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2nd February 2012
09:00am GMT
As the Irish Aid and official Labour party websites was taken offline last night many people are asking if the hacktivist collective Anonymous have struck again?
The Labour party website was taken down after it was rammed with automated requests designed to overload the site. A party spokesperson told RTÉ that the website had not been hacked by the 'denial of service' attack and is till online and secure.
Irish Aid, a government oversees development body, had to take their website offline after it was hacked and several staff members private information was posted under a 'Stop ACTA' banner at around 8.30 last night. The website remains offline this morning.
Anonymous Sweden, who last week claimed responsibility for taking down several Irish Government websites tweeted a link to the post before it was taken down.
These most recent attacks come a Labour Minister of State Seán Sherlock says that no changes will be made to the vague wording of legislation designed to combat online piracy. The draft law, which is being compared to the defeated US SOPA legislation, is so undefined that it could mean judges will have to decide on its scope.
Minister Sherlock yesterday gave reassurances to worried Irish web users that popular sites like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter would not be affected by the new statutory instrument. The law will come into effect once the Minister signs an order and will not have to be voted on by the Dáil.
Nearly 80,000 people have registered their displeasure at the law already by signing an online petition started by Stop SOPA Ireland on January 26th.
