MegaUpload taken down by FBI, Anonymous attacks

UPDATE: MegaUpload is back online. Anonymous tweeted, "NEW: MegaUpload is back online - http://109.236.83.66/". While the employees were arrested and their assets (Rolls Royces mostly). Anonymous also tweeted that this was the largest Anonymous attack ever, 5,635 people and more than 27,000 computers were confirmed to bring the sites down.

In the midst of all the SOPA and PIPA wars that are being battled, the FBI took down fileshare site, MegaUpload, earlier today. According to First Post, the site was hit by a major federal indictment against piracy. The founders of the site were accused of causing copyright holders to lose $500 million in revenue. Although the site is based in Hong Kong, it operated on some servers that were located in Virginia, in the United States. Arrests were made of Kim Dotcom, a Dutch citizen and three other employees in New Zealand at the request of the United States officials.

Anonymous attacks with #OpMegaUpload

This comes one day after major Internet entities like Wikipedia and Reddit blacked out in protest of SOPA. Hacking group, Anonymous quickly went to action and took down the FBI and the United States Department of Justice websites. They tweeted with the words "Tango Down" to describe any websites they took down. They also tweeted that they took the sites down using DDOS and not actual hacks, which means they swarmed the sites with millions of computers that were really bots, overloading the servers. Their attack, #OpMegaUpload has also taken down the sites of Universal Music, the MPAA, RIAA and BMI, all key players in the pro-SOPA battle.

Anonymous also tweeted that the Department of Justice was potentially waiting for SOPA to pass before taking down MegaUpload. However, with such a strong protest against SOPA, it is likely not to get passed and the DOJ took down MegaUpload anyway. SOPA has currently been shelved with many co-sponsors dropping out, while PIPA will be up for debate in the Senate on the 24th of January.