The Anonymous hacker group usually makes its presence known via data leaks and by defacing web sites. On Monday it showed up in a real world location to help protest how the BART rapid transit system in San Francisco is handling the investigation of a shooting. The New York Times reports that about about 12 people who claimed to be part of Anonymous showed up at a BART station wearing Guy Fawkes masks, a known symbol of the group. The Anonymous members joined with others at the station to protest the shooting death of a man by BART transit police officers in July. While Monday's protest was peaceful at first some of the protesters started to disrupt the operations at the BART station. Police decided to shut down the station's gates as a result.
In related news, the National Journal reports that the Federal Communications Commission is looking into BART's actions last week when it decided to shut down cell phone service in its stations. BART said that it made such a move to help disrupt a prevously announced protest. A spokesperson for the FCC said, "Anytime communications services are interrupted, we seek to assess the situation." The FCC hinted that there could be public safety issues surrounding such a decision.
On Sunday, Anonymous pledged to shut down the BART web site for a few hours. In the end the web site was defaced with the hacker group's known logos but normal access to the site was restored fairly quickly
21 Comments - Add comment