'Anonymous' collective hackers intensify cyber attacks across south-east Asia

[NewWorldRecord]

'Anonymous' collective hackers intensify cyber attacks across south-east Asia

Date November 5, 2013 - 8:26AM

Anonymous: stepping up attacks across south-east Asia. Photo: AFP

Hackers claiming to be from the notorious Anonymous collective have stepped up attacks across south-east Asia, infiltrating websites in Singapore and the Philippines.

Messages were posted on Sunday on the web-pages of at least five government agencies in the Philippines, urging the public to join a mass protest against corruption.

"To the corrupt – fear us," the message warned.

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/B8x3z1zpffk?rel=0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="480"></iframe>

On its Facebook page Anonymous Philippines claimed to have hacked more than a dozen government websites, including the Office of Ombudsman, where clicking on a message there redirected to a post lambasting the government.

"The government, in many ways, has failed the Filipino citizens ... let us remind the government that fairness justice and freedom are more than just words," it read.

The post calls for the public to join a November 5 protest against corruption in Manila.

Philippine president Benigno Aquino is facing the biggest crisis of his three-year rule over the alleged misuse of public funds by lawmakers.

Last week Mr Aquino, who was elected on a platform of curbing corruption, was forced to deny allegations of bribery, declaring on national television "I am not a thief."

Websites have been hacked in the Philippines previously over diplomatic disputes and in September 2012 by those angry at a restrictive cybercrime law.

Roy Espiritu, an official in the government's science department's IT section, said forensic work was being done to try to trace the hackers.

Those who deface government websites could face up to six months jail, he said.

But Mr Espiritu said government agencies maintain individual websites, making it difficult to secure them from hacking.

In Singapore, the financial hub where the traditional media is tightly controlled, hackers have been active over the past week, prompting government agencies to be on alert for wider cyber attacks.

Last Friday the blog of a journalist on the website of the pro-government Straits Times newspaper was hacked by a group opposing recently introduced licensing rules for news websites in Singapore.

Using the name "Messiah" the message claimed the journalist had distorted "our words and intentions" in a blog about a YouTube post the day before in which a person claiming to speak for Anonymous warned that Singapore could suffer financial losses from "aggressive cyber intrusion."

"The primary objective of our invasion was to protest the implementation of the internet licensing framework by giving you a sneak peak of the state of your cyberspace if the ridiculous, communistic, oppressive and offensive framework is implemented," the message warns.

The video warns the group has faced more secure corporations such as the FBI and urges "fellow Singaporean sisters and brothers" to start a public protest by dressing in black and red on November 5 and blacking out their Facebook profile pictures.

The original posting was taken down but it has been copied and can be still viewed online. Reacting to the YouTube post, Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority said: "We are aware of the video and the police are investigating the matter."

The Straits Times reported Singapore's IT Security Incident Response Team had been put on alert following the YouTube posting and hacking of the newspapers' site.

Under new rules from June 1 websites in Singapore with at least 50,000 unique visitors from within Singapore a month require annual licensing.

The rules prompted anger among the city-state's robust blogging and social media community. Singapore announced a plan last week to spend US$105 million over the next five years to bolster research and human resources to make computer networks more secure against online attacks.

Anonymous, a loosely associated international network of activists and hackers, is known for highly publicized cyber-attacks around the world since it was established in 2003.

Supporters have called the group "freedom fighters" and "digital Robin Hoods" while critics have described them as a "cyber-lynch mob."

In 2012, Time magazine called Anonymous one of the "100 most influential people" in the world.

with Agencies

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Hacktivists hit sites in Australia, Singapore and Philippines

Updated 5 November 2013, 11:40 AEST

Cyber hackers claiming to represent the activist group known as Anonymous have stepped up their campaigns across South-East Asia, targeting websites in Australia, the Philippines and Singapore.

While the attacks on hundreds of Australian websites were in retaliation for allegations of Australia spying on Indonesia, the Philippines and Singaporean attacks appear to be part of a political campaign.

Cyber security experts say hacking, either independently or state-sponsored, will only become more common in future.

Presenter: Bill Birtles

Speaker: Nigel Phair, the Director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra; Luke Hopewell, editor of Australian technology website Gizmodo

SFX: Audio from Anonymous video: 'Greetings government of Singapore, we are Anonymous and we believe we have your undivided attention'.

BIRTLES: This video placed online in the past week was just one of several campaigns cyber hackers have launched in South-East Asia in recent days.

