As clashes in Turkey continue, the hacker collective Anonymous has decided to join the protests.
Yesterday, on Anonymous' "official" Twitter account YourAnonNews, the hacktivists announced #OpTurkey. The group also set up a website, Operation Turkey, to boasts their online exploits.
"Because you should have expected us fuckers," read the tweet, which also had a link to the usual Anonymous YouTube video featuring a robotic voice - and anti-government rhetoric.
The voice in the video intoned: "We will attack every internet and communications asset of the Turkish government. You have censored social media and other communications of your people in order to suppress the knowledge of your crimes against them. Now Anonymous will shut you down, and your own people will remove you from power. Let the 'Turkish Summer' begin!"
The group immediately started claiming victims through its signature Distribute Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, some of which have been confirmed by security experts at Radware, an Isreali network security company working with some of the targets. Among the victims were various government websites, the Istanbul Police Department website, and the Justice and Development Party website - the party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Radware confirmed the DDoS attacks, and told Mashable that in a random sample of 30 minutes, they encountered and mitigated more than 600 million packets. Ronen Kenig, Radware's director of security solutions, described this as a medium-sized attack.
"This is a standard Anonymous operation," he said. He added that this attack - unlike others - was a well-coordinated one, and, from Anonymous' point of view, pretty successful.
While Kenig couldn't confirm every website that Anonymous claimed to have taken down, he did confirm that some websites went offline as part of the hacktivists' operation.
Anonymous announced its online campaign two days after the protests erupted in Istanbul. The protests began as a gathering at Istanbul's historic Gezi Park for a four-day sit-in to oppose plans to tear down the park. What started as a peaceful protest quickly escalated as the police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the anti-government demonstrations.