Hackers Infect Government Websites with 'Asteroids' Game
By Paul Wagensil | LiveScience.com – 1 hr 20 mins agoView PhotoAngry NyanCat in action on the …
Hackers angry over the suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz took over the website of the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) twice over the weekend, finally infecting the homepage with a playable version of the classic arcade game "Asteroids."
The hackers, claiming affiliation with the online movement Anonymous, also claimed to release a list of people in the federal Witness Security Program, also known as the Witness Protection Program, but that was quickly discovered to be a hoax.
Blood of the martyr
The attack began late Friday (Jan. 25), when the homepage of the USSC, which sets sentencing guidelines for federal courts, was defaced with a video regarding the prosecution of Swartz.
"We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the discretion of prosecutors," said a voiceover on the video. "We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control."
Swartz, who hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment earlier this month at the age of 26, was facing decades in federal prison for allegedly downloading millions of academic documents from an online archive to a laptop hidden on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
According to a report released last week, local authorities in Boston had not intended to seek any jail time for Swartz.
Federal prosecutors then took over the case, first indicting Swartz on four charges that carried a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison, then adding nine more charges in a second indictment that increased the possible prison time to 50 years.
Two weeks ago, Anonymous defaced the websites of MIT and the U.S. Department of Justice in Swartz's memory.
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