Hacker collective Anonymous is at it again, and this time it is targeting websites that allow users to share child porn.

The group took credit this week for shutting down more than 40 websites used for sharing such material. It also said it exposed information about more than 1500 users, reports ZDNet.

According to a timeline of events posted on text-storing website Pastebin, some Anonymous members stumbled upon a child porn0graphy index while browsing a part of the Internet mostly used for illegal peer-to-peer file sharing that isn’t seen by search engines and can’t be accessed without a special browser: http://pastebin.com/T1LHnzEW
They then tracked most of the sites listed to a shared hosting server.

Anonymous said that after warnings to remove the illegal content went unheeded it infiltrated the server and shut down services to all users.

The hacker group boasted that one of the websites it took down was “one of the largest child porn0graphy websites to date containing more than 100GB of child porn0graphy.”

Anonymous said it released the information about users of that website: http://pastebin.com/88Lzs1XR , including user names, how long they have been active on the site, and how many images they have shared. According to the crime-related blog DreaminDemon: http://www.dreamindemon.com/2011/10/21/anonymous-takes-down-child-porn-sites-releases-users-names/ , the hacking group also claims to have learned the identities of some of the people on the list and have invited the FBI to contact them if they wanted the details.

The group also warned that its comments on Pastebin -- a website where you can store text online for a set period of time -- are aimed at anyone on the Internet who commits similar acts. “It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or supporting child porn0graphy, you will become a target,” Anonymous said.

Anonymous also posted a YouTube video in which it said it intends to make the so-called DarkNet “uninhabitable for these disgusting degenerates to exist without the fear of prosecution or death”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rah535JmEI8

Want to know more about the secret Internet? Check out discourse from one TeamLiquid member on the subject: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=229525

(PCW)