Cyber-attack

The loosely organized activist hacker group Anonymous breached the website of Greece's justice ministry on Friday, posting a message that sharply criticized the international bailout package and attached austerity measures as an attack on democracy.

"You have introduced a new dictatorship upon your people's shoulders and allowed the bankers and the monarchs of the EU to enslave them both economically and politically," the group's message said.

"You have joined the IMF (International Monetary Fund) against your people's acquiescence…democracy was given birth in your country but now you have killed it," the hackers added.

Anonymous also criticized Athens for joining the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a deal signed on January 26 to create international standards for intellectual property protection.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently distanced herself from a controversial German proposal that would have effectively suspended Greece's sovereignty for a period of time by placing its national budget under the control of a commissioner appointed by the eurozone's finance ministers. Merkel called instead for "long-term monitoring."

Day of online action

All in all, it was an eventful day for Anonymous. In a further coup on Friday, the group published a 15-minute recording of a conference call between anti-hacking investigators from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and their British counterparts.

The release of the recording via the internet represented a turning-of-tables on the investigators, themselves tasked with keeping tabs on groups such as Anonymous.

Meanwhile a message posted on the website of the US city of Boston's police department said that the site had been attacked in retaliation for brutality against members of the Occupy Boston protest movement.

slk/rc/acb (Reuters, AFP)