Anonymous to launch file sharing service

Hacktivists affiliated with the “Anonymous” movement are planning to launch a file sharing service to replace MegaUpload.com, a similar website the U.S. government recently shut down.

The group hopes to have the new site, Anonyupload.com, up and working by Wednesday.

In an effort to thwart U.S. law enforcement, the group said the free service would be hosted in Russia. Donations were being solicited instead of selling ads.

Last week, the movement took credit for crashing the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Universal Music Group after the FBI shut down one of the most popular file sharing websites, MegaUpload.com.

The group later took credit for crashing the site of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). They also briefly knocked the sites of the U.S Copyright Office site, the record label BMI and the French copyright authority HADOPI offline. “Anonymous” hackers also gained internal access to the Utah Chiefs Of Police Association site.

On Sunday, the hacktivist group not only knocked the CBS.com website offline, but deleted all its files.

At the same time, sites in European nations were being attacked by Anonymous over their support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a treaty widely described as similar to but potentially worse than the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which provoked a dramatic protest blackout earlier this week.

-- With earlier reporting by Eric W. Dolan and Muriel Kane

(H/T: Gawker)