Anonymous brings down 2 government websites

Anonymous, the international internet activist and hacker collective, has continued its attacks on government websites, bringing down the Government House and Labour Ministry sites on Friday night.

The attacks are part of a continuing protest against plans by the military government to create a single gateway for international internet traffic, which critics say will curb freedom of expression.

F5CyberArmy, one of the members of Anonymous, claimed to have moved the two websites offline, and provided host-checking data as proof.

As of Saturday evening, the Government House site was accessible but the Labour Ministry site was not.

In another tweet, F5CyberArmy showed proof of the data hacked from the CAT Telecom website, challenging the claim made on Friday by Information and Communication Technology Minister Uttama Savanayana that the state agency's data were intact and the hackers did not get their hands on real information.

The proof looks like unencrypted customer e-mails in more detail than the list it had shown earlier, questioning the minister's claim that state IT systems and protocols were up to standards, which require encryption of sensitive data.

ISO27001 allows plain text storage of customers datas? Someone is lying or we missed something here?#OpsingleGateway pic.twitter.com/9dsZNIIDKw — F5CyberArmy (@f5cyberarmy) October 23, 2015

News of the proposal for a single gateway emerged last month in a leaked cabinet document. One of the aims of the "Great Firewall of Thailand", as critics dubbed it, would be to help authorities curb "inappropriate" content including lese majeste.

The public, the IT industry and businesses condemned the plan, saying that not only would it curb freedom of speech but also that it would lead to slower internet service, higher costs and economic losses. No IT companies would be interested in investing in Thailand despite the country's stated aim to promote a digital economy, business leaders said.

Anonymous launched the latest phase of its cyberwar on Thursday. It started by displaying data it claimed had come from CAT Telecom. CAT said earlier this week that it was still studying the single gateway idea.

Somkid Jatusripitak, the deputy prime minister in charge of economic policy, told the Bangkok Post Forum last week that it was time to stop talking about a single gateway. However, some of his cabinet colleagues continue to say that the idea has not been abandoned.

In one of its tweets at noon on Saturday, Anonymous said: "The prime minister of Thailand, expect us."