Environmentalist hacker group target Hawaiian telescope website

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April 27, 2015 2:18 PM

The local have objected to the construction of the Thirty meter Telescope, which would be one of the biggest telescopes in the world, since its inception.

The Thirty Meter Telescope.

A cyber-attack temporarily disrupted the website of the Thirty Meter Telescope, an organization that is trying to build one of the world’s largest telescopes on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Spokeswoman for Thirty Meter Telescope, Caroline Witherspoon, confirmed that the company’s website had suffered a disruption, but could not say who had conducted the attack. She said the site had been unavailable for about two hours when the incident happened.

"TMT today was the victim of an unscrupulous denial of service attack, apparently launched by Anonymous," said Sandra Dawson, another spokeswoman. "The incident is being investigated."

Operation Green Rights, a blog site which claims affiliation with the hacker group Anonymous, posted images on its Twitter page on Sunday claiming responsibility for the attack.

The land atop Mount Kea is considered by Native Hawaiians to be sacred and they have been opposing the telescope project since inception. Hawaiian governor David Ige had even put a halt to construction recently to further discuss the issue.

Ige’s Director of Communications, Cindy McMillan, could not confirm if the government’s sites had been disrupted as well but had asked security to investigate the incident.

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