack from Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity

    And here's the press release from Anonymous, calling for a boycott of Koch Industries and its affiliated paper company, Georgia Pacific.

    46 comments

    That is not the way to go about discrediting right wing talking machine. Cyber attacks on Americans we don't agree with is just plain stupid. "The pen is mightier than the sword."

    Show more
    Explore related topics: republicans, states, doug-adams, mike-isikoff

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Chuck Todd became NBC News’ political director in March 2007. He also serves as NBC News' on-air political analyst for "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams," "Today," "Meet the Press and MSNBC, including "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

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Mark Murray is NBC News' Senior Political Editor. Since joining the network in 2003, he has reported on and written about political races, trends, and issues -- including the 2003 California recall, the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential race, the 2006 midterm elections, the 2008 presidential contest, the 2010 midterms, and the 2012 presidential race.

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