Anonymous boasts takedown of 74 Turkish government sites

Hacktivist group Anonymous has claimed the government of Turkey as its latest victim, taking down 74 web sites and releasing a collection of data said to be harvested from more than 100 Turkish government domains.

The data in the torrent file, dubbed 'Turkish Takedown Thursday', is said to have been obtained covertly, and the hacking group claimed that the sites' administrators were unaware of the attacks until the sites were taken down.

"Our vessel recently encountered a Turkish Government frigate, a chance we could not let pass," Anonymous said in the posting.

"So we simply boarded their vessel (no need to fire any cannons, mind you, they never found out what happened until just now) and collected some booty."

The attacks come as Anonymous finds itself under increasing pressure from law enforcement agencies. Turkish authorities arrested 32 people last month who were said to have taken part in an Anonymous denial-of-service attack.

The arrests in Turkey were followed by an arrest in the UK of a hacker thought to be part of LulzSec, a short-lived hacking group believed to have been affiliated with Anonymous.

Earlier this week, police in Italy undertook a series of raids which resulted in the arrests of three people alleged to be members of Anonymous.

The group is also finding itself in the cross-hairs of other hackers. As reported by The Inquirer, a group calling itself Team Poison has posted a dump of information that it claims to have collected from Anonymous and LulzSec members.

Members of Team Poison have previously threatened to disclose information on members of LulzSec.

The information includes the names and addresses of several individuals said to be involved with the group. While the authenticity of the information is not known, data on at least one individual matches information posted last month by a rogue hacker known as The Jester.