‘Hacktivist collective Anonymous has made it onto Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list.’

Read more: Anonymous on Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential List

‘A group of Italian hackers who claim to be members of the loose-knit international gang of cyber criminals known as “Anonymous” took down the Vatican’s website for a number of hours Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reports.’

Read more: Pope’s Laptop defrocked? ‘Anonymous’ Italian Hacktivists take down Vatican Website

‘Hector Xavier Monsegur, an unemployed computer programmer reportedly living on welfare in New York, was the ringleader operating under the name “Sabu,” federal authorities say. He pleaded guilty to a dozen computer crimes including conspiracy. But the indictment handed down by the US Attorney of New York’s southern district also said he cooperated with authorities to help round up other high-level hackers during a months-long investigation.’

Read more: Anonymous unmasked: Hactivist ringleader turned FBI informant

‘The AnonymousIRC Twitter account announced on Friday three attacks so far on major church Web sites. These aren’t just regular attacks, however, as they have also defaced the Web sites with anti-religion rhetoric and even a video featuring Richard Dawkins set to auto-play so visitors are forced to see it.’

Read more: Anonymous Declares War On Religion, Attacks Church Sites

‘Anonymous has so far plied its trade in “hactivist” exploits. But according to the director of the National Security Agency, it might soon turn its focus to U.S. infrastructure.’

Read more: Scared of Anonymous? NSA chief says you should be

‘Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are locked in a precarious blame game about who failed with your online privacy. First, Google gets caught bypassing a security feature in Safari that allowed the company to track users despite the no-tracking settings in Safari. Then yesterday, Microsoft charged Google for doing a similar thing with Internet Explorer users. Lots of smoke so far, but is there a fire?’

Read more: Google, Microsoft, or Facebook: Who Dropped The Ball With Your Online Privacy?

‘Google was caught last week bypassing default privacy settings in the Safari browser in order to serve up tracking cookies. The company claimed the situation was an accident and limited only to the Safari web browser, but today Microsoft claimed Google is doing much the same thing with Internet Explorer.’

Read more: Google & Facebook Trick Internet Explorer into Accepting Tracking Cookies, Microsoft Claims

‎’Online collective Anonymous has pledged a “crusade” against Israel. Claiming the country is committing “crimes against humanity” and gearing for “nuclear holocaust”, the group promised a campaign against the Israeli government.

In their statement issued early on Friday, Anonymous accused Israeli leaders of creating false democracy, serving the interests of a “select few” while “trampling the liberties of the masses.” The group said that Israel manipulates public opinion with a combination of “media deception” and “political bribery”.

Addressing the Israeli leaders, Anonymous stated that their “Zionist bigotry” is to blame for killings and displacements, adding that “as the world weeps” they are planning their “next attack”. The group pledged not to allow the attack to happen.’

Read more: Hacktivist Collective Anonymous vows ‘crusade’ against Israel

‘Haytham Faraj, one of the partners in Puckett and Faraj, posted this response to the hack on Facebook page:

Anonymous hacked into my business email account and stole over 3 gigs of email communications. Ironically, I am a supporter of Anonymous’ declared mission of exposing corruption, injustice, hypocrisy and governments acting in secret. I also supported Wikileaks. I volunteered to defend Bradley Manning and did a 30 minute interview on BBC TV about him. Anonymous will not find a smoking gun in the Haditha emails. In fact they will discover that which I stated all along. Wuterich did not shoot or kill women and children. He was entitled to a defense like everyone else in a free society. By putting my emails in the public sphere Anonymous did not violate my privacy. There is nothing in those emails about me. It violated the privacy rights of hundreds, perhaps thousands of other people who were entitled to their privacy by publishing their personal email and telephone information, to disclosing private and personal information that clients share with lawyers believing that the information will remain private and confidential. I am upset by Anonymous’ thoughtless acts.’

Read more: Victim Responds to Latest Anonymous Hack: ‘I Am a Supporter of Anonymous’

‘Late in the afternoon of Jan. 19, the U.S. Department of Justice website vanished from the Internet. Anyone attempting to visit it to report a crime or submit a complaint received a message saying the site was unable to load. More websites disappeared in rapid succession. The Recording Industry Association of America. The Motion Picture Association of America. Universal Music. Warner Brothers. The FBI.

By nightfall, most of the sites had come back online, but the people responsible for the outages had made their point. They’d landed what they hailed as the biggest blow yet in an escalating war for control of the Internet, and in one of their online command centers, “Phoenix” and his associates were celebrating.’

Read more: Anonymous And The War Over The Internet