The hacktivist collective known as Anonymous made the video to protest the recent introduction of licences for news websites in Singapore... and the group has backed up their words with actions - hacking a pro-government news website.

Audio from Anonymous video: 'Now close your eyes and imagine a legion of Anonymous unleashed upon your tiny island and infrastructure'.

In the Philippines hackers claiming to be part of the group targeted government websites over the weekend, and posted a non-specific message calling for fairness, justice and freedom.

While the high profile campaigns have drawn attention, the Editor of Australian technology website Gizmodo Luke Hopewell says there's nothing unusual about the style of the Anonymous campaigns.

HOPEWELL: It's definitely business as usual for these types of hackers to start attacking government websites in the name of freedom of truth and freedom of assembly and so on. And I think we'll start seeing more of it in future as more stories come to light about various government hacking scandals, surveillance etc, because anyone can become a member of Anonymous and use their banner'.

BIRTLES:And surveillance concerns appeared to be at the centre of further hacking attacks aimed at hundreds of Australian websites.

Indonesian hackers claiming to be part of Anonymous defaced a disparate collection of sites, in response to media reports that said Australia collaborated with the US to spy on Indonesian officials.

Luke Hopewell says the attacks weren't particularly sophisticated, and didn't suggest any state-involvement.

HOPEWELL: 'The interesting thing about the Asian region is that hacking attacks are quite common, but not just on an individual level. We talk about State-sponsored hacking, which basically means rather than just having a regular army to fight your wars for you, the flow of information is just is important, so they have cyber armies. North Korea has quite a prolific cyber army, as does China, and these exist to control the flow of information both in and out of the country but also to extract information from overseas targets, so we've got the State sponsored and private hacking attacks taking place'.

BIRTLES:A recent report from a US internet monitoring company found that Indonesia had surpassed China to become the world's top source for cyber attacks. Nigel Phair from the Internet Safety Centre at the University of Canberra says its hard to establish where attacks originate from.

PHAIR: 'Indonesia's online economy has been improving, but there is a lot of illegal software, for example copies of Microsoft operating systems, so those systems of inherently insecure, which makes it easy for other global cyber criminals to use computers in Indonesia as their route to other places.'

BIRTLES: So is China still seen as the main country where attacks actually originate?

PHAIR: 'Yes definitely, China is always front and centre of thinking in this regard, but the rest of South East Asia is catching up, and a lot of these developing economies are getting a lot more IT and engineering students, and there are a lot more savvy businesses on fast broadband so as time goes on I think we're going to see more from places we haven't seen before. '

 

[NewWorldRecord]

'ANONYMOUS INDONESIA' HACKS AUSTRALIA SITES OVER SPYING

04.11.2013 03:44 PM

Activist group Anonymous Indonesia on Monday claimed it had defaced more than 170 Australian websites to protest at reports of Canberra spying on its nearest neighbour and strategic ally.

"Hundreds of Australian Websites Attacked for #OpAustralia By Indonesian Hackers," it posted on Twitter, listing the sites which appeared to be mostly small businesses that ended with the Australian domain .au.

Calling up the web pages was met with the message: "Stop Spying on Indonesia" underneath an Indonesian flag imprinted with a black graphic of the face of Guy Fawkes, whose image is used as a mask by Anonymous internationally.

The sites appear to have been selected at random, covering businesses involved in everything from catering to dry cleaning and bouncy castle hire.

Australia's relationship with close neighbour Indonesia is under pressure after reports last week that Canberra's overseas diplomatic posts were involved in a vast US-led surveillance network.

Missions in Indonesia, as well as embassies or consulates in China, were reportedly used to monitor phone calls and collect data, sparking demands for an explanation from Jakarta and Beijing.

On Sunday, The Guardian newspaper cited a document from US whistleblower Edward Snowden showing Australia and the US also mounted a joint surveillance operation on Indonesia during the 2007 UN climate change conference in Bali.

The Australian government has said it does not comment on intelligence matters.

Anonymous is believed to be a loosely organised hacker collective that conducts online attacks internationally, most recently in Singapore on Friday when a newspaper website was defaced over Internet freedom in the city-state.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

​

 

[gingerlyn]

Sinkies shall thank Anon as both Singaporea and Philippines government websites are hacked and both are corrupted!!!

 

[NewWorldRecord]

#Nov5th 2013: Anonymous pledges to hack govt websites globally on Guy Fawkes Day

Published time: July 17, 2013 17:08
Edited time: July 18, 2013 13:45

Reuters/Cathal McNaughton

Hacktivist group Anonymous threatens to target all government facilities across the globe on November 5 2013, calling activists to mark the day with protests in support of the Occupy movement.

