Boston Police Website Hacked In Retaliation For Alleged Brutality

The online protest group "Anonymous" is claiming responsibility for hacking the website of the Boston Police Department.

BPDnews.com provides information about the police and news about crimes in Boston neighborhoods. The hackers say in a message on the hacked site "ANONYMOUS HACKS POLICE WEBSITE IN RETALIATION FOR POLICE BRUTALITY AT OWS."

The hackers put a video of KRS-One's "Sound of Da Police" on the BPDnews.com homepage. The song compares police officers to plantation overseers during slavery.

Here is a link to the Google cache of the site as it looked during the attack. (Hat tip to Universal Hub's Twitter feed for that live link.)

In a statement, police say their engineers are working to turn back the cyber attack:

The Boston Police Department is working diligently  to restore the function of BPDNews.com, the department’s public safety blog. It is unfortunate that someone would go to this extent to compromise BPDNews.com, a helpful and informative public safety resource utilized daily by community members seeking up-to-date news and information about important safety matters. Our skillful technical staff is focused on rectifying this issue. Detectives continue their investigation into individuals engaging in this type of disruptive and criminal activity.

There were  during Occupy Boston's period of camping out near South Station, but no confirmed reports of police brutality.

Here is text the hacker or hackers posted on BPDnews.com:

Do you remember a few months ago when #antisec attaked the Boston Police and released hundred of passwords in retaliation for the brutality against Occupy Boston? They clearly ignored our warnings, because not only did they raid the camp again and kicked protesters off of public parks, but they also sent undercover TSA agents to assualt and attempt to steal from some organizers. So you get your kicks beating protesters? That's OK; we get kicks defacing and rm'n your websites - again. BDNNews.com, the "Boston Poice Department Virtual Community" also fell to the swift merciless veangeance of the hive. Do you really want to step to this??