The FBI yesterday executed 40 search warrants around the US to gather evidence on the Anonymous distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in defense of WikiLeaks last year—attacks which targeted Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Amazon. And when the FBI comes a-knockin', the whole house starts a rockin'.

Ars has seen posts from a private forum in which several targets of the FBI raids offer brief descriptions of the experience, along with the occasional photo of a beaten-in front door. We cannot guarantee the authenticity of these accounts, though we believe them to be genuine.

A note of context: "LOIC" here refers to the Low Orbit Ion Cannon, a software tool used in the Anonymous DDoS attacks that can flood a network connection with data.

I used LOIC during that whole Wikileaks fiasco. The FBI showed up at my door with a search warrant for any electronic devices that may have been used in the attack. That means any and all computers, unless I pointed out to them which one was used in the attack. I'm not retarded, I invoked my 5th amendment rights and didn't say anything so now they are taking everything. Yes, I'm f**king dumb. No, I didn't have time to thermite the hard drive. I'm worried that the FBI might stumble upon this site due to all the :filez: on my computer.

A second account showed a similar level of, err, enthusiasm on the part of the FBI.

6am, door busted down (NOT KIDDING), "FBI FBI FBI POLICE FBI GET YOUR ARMS UP AND DONT MOVE THEM. WALK DOWNSTAIRS RIGHT NOW. DO NOT MOVE YOUR HANDS." --- TWO *REAL* GUNS POINTED AT ME. me in 1 cop car, gf in other car. took 3.5 hrs, all electronic devices taken including 3 computers. said nearly nothing. finally left.

On sites like Reddit, hearsay was the norm. "A coworker of mine just came in and said her house got raided by the FBI last night," wrote one poster. "Apparently her son was using a bot, didn't cover his tracks and got caught plain as day I reiterate my point—nothing will come of their home being raided. The mom wasn't even that upset. More just wanted to know what it was all about and what 4chan and anon are since the FBI was asking her a bunch of questions about it. She had no idea what they were talking about."

The FBI yesterday reminded the public that "facilitating or conducting a DDoS attack is illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as well as exposing participants to significant civil liability."

Update: as one of our commenters points out, another forum offers even more details about what was taken. The guy who had the *REAL* GUNS pointed him lost his "iphone 4, main computer, media center pc, work laptop x1000, xbox 360, ps3, wii, 3 thumb drives, about 15 burned CDs/DVDs, gf's acer laptop, [and] gf's mom's toshiba laptop."

They started it!

Similar raids took place in the UK, resulting in the detention of five suspects. In response, someone claiming to speak for Anonymous issued a manifesto (PDF) against the UK government in the name of "us, Anonymous, the people."

The document says that the DDoS attacks were little more than peaceful protests:

As traditional means of protest (peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, the blocking of a crossroads or the picketing of a factory fence) have slowly turned into nothing but an empty, ritualised gesture of discontent over the course of the last century, people have been anxiously searching for new ways to pressure politicians and give voice to public demands in a manner that might actually be able to change things for the better. Anonymous has, for now, found this new way of voicing civil protest in the form of the DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service, attack. Just as is the case with traditional forms of protest, we block access to our opponents' infrastructure to get our message across.

Besides, the main Wikileaks site was hit with a DDoS attack first; are the authorities breaking down doors to solve that case? "We have noted that similar attacks have also been carried out against Wikileaks itself, yet so far, nobody has been arrested in connection with these attacks, nor are there even any signs of an investigation into this issue at all," the manifesto continues. "Yet, we know exactly who was responsible for that attack. Anonymous believes it is unfair and hypocritical to attempt to put these 5 arrested anons to trial without even attempting to find those who DDoS'ed a website which you oppose."

True anonymity on the Internet is tough to come by—even for Anonymous.

Photo by OperationPaperStorm