“Now it's time to occupy everywhere” says the video named “Anonymous #NOV5TH 2013 – the lion sleeps no more” posted on Youtube. It calls for “a day of global civil disobedience” to mark Guy Fawkes Day in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The video urges to ‘relight the flame of protest’ and claims that unions from around the world are supporting actions of Anonymous and the Occupy movement, adding ‘austerity means war.’

November 5 commemorates Guy Fawkes' failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London.

Last year’s protest on November 5 launched by Anonymous gathered hundreds of supporters in London’s Trafalgar Square, according to RT’s London Bureau, for Operation Vendetta - a march to the Houses of Parliament.

People were carrying banners that read “We are Anonymous. We are the legion” and “Stop creating imaginary debt!”

A rash of cyber-attacks were reported the same day on Australian government sites and Argentina’s government bank. Anonymous also claimed to have stolen some 28,000 passwords and other confidential information from US based company Paypal, however the company disputed the hack. Another cyber-attack was reportedly launched against the website of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to draw attention “to election manipulation in the Ukraine.”

Hackers also reportedly targeted US company Trapwire and European analogue INDECT, which develop software that can access closed-circuit cameras to monitor citizens’ movements. On November 6 an Anonymous affiliated group identified as “pyknic” hacked several sites for the US TV network NBC , however the sites were quickly restored.

Anonymous hactivists have long supported the Occupy movement and used web technologies and social media, like Facebook and Twitter, to accelerate the rhythm of protests. The social network users apply hashtags such as #OccupyWallSt, #OWS or #Occupy which help to coordinate the demonstrations.

The Anonymous supporters, and Occupy Wall Street protesters wear stylized Guy Fawkes masks - featured prominently in ‘V for Vendetta’ comic series and film – which were adopted as a universal symbol against tyranny. The masks have also been used during the mass protests in the Arab countries, and have been banned by some states, such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The Occupy movement began two years ago as a campaign against large corporations and the global financial system that control the world in a way that disproportionately benefits the minority and undermines democracy. The Occupy slogan ‘we are the 99%’ refers to the concentration of wealth among the 1% of income earners compared to the majority.

The first Occupy protest was the Occupy Wall Street in New York City's Zuccotti Park, which began on 17 September 2011, similar actions have taken place all over the world.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous takes down two Philippine government websites on November 5

November 5, 2013at 6:45 am by Terence Lee

Anonymous has brought down the National Bureau of Investigation and Senate websites, it announced on OpPhilippines, a Twitter channel for Anonymous activities in the country. The sites were inaccessible as of 5:30 A.M. local time (Update at 9:40 A.M: Senate site appears to be online. NBI is still down).

Unlike previous attempts, which saw hackers break into and deface the websites, it’s more likely that this recent run was a DDoS attack, designed to render web services inaccessible to users.

Today’s attacks also carry extra significance: November 5 is the day of the Million Mask March, a global protest movement. In the Philippines, a public protest is scheduled to take place at 10 A.M. in Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City. The goal of the event is to unite citizens against corrupt government officials as well as the Cybercrime Prevention Act, which has been criticized for its potential to impede freedom of speech.

In Singapore, a hacker from Anonymous has also called for a public protest, although his attempts are far less coordinated due to the fact that Singaporeans are less likely to start spontaneous public demonstrations.

Protests have been illegal in Singapore for decades and while the government has recently opened up, it still only allows demonstrations in a small designated park. As such, there isn’t a culture for protests, and perhaps less need for them, given the Singapore government’s relatively cleaner politics.

(Editing by Charlie Custer)

 

[zhihau]

steady lah... gov.sg sites still up and running

 

[Leongsam]

steady lah... gov.sg sites still up and running

Once there is fair warning, it's a matter of configuring all the traffic through proxy filters which absorb the attacks. The sites slow down as the routing is more complicated but they will continue to function.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Southeast Asian Sites Hacked Before Global Anonymous Protest

<cite class="byline" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; width: 640px; color: rgb(111, 111, 111); display: block; font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3em; position: static !important; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">By Andrea Tan - Nov 5, 2013 10:45 AM GMT+0800</cite>
The Anonymous hacker group stepped up cyber attacks across Southeast Asia, targeting websites in the Philippines and Singapore before a global protest today against censorship and government corruption.

