Megaupload: scammers exploit anti-piracy campaign

ONLINE scammers are apparently attempting to profit from anger over the closure of the file-sharing website Megaupload. The shadowy hackers’ collective Anonymous was today forced to disown two enterprises that were ostensibly aimed at stepping up the campaign against the US government’s anti-piracy efforts but at least one of them is probably a scam.

When Megaupload was shut down last week for an alleged piracy conspiracy, Anonymous hackers, who campaign for ‘internet freedom’ showed their anger by going on an online rampage, taking down a host of US government and entertainment industry websites.  

Other file-sharing websites - or cyberlockers - have been scared into taking action to prevent their sites being used for piracy. FileSonic went so far as to disable its file-sharing capabilities; users now have access only to the files they themselves have uploaded, rendering the site essentially pointless.

Meanwhile, a new file-sharing enterprise, Anonyupload.com, has taken advantage of the situation. A statement posted on the website thanked Kim Dotcom, the boss of Megaupload, who is currently being held on piracy and money laundering charges in New Zealand, for his “past years of services”. It added, in Anonymous’s characteristically flippant style: “Try to not make that amount of money next time, and it should be alright.”

Anonyupload asks for donations to buy servers and says it hopes to launch on 25 January. Anyone who hadn’t already detected a rat might have got a whiff of suspicion at the line: “For your safety, our infrastructure will be out of the US jurisdiction ( Russia ).”

Normally, when Russia and the internet are mentioned in the same sentence, the word “cybercrime” isn’t too far behind.

Anonymous swiftly distanced itself from Anonyupload in a tweet, saying: “We have no affiliation with this site, and by the looks of it, this is a scam.”

Meanwhile, news broke on Mashable that Anonymous was planning an attack on Facebook on 28 January. The report was based on a YouTube video that announced: “An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people and the government of the United States.”

It said that while two anti-piracy bills had been postponed, “this doesn’t guarantee that our internet rights will be upheld”, and directed viewers to a link to download a tool designed to crash a target website.

Facebook seemed an odd target, especially since the social network came out against PIPA and SOPA, the anti-piracy Bills Anonymous hackers so detest.

Sure enough, Anonymous disowned this enterprise too, tweeting: “Again we must say that we will not attack #Facebook! Again the mass media lie." ·