Hackers connected with the anti-Scientology group Anonymous this morning launched a broad attack on government websites.
They are protesting against forthcoming internet filtering legislation and the perceived censorship in pornography of small-breasted women (who are thought to be under age) and female ejaculation.
Several government sites were down this morning and the hackers have promised to follow up by spamming government offices with pornographic emails, faxes and prank phone calls.
The attacks, organised under the banner "Operation: Titstorm", come five months after hackers connected with the same group briefly brought down the Prime Minister's website. At the time the hackers said they would regroup and launch new attacks.
Flyers distributed to recruit participants for the operation said the denial of service attacks on government servers would begin at 8am today.
The Parliament of Australia website, aph.gov.au, was down for a period this morning, while kevinrudd.com.au was also inaccessible at the time of writing.
It is not clear how many other sites were targeted but it appears a wide range of government servers were flooded with traffic.
The attacks come as the government prepares to introduce its controversial mandatory internet filtering legislation and just after the Australian sex industry claimed porn films were being banned from sale in Australia because they featured small-breasted women and female ejaculation.
The Classification Board confirmed that pornography could be banned if participants simply "appeared" to be under age, while female ejaculation was considered a form of urination, which is banned under content classification guidelines.
In an email sent to media yesterday afternoon foreshadowing the attacks, Anonymous referred to the internet filtering legislation and the perceived pornography censorship.
"No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be 'unwanted'," the email read.
"The Australian government will learn that one does not mess with our porn. No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason."
In the flyer recruiting people for the attacks, Anonymous said the attacks on the websites would be followed by "a shitstorm of porn email, fax spam, black faxes and prank phone calls to government offices (emails/faxes should focus on small-breasted porn, cartoon porn and female ejaculation, the 3 types banned so far)".
Comment is being sought from the offices of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.
