Over the past week a group of anonymous hackers from around the world have begun targeting websites in Namibia to protest against the auctioning of a licence to kill a black rhino.
The activists behind the cyber attacks on a number of Namibian websites are angry about the issuing of the licence which would allow hunters in the United States of America to kill a black rhino in Namibia.
The group has given the Namibian government 48 hours to withdraw the licence to kill the rhino, and to immediately release the rhino, which they have named Ronnie.
The black rhino is listed as an endangered species. It has been reported that around 1600 black rhino have been killed over the last decade and there are currently only around 5000 left in the world, of which some 1 800 are found in Namibia .
A “target list” published online indicates that all websites registered to any domain in Namibia [.na] are vulnerable to attack.
The Ministry of Environment and Tourism issues five licenses annually for hunting black rhino to local operators, but this is the first time that such a licence would be auctioned abroad.
The licence to hunt the black rhino would be auctioned by the Dallas Safari Club (DSC) at the end of its four-day convention on 11 January.
The organisers said the auction could raise between U$250 000 and U$1 million for conservation efforts. Money, which the Ministry of Environment and Tourism says could be well-spent, but the protesters strongly disagree that killing rhinos is a good way to protect an endangered species.
In a video message to the Namibian government, the group said:
“We are Anonymous… We have been watching you, and we do not agree with the cruel punishment you're allowing to happen inside your country. The fact that you allow five black rhinos to be hunted each year as part of a conservation program is preposterous, not to mention you believe your own lie that it'll 'boost the long-term survival of the species'.”
The 'hacktivists' have since targeted all government websites, including the Office of the Prime Minister and President, as well as parastatals, such as Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) and the Bank of Namibia. The attacks have mostly taken the form of DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, which shut down targeted sites for a period.
There is also evidence that some of the disgruntled hackers have accessed the internal database of several organisations, including The Namibian newspaper and published staff details and passwords online. The group apologised for this afterwards, saying that it was a an individual element which hacked the newspaper, and that the group, known as "Team Defiant" only attacks “legitimate targets”.
On Wednesday, members of the group released sensitive data from the National Agricultural Union, including administrator and user names, as well as passwords, saying that: “This is only the beginning Namibia. Next time there will be more released. Notice this is only 4 tables out of your entire database. So this is how it goes, you have exactly 48 hours to lease the rhino, or all will be exposed.”
“You're selling permits to hunt an endangered species, from anywhere between $250,000 and $1 million? But yet it is for the rhinos? Please explain how these animals benefit from your wealth?"
“Will Team Defiant release all your personal information in your servers? How will you get online commerce if none of your websites are working properly? We are the ones in the shadows. You can not stop what you cannot see.”
The hacker collective, which is dispersed around the world, managed this week to shut down the websites of the Namibian police, the Bank of Namibia and the GIPF. The hackers were however blocked at times from gov.na domains and struggled to bypass the firewalls to access the government’s databases.
It has meanwhile emerged that the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) in the United States has now entered the fray, after it was reported that prospective hunters have been threatened with being killed if they shoot the black rhino. The FBI is apparently investigating a number of threats against members of the Dallas Safari Club, as it was alleged that members of the DSC club and their families were threatened should the auction proceed, although the threats were not explicitly linked to Team Defiant.
Some conservationists believe that the auction may be beneficial. Dr. Rose Cooney, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature wrote last month that, “From a conservation perspective, we believe there are sound and compelling reasons to support this auction, and do not see any valid basis for opposing it… We recognise that it is not immediately intuitive that trophy hunting — even for endangered species — can be a positive conservation tool that can be used to fight poaching and acquire more habitat for wildlife.” But the auction is “a sound strategy worthy of strong support,” she was quoted as saying.
Critics of the auction insist that killing rhino as a measure of conserving them is “preposterous”. Although it is not immediately clear how this will pan out (whether more sensitive data will be released and more sites taken down) it is understood that a number of protest actions to protect Ronnie the black rhino are being planned at the DSC convention in Dallas, Texas.
Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, said this week that the government has no plans to call off the auction, as it could generate a lot of money for conservation.
The activists behind the cyber attacks on a number of Namibian websites are angry about the issuing of the licence which would allow hunters in the United States of America to kill a black rhino in Namibia.
The group has given the Namibian government 48 hours to withdraw the licence to kill the rhino, and to immediately release the rhino, which they have named Ronnie.
The black rhino is listed as an endangered species. It has been reported that around 1600 black rhino have been killed over the last decade and there are currently only around 5000 left in the world, of which some 1 800 are found in Namibia .
A “target list” published online indicates that all websites registered to any domain in Namibia [.na] are vulnerable to attack.
The Ministry of Environment and Tourism issues five licenses annually for hunting black rhino to local operators, but this is the first time that such a licence would be auctioned abroad.
The licence to hunt the black rhino would be auctioned by the Dallas Safari Club (DSC) at the end of its four-day convention on 11 January.
The organisers said the auction could raise between U$250 000 and U$1 million for conservation efforts. Money, which the Ministry of Environment and Tourism says could be well-spent, but the protesters strongly disagree that killing rhinos is a good way to protect an endangered species.
In a video message to the Namibian government, the group said:
“We are Anonymous… We have been watching you, and we do not agree with the cruel punishment you're allowing to happen inside your country. The fact that you allow five black rhinos to be hunted each year as part of a conservation program is preposterous, not to mention you believe your own lie that it'll 'boost the long-term survival of the species'.”
The 'hacktivists' have since targeted all government websites, including the Office of the Prime Minister and President, as well as parastatals, such as Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) and the Bank of Namibia. The attacks have mostly taken the form of DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, which shut down targeted sites for a period.
There is also evidence that some of the disgruntled hackers have accessed the internal database of several organisations, including The Namibian newspaper and published staff details and passwords online. The group apologised for this afterwards, saying that it was a an individual element which hacked the newspaper, and that the group, known as "Team Defiant" only attacks “legitimate targets”.
On Wednesday, members of the group released sensitive data from the National Agricultural Union, including administrator and user names, as well as passwords, saying that: “This is only the beginning Namibia. Next time there will be more released. Notice this is only 4 tables out of your entire database. So this is how it goes, you have exactly 48 hours to lease the rhino, or all will be exposed.”
“You're selling permits to hunt an endangered species, from anywhere between $250,000 and $1 million? But yet it is for the rhinos? Please explain how these animals benefit from your wealth?"
“Will Team Defiant release all your personal information in your servers? How will you get online commerce if none of your websites are working properly? We are the ones in the shadows. You can not stop what you cannot see.”
The hacker collective, which is dispersed around the world, managed this week to shut down the websites of the Namibian police, the Bank of Namibia and the GIPF. The hackers were however blocked at times from gov.na domains and struggled to bypass the firewalls to access the government’s databases.
It has meanwhile emerged that the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) in the United States has now entered the fray, after it was reported that prospective hunters have been threatened with being killed if they shoot the black rhino. The FBI is apparently investigating a number of threats against members of the Dallas Safari Club, as it was alleged that members of the DSC club and their families were threatened should the auction proceed, although the threats were not explicitly linked to Team Defiant.
Some conservationists believe that the auction may be beneficial. Dr. Rose Cooney, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature wrote last month that, “From a conservation perspective, we believe there are sound and compelling reasons to support this auction, and do not see any valid basis for opposing it… We recognise that it is not immediately intuitive that trophy hunting — even for endangered species — can be a positive conservation tool that can be used to fight poaching and acquire more habitat for wildlife.” But the auction is “a sound strategy worthy of strong support,” she was quoted as saying.
Critics of the auction insist that killing rhino as a measure of conserving them is “preposterous”. Although it is not immediately clear how this will pan out (whether more sensitive data will be released and more sites taken down) it is understood that a number of protest actions to protect Ronnie the black rhino are being planned at the DSC convention in Dallas, Texas.
Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, said this week that the government has no plans to call off the auction, as it could generate a lot of money for conservation.
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