Animal rights protesters launched denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on Monday against seven organisations that work in the fur trade.
The group, calling itself "The Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) against the Fur and the Vivisection Industry", is attempting to crash the servers of companies associated with fur trade by flooding them with email over several days. The protesters have developed a software tool that enables an online chat forum to automatically send emails every time a new message is typed.
The group has vowed to attack the following organisations: Peek & Cloppenburg (P&C); Legacy Trading; The German Fur Institute (DPI); Fur Commission USA; Fur & Fashion GmbH; Maison de Bonneterie; and the MIFUR.
A statement on the ECD Web site said: "We're gonna put pressure on those companies and institutions which are responsible that [sic] animals like foxes or mink are still kept imprisoned in small cages, only to be killed for their fur after a few months."
A spokeswoman at Maison de Bonneterie confirmed that the attacks were happening, but declined to comment on the matter.
Security company MessageLabs has been watching the ECD Web site develop. Paul Wood, chief information security analyst for MessageLabs, said that the legality of the attacks depended on how they were being carried out.
"There is a fine line. It depends whether they use zombie machines. I suspect they don't, but I can’t be sure," said Wood.
Last year, Lycos' Make Love Not Spam campaign highlighted that DoS attacks are not covered by British law. The government has indicated that it wishes to update the Computer Misuse Act to make launching these attacks an offence, but at present companies may have trouble in prosecuting anyone who starts DoS attacks.
Talkback
Good! Those who profit from torture and murder of innocent animals for fur, food, and vivisection deserve this and more. One day these vile industries will be a memory of past evils (right up there with Hitler and slave traders) but for today they must be stopped in whatever way possible.
More should be done against these criminals as that is what they are.
There are plently of companies I don't like, I'd love to see Coca-Cola, Mcdonalds and Burger King (to name a few) shut down as I personally believe they present health problems to the country. In my opinion such an issue involving real people is of far more importance than some small animals which get killed and ripped apart in their millions in the wild anyway.
Yet I don't think my view legitimises attacks on the operations of these respective companies. I'll do it the proper way.
DDOS attacks against fur trading companies by animal rights activists are no more legitmate than attacks against betting websites by Russian mafia groups!
These AR protestors need to have their heads examined- why is it they believe in free speech, but only for people that they support?
It's kind of interesting that most folks talk about removing the temptation (Coca-Cola, MickeyD's, etc) which affects everyone, rathre than using their own self-discipline to stay away from these "evils" and let others make up their own minds. Big Brother! What next??