According to a recent article from the technology-based news site Arstechnica, Law enforcement have conducted 32 raids in Italy an one in Switzerland, resulting in the arrests of 15 alleged members of the hacktivist group Anonymous, accused of performing denial of service attacks on Italian government web sites on both state and private broadcasters. The Italian authorities have said the detainees were aged between 15 to 28, most surprisingly 5 of which were under 18 years of age, the supposed ‘leader’ of these attacks was a 26-year-old Swiss-Italian going by the alias ‘Phre’. 30 additional suspects currently being sought after.
In response to this, the AnonOps faction within Anonymous has vowed revenge and is going to “let them have it”, and have also pointed out there are no leaders within Anonymous as “Anonymous has no leaders, no structure”. However other Anonymous members have been angered by the announcement, not for the actions but rather for grammatical errors and the lack of professionalism of the AnonOps individual. Comments on the post show further debates and arguments within the legion shows different sides of view on the topic as well. This has happened within the same week the more peaceful faction, The Anon Party has said they would not be involved in any hacking or DDOS attacks anymore.
