LulzSec has certainly had an effect on many around the world. Love them or hate them, it’s next to impossible to deny that they have caught the attention of many. That includes Australian ISP Telstra. According to reports surfacing, they planned on rolling out their web censorship plan, but are now hesitant on implementing their web censorship plan fearing reprisals from hacking groups such as LulzSec.
Note: This is an article I wrote that was published elsewhere first. It has been republished here for archival purposes
Australia’s web censorship plans have been around for years now. In 2008, the plan to censor the internet caused many to hit the streets to protest it. Opponents suggested that the web censorship laws were “stricter than Iran” while proponents went so far as to say that 4Chan was reason enough to censor the internet. At one point, it was revealed that even P2P traffic would be included into the net filters. Regardless, the plan to implement the Australian web filters were were going to begin.
For those hoping to stop web censorship at the ISP level, they may have gotten an inadvertant ally – LulzSec and Anonymous. The report came from The Australian which has this intriguing bit of information:
It is understood Telstra was last night still grappling with the decision as to whether to commit to the voluntary filter because of fears of reprisals from the internet vigilantes behind a spate of recent cyber attacks.
It is understood the unstructured collective of hackers that identifies itself as Lulz Security, which has an agenda to wreak havoc on corporate and government cyber assets, claiming this is to expose security flaws, is one of Telstra main concerns.
LulzSec has claimed responsibility for attacks on the US Central Intelligence Agency, the US PBS and most recently it released a swath of Arizona law-enforcement documents.
The other main concern is a group that identifies itself as Anonymous, another unstructured hacker collective that claims to be opposed to any form of internet censorship, and has carried out attacks on Australian government websites because of Canberra’s support for an internet filter
Patrick Gray, host of information security podcast Risky Business said the carriers’ fears were well-founded.
The fears might be well-founded considering, just two days ago, LulzSec and Anonymous together were able to break in to and post sensitive documents about the Arizona police force in retaliation of “SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.”
What will be interesting to see is how many other controversial things might be stalled as a result of this activity taking place.
[Hat Tip]
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
