Anonymous's Anti-Abortion Raid: Anon Admits to Attack on Service's Website

A hacker alleging