Internet activist group Anonymous has brought down Australian government websites in protest against internet filtering and pornography censorship laws.
The Parliament House of Australia website (http://www.aph.gov.au) was offline for 50 minutes this morning because of the denial-of-service attack, a spokesman from the Attorney-General's office confirmed.
The Department of Broadband and Communications and Digital Economy's website was also targeted and access has since been erratic.
The Department of Defence Cyber Security Operations Centre was monitoring the situation, the spokesman said.
READ MORE: Who is Anonymous?
Anonymous said in a notice to people interested in joining today's attack that it would follow up with prank phone calls, pornographic emails and black faxes to government offices.
The attacks are believed to be in protest against the government's impending internet filtering legislation and the Classification Board's decision to ban the sale of porn films in Australia which shows small-breasted women and female ejaculation.
Anonymous sent an email to media yesterday saying no government had the right to ban access to information deemed "unwanted".
"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," the email said.
Anonymous hacked into Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's website in September last year in a similar protest to proposed internet censorship reforms.
A message posted on the Inquisitr website by Anonymous confirmed the hack was in response to the government's proposal to introduce mandatory internet filtering.
The posting, titled "Anonymous vs the Australian Government", gave a blow-by-blow account of progress of the hack.
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