Last Updated on 2022-07-08 by Joop Beris
On October 6, the Anonymous movement announced an attack on The Netherlands, in retaliation for several Dutch providers blocking access to The Pirate Bay, a well known torrent site. The group spoke (anonymously of course) of being displeased by this blockade.
The Pirate Bay was blocked by 2 Dutch providers after a somewhat controversial ruling by a judge last January. The ruling was received well with Brein, the Dutch anti-piracy outfit since they requested the blockade. Both providers, Ziggo and XS4ALL protested the ruling and have filed an appeal. However, pending the appeal, they had to initiate the blockade or pay a penalty. With the ruling in hand, Brein has since forced several other providers to follow suit.
It’s rather surprising therefore that among the targets named by Anonymous, are these providers: Tele2, Ziggo, UPC, KPN. These providers are not the culprits. They were forced by the judge to block access to The Pirate Bay and I believe all of them are appealing this decision. I know for a fact that Ziggo and XS4ALL are. I can understand Brein being on the hit list, but the providers and their users are just victims of the media conglomerates and their Brein pitbull.
Update 2012-10-15: The announced attack has failed to materialize. Reasons for that are probably related to the fact that the announcement was allegedly made by a teenage boy, acting alone. He contacted police on his own. Apparently, police officers gave hem a good talking-to.
The young man apparently decided to make this video out of revenge for no longer being able to download material offered on The Pirate Bay. Not that it is very difficult to do so, even if you are a customer of one of the providers who was forced to block access to the site (cough, cough). Since making the video itself and threatening to launch an attack on certain webservices is not illegal, the boy can not be prosecuted for his actions.
The Anonymous collective also posted a rebuttal video on Youtube, calling an attack on Dutch ISPs useless, naming Brein as the entity behind the evil act of getting The Pirate Bay blocked.