Anonymous Philippines said it infiltrated 115 government websites before a demonstration outside congress in Quezon City as part of a global “Million Mask March,” coinciding with Guy Fawkes Day in the U.K. The mask of Fawkes, who tried to blow up the English Parliament in the 17th century, has become a symbol of the movement. Seventy riot police were on hand at the start of the protest, outnumbering demonstrators more than 3-to-1.

The Anonymous hacker group has stepped up its criticism in the Philippines as President Benigno Aquino’s government remains embroiled in a scandal over the misuse of public funds. The mask of Guy Fawkes has become a symbol of the movement. Source: PYMCA/UIG via Getty Images

The threats in the Philippines have prompted President Benigno Aquino’s government to say that it will take action against those who hack websites to protest corruption. Photographer: Julian Abram Wainwright/Bloomberg

A shop assistant holds up a selection of Guy Fawkes masks, in Berkshire, October 1934. Guy Fawkes Night is held annually in the U.K on Nov. 5 to mark the anniversary of the discovery of a plot organized by conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London in 1605. Photographer: William Vanderson/Fox Photos via Getty Images

Anonymous Philippines has called on the public to join the “revolution” today. “The government, in many ways, has failed its citizens,” the group said on its Facebook page. “Fairness, justice and freedom are more than just words.”

In Singapore, a website owned by the city’s biggest newspaper publisher was temporarily shut yesterday after being hacked on Nov. 1. A video uploaded on the YouTube website last week showed a person in a Guy Fawkes mask threatening to bring down Singapore’s infrastructure to protest Internet regulations.

Anonymous Indonesia said on its Twitter page that it had infiltrated more than 100 Australian sites in response to reports of spying by Australia.

‘Misreporting Rumors’

“I do not see this as a people’s power but more of a few people going after those with power in the system through clandestine means,” said Bridget Welsh, an associate professor of political science at the Singapore Management University. “Cyber issues reflect a major arena of political contestation that will only intensify in the years ahead.”

The threats in the Philippines have prompted PresidentBenigno Aquino’s government to say that it will take action against those who hack websites to protest corruption. The Singapore police said government websites are down for “maintenance” and warned against “misreporting” of “rumors.”

Anonymous has stepped up its criticism in the Philippines as Aquino’s government remains embroiled in a scandal over the misuse of public funds. Prosecutors have recommended corruption-related charges against a group of lawmakers and a businesswoman related to the alleged improper use of funds that lawmakers doled out at their discretion on infrastructure and development projects.

Newspaper Hacked

“There is sufficient democratic space, so there’s no need to resort to illegal acts,” Philippines’ Communications Secretary Sonny Coloma told reporters in Manila yesterday.

Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. (SPH) said it was investigating after some users had difficulty accessing the Straits Times online yesterday. The website was infiltrated last week by a hacker who said the newspaper distorted Anonymous’s position by saying the group is at war with Singapore instead of with its government. Singapore Press confirmed that infiltration.

Singapore from June 1 required websites that regularly publish news on the city state to be licensed and pay a S$50,000 ($40,200) bond, to be forfeited on the publication of “prohibited content” that “undermines racial or religious harmony.” The new laws has prompted criticism from Anonymous.

On Alert

Singapore government agencies were put on alert for possible attacks, the Straits Timesreported on Nov. 1. The Messiah, a hacker with Anonymous, claimed responsibility for infiltrating the website of the Ang Mo Kio Town Council last week, the municipal branch of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s constituency.

The city’s Infocomm Development Authority said in a statement yesterday that maintenance on Nov. 2 uncovered a fault involving “a routing issue and a hardware failure” that affected some government websites and was later fixed. Government agencies have been on “heightened vigilance” because of the threats, according to the statement.

Guy Fawkes Night is held annually in the U.K on Nov. 5 to mark the anniversary of the discovery of a plot organized by conspirators including Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament inLondon in 1605.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Tan in Singapore at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Douglas Wong at [email protected]; Rosalind Mathieson at [email protected]

 

[NewWorldRecord]

https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous protestors take to the streets

Date November 5, 2013 - 6:23PM
Tony Moore
brisbanetimes senior reporter

Phoenix at the Anonymous rally in Brisbane. Photo: Tony Moore

They were colourful, reasonably well-informed and "Anonymous" as they marched though Brisbane's streets.

Many wore masks to hide their identity as they marched from Roma Street Parklands around the inner-city and into King George Square.

