Initial Disclosure Date: Aug 7, 2012

After the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee under the House of Councilors passed the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on July 31, Anonymous members started tweeting actively. At 8:54am on August 2, AnonCorpWatch indicated that they are targeting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tweeting “#OpJapan: Target acquired: http://t.co/Uxv0uhnb - Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan | #StopACTA #AnonCorpWatch #Anonymous via @an0nyc | http://twitter.com/AnonCorpWatch/statuses/230828770544738304.” Early in the morning on the 2nd,　AnonymousIRC (@AnonymousIRC) posted a Twitter message in Japanese, “Emergency: the House of Councilors passed #ACTA, which is to censor the Internet, without sufficient discussions on July 31. Anonymous does not either condone or permit the government, which suppresses freedom.” After 3pm, Anonymous Operations (@Anon_Central) released the phone number and email address of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda by Tweeting. The disclosed phone number belongs to the Prime Minister’s Office and the email address is on his website: http://www.nodayoshi.gr.jp/link/link.html.

On August 1, a Twitter account, Anonymous ACTA Leaks (@ActaLeaksJapan), was created, and the actor posted, “Calling all #OpJapan supporters to target all Japanese government, corporate and global franchise sites for leaks #NoACTA.” On the same day, the actor shared the AnonPaste URL for tool kits for SQL vulnerabilities and claimed, “All targets by any means necessary. Take off your white hat, we are way past nice.”

On August 2, the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tentatively became inaccessible. It is, however, uncertain whether this is caused by the Ministry’s maintenance or Anonymous DDoS attacks. The website does not refer to maintenance.

ACTA is contentious for the freedom of the Internet because the agreement includes shutdown of websites that infringes copyrights and forces Internet service providers to monitor the online activity of users. Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States signed the agreement in October 2011, and the EU and 22 EU members did in January 2012. Ratification by six countries is needed for the agreement to go into effect. On July 4, 2012, the European Commission rejected the treaty with only 39 supporters and 478 opponents.

Sources:
Eric Pfanner, “European Parliament Rejects Anti-Piracy Treaty,” The New York Times, July 4, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/technology/european-parliament-rejects-anti-piracy-treaty.html?_r=1
Charles Arthur, “Acta didn’t stand a chance in the age of the social internet,” The Guradian, July 5, 2012,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/05/acta-anti-counterfeiting-treaty
Los Angeles Times, “Mexico signs anti-piracy treaty, setting up battle with activists,” July 13, 2012,
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/mexico-acta-debate-activists-net-privacy-legal-senate.html

• * Each company name, an organization name, and a brand name are a trade name of each company and each organization, or a registered trademark.