Anonymous Hacks Police Websites and Data to Support Occupy Wall Street

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Although they had a hand in starting the Occupy Wall Street protest, the hacktivist collective Anonymous has been pretty quiet since it started. No longer: Anonymous claims they just hacked a ton of police sites and leaked usernames and passwords.

The biggest target of today’s hack was the International Association of Chiefs of Police, whose website is still down as of this writing. It’s auspicious timing, as the IACP is holding its annual meeting in Chicago.

A press release by Anonymous said that the hack was timed to the IACP meeting as part of a “Day of Action Against Police Brutality.”

In solidarity with the Occupation Movement and the International Day of Action Against Police Brutality, allied #anonymous and #antisec vessels took aim at the corrupt bootboys of the 1%: the police. We hacked, defaced, and destroyed several law enforcement targets, leaking over 600MB of private information including internal documents, membership rosters, addresses, passwords, social security numbers, and other confidential data. According to the IACP’s development documents, their systems cost several hundred thousand dollars. We are pleased to destroy it all for free, leaking their private info and defacing their websites in one swift blow.

Another document appears to be about 1,000 user names and passwords belonging to the Boston Patrolmans’ Association.

It’s impossible to verify all of the hackers claims, but an audio recording posted today to YouTube appears to feature a hacker with a British accent calling the Baldwin County, Alabama Sheriff’s Office to admit to hacking their site. (Check out 5:25 in the video above.)

“Apparently someone has hacked into the website. We have shut down the website at this time,” an officer tells the caller.

“Yeah, that was me,” responds the caller. The Baldwin Sheriff’s Office website is up at this time. Anonymous’ press release said they were attacking Baldwin County because of civil rights abuses in the 60s in Birmingham. Anonymous sure can hold a grudge!

The last time Anonymous tried to hack for Occupy Wall Street, they took down the New York Stock Exchange’s website—for about one minute.