A small collective of supporters of the international cyber hacker group Anonymous is active in Brisbane.

However, they are less focused on cyber hacking, known as 'hacktivism', and more interested in peaceful demonstrations.

The group has joined protests against genetically modified food producers and supported campaigns for the rights of single parents.

"Phoenix", a polite, young man with long, sandy hair spoke before the march.

He said Daniel Walker, who was identified by Fairfax Media as the primary person responsible for a YouTube video criticising Campbell Newman's anti-association laws, had been spoken to by police and released without being charged.

Phoenix said Anonymous supporters were part of an international group of people frustrated with what he described as the separation of government from ordinary students and working class people.

Phoenix insisted Anonymous Brisbane had local issues of concern.

"Campbell Newman is the current premier," Phoenix said.

"He has introduced laws, sold through the media, that are supposedly anti-bikie which are trying to bring down organised crime," he said.

"If they wish to bring down organised crime, the first organisation they should target are the corrupt police."

A handful of police, including three on bicycles, monitored the well-behaved rally in King George Square.

Phoenix said the anti-bikie laws were unnecessary.

"This bikie nonsense is just a way of selling to the public, in a state of fear, laws which are just ridiculous," he said.

He said the multimillion-dollar illegal amphetamine industry run by outlaw motorcycle gangs should be tackled by fighting against large pharmaceutical companies.

Other protesters said they came to have their say against fluoride, others against job cuts in the community health sector.

Anonymous Brisbane came to public attention last year when the group, largely students, "occupied" Post Office Square.

They were eventually asked to leave because their tents killed the grass.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous-sparked protest begins in Philippines, held back in Indonesia

November 5, 2013at 12:05 pm by techinasia

By Yasser Paragian, Enricko Lukman, Phoebe Magdirila, Terence Lee

The Million Mask March, a global protest initiated by hacktivist group Anonymous, has begun in Southeast Asia this morning. Eye witness reports say that protestors wearing Guy Fawkes masks have gathered in the Philippines along Batasan Road in Quezon City. The group told local media that they were protesting against rampant pork-barrel politics in the country.

While the Philippine event’s Facebook page says that over 1,300 people will attend the protest, about 200 individuals were estimated to have showed up. The masked protesters were mostly youths. Some of them were carrying banners that say: “The corrupt fear us. The honest support us. the heroic join us.”

Policemen were stationed at Batasan and they initially stopped protesters from going to the front of the House of Representatives. They were later allowed to do so. However, the lawmakers were apparently not in the building to listen to the protesters’ demands as they are on Halloween break until Nov 18.

The march today followed the outage of two government websites starting from around 5.30 A.M. Anonymous has claimed credit for causing it.

Things aren’t going as smoothly for the Indonesian group however. While initially drawing 1,000 confirmed attendees on its Facebook page, the protesters did not get permission from the police to hold a mass gathering at the venue, so the group shifted to Tugu Proklamasi, a historical monument, instead.

The sudden change in location caused confusion as some Facebook users still thought that it was going to be held at Bundaran HI. While Anonymous Indonesia operates two major Twitter accounts, the communications were not water-tight and may have hampered the mass gathering.

@AnonNewsIndo, which has 10,000 followers, tweeted about the change of venue just once. The tweet then got retweeted 34 times by its followers. However, the other Anonymous Twitter handle, @Anon_Indonesia, which has 27,000 followers, didn’t talk about the venue change or any mass gathering at all in the past few days.

And unlike the Philippine protest, a live CCTV feed from LewatMana showed no protest activity happening at Bundaran HI. Local media, both on television and internet, did not report on movements at Tugu Proklamasi either.

The nature of the Indonesian protest is markedly different from the Philippines though. Its agenda was to merely show the world that Anonymous Indonesia isn’t criminal, rather than protest specific policies or a political climate.

While Anonymous has begun moving in both countries, things are quiet in Singapore despite rampant speculations about what The Messiah, Anonymous’ supposed Singapore representative, will do.

(Photo credit: GMA News)

(Editing by Josh Horwitz)

 

[NewWorldRecord]

IDA blames outage of Singapore government websites on technical issues, denies hackers involved

November 4, 2013at 1:47 pm by Terence Lee

Updated with statement from IDA issued on November 4.

An incident report (embedded below) purportedly by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has determined that “routing problems” from an unnamed Internet Service Provider (ISP), along with the hardware failure of an internet router, were the causes of the massive outage that took down over 19 government websites last Saturday. While the report did not state if human error or hackers were involved, IDA later said that “at no point were these websites the target of cyber attacks.”

The document, uploaded by an unknown person, says that GDC1, an internet connection service used by many government websites, called for an urgent scheduled maintenance on November 1 from 1pm to 3pm to test “the implementation of a security solution for internet access”.

However, things started to go wrong during the test. When the internet connection was swung from its primary to secondary link, a “routing problem” was discovered on the side of the Internet Service Provider, which caused the swing to fail.

But when the internet connection was reverted back to the primary link, the internet router experienced a hardware failure. Even though a replacement router was eventually used, it had difficulty connecting to the ISP.

This disrupted government internet systems and services that are hosted at GDC1, starting from November 2 at 3pm. It also impacted the government’s Domain Name System, which meant that when users key in a web address, the system was unable to match it to the respective website.The routing issues were resolved by 5.21pm on the same day.

IDA is currently waiting for an incident report from the ISP to explain what caused the routing and connection problems. The agency did not explain if hackers were able to gain access via a backdoor through the internet router, and use that vulnerability to disrupt the internet service.

In response to Tech in Asia’s queries, IDA has issued a press release stating that their maintenance was a response to the declared threats by a hacker called The Messiah to wage war against the Government’s IT infrastructure. The timing certainly wasn’t coincidental: The warning was uploaded on YouTube on October 29, just a few days before the “urgent” scheduled maintenance.

The same hacker has also said that he will be making a virtual protest on November 5 together with the Millions Mask March event. The March is a protest movement with a mission of promoting “fairness, justice, and freedom”.

IDA also confirmed several facts that were in line with the incident report. These include a maintenance from 1pm to 3pm which led the discovery of a fault that affected selected government websites, as well as the outage’s cause being a combination of a routing issue and a hardware failure.

The government agency added that maintenance will continue in the next few days. As a result, some government websites may continue to face intermittent issues.

Leading up to tomorrow, Anonymous hackers in Asia have been on a warpath to disrupt public and private sector websites. They took down dozens of government websites in the Philippines, and followed that up by defacing 170 websites in Australia. While all of them claim to be from the same collective, it’s likely that these cracks are performed by different sub-groups.

IDA-report-Service Outage-2Nov2013.pdf by Latisha Carr

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous Philippines holds protest march to Congress

by Ron B. Lopez
November 5, 2013 (updated)

Members of Anonymous Philippines hold dialogue with police officers, who later allowed the protesters to march near the vicinity of the Batasan Complex. (Photo by Ellson Quismorio)

Members and supporters of hacking collective group Anonymous Philippines went “offline” to march to Batasang Pambansa complex Tuesday noon in protest of the rampant corruption of public funds in the country.

After a confrontation with police officers who blocked the group after it gathered along Quezon City Circle, the group was allowed to continue with their “Million Mask March” near the vicinity of the House of Representatives.

Wearing Guy Fawkes masks, members of the group said they are protesting the unbridled misused of billions of public funds by several lawmakers who reportedly got hefty kickbacks in exchange of their pork barrel.

On Facebook, more than 1, 300 out of more than 5, 600 individuals invited have confirmed that they will be participating in the protest.
The group has discouraged other protesters from using banners which would identify their organizations, in effort to keep the protest “anonymous.”

The protest gained publicity after the activist group hacked at least 39 local and national government websites on Nov. 3, displaying their message on most of the hacked websites.

“The government, in many ways, has failed its Filipino citizens. We have been deprived of things which they have promised to give; what our late heroes have promised us to give,” the group said.

The Million Mask March is a global protest of members of Anonymous collective from United States, Indonesia, Australia and other countries where members also have agreed to hold their own rallies.

“You can sleep, sit, go on with your everyday routine just like a herd of sheep and watch as the government laugh at you. But if you see what we see, if you feel as we feel, and if you would seek as we seek… then we ask you to stand beside us,” the Anonymous members said.

 

[zhihau]

where to buy the Guy Fawkes mask ah?

 

[Physiocrat]

where to buy the Guy Fawkes mask ah?

They are presenting you a great business opportunity.

But I doubt the market here in SG is there.

Employment opportunities too for those IT security guys.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

did shitapore kenna?

 

[tonychat]

where is the protest in sinkieland?

oh..what can you expect from a population of ball-less cowards?

 

[peppertail]

The article in post #4 pretty much sums it up:

although it's not clear what's being demonstrated.

I have no idea what these guys are trying to do. It looks like a big balloon of hot air to me.