Wisconsin Man Indicted in Anonymous Attack of Koch Industries
More: Wisconsin Man Indicted in Anonymous Attack of Koch Industries
A Wisconsin man could face years in federal prison if he is convicted of helping hacker collective Anonymous take down Koch Industries’ website during protests in the state’s capital in 2011, according to an indictment revealed this week.
The charges were announced Tuesday by the U.S. attorney’s office in Wichita, Kan. — the home of Koch Industries, a $115-billion-a-year oil and manufacturing conglomerate owned by libertarian iconoclasts Charles and David Koch.
Officials said Eric J. Rosol, 37, of Black Creek, Wis., participated in an Anonymous-organized shutdown of Koch websites www.kochind.com and www.quiltednorthern.com on Feb. 27 and 28 in 2011.
Rosol is the first and only defendant charged in the attack, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office told the Los Angeles Times.
The Koch site shutdown came during the height of pro-union protests in Wisconsin’s state capital that winter, when the Koch brothers came under criticism for backing the state’s union cutbacks. Under the hashtag #OpWisconsin, Anonymous members issued a statement accusing the Kochs of “political manipulation” and said, “We are actively seeking vulnerabilities.”
In the world of computer crime, the attack was more of a mobbing than a robbery.
Koch Brothers is Teh Stan but cybervandalism is bad mmkay.