The hacker collective Anonymous may have just made its highest net-worth enemies yet. In the midst of the weekend's protests in support of Wisconsin's public employees, the group declared war on the billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, taking down two Koch-backed sites with cyberattacks and calling for a boycott on companies in which the brothers have invested.
Anonymous laid out its grievances against at the billionaires duo, tied for fifth on Forbes' list of the richest Americans with a combined wealth of $43 billion, in a statement that tied them to the bill that aims to end collective bargaining rights for state employees in Wisconsin.
On Sunday night, both the website of Koch-backed antiregulatory group Americans For Prosperity and a community forum site for Koch-backed toilet paper company Northern Quilt were down (at least every time I checked) for more than five hours under cyberattacks from Anonymous.
"It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy," reads the statement. "Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back." The statement goes on to accuse the brothers of creating fake grassroots groups to oppose the unions in order to cheaply gain a monopoly on Wisconsin's power utilities.
The statement also called for boycotts on U.S. brands including Dixie, Brawny and Angel Soft.
Back in the offline world, more than 100,000 Wisconsinites have taken to the streets in Madison and some continue to occupy the State's capitol building.
The attack on the Tea-Party-associated Koch brothers is the latest in Anonymous' increasingly political actions, and not one that all members of the group seem to support. One member of the group who says he was associated with the earlier hack of security firm HBGary told me via instant message that he wasn't involved with the Koch takedown, and that proposals to attack the Tea Party have been unpopular within the group's ranks. A blog post about another Anonymous threat to take down Tea-Party-related websites posted to AnonNews.org was ranked among the least popular on the site.
"Anonymous does not approve," wrote one user on the site. Another questioned whether the Tea Party might not have some ideals in common with the libertarian hacker collective. "Interestingly the rank and file of the [Tea Party] probably share similar views as we do in relation to many aspects of freedom, it seems they are co-opted by business at the top levels but not lower down at all," writes the anonymous commenter. "Makes me wonder if hitting the baggers is more useful than trying to steal them from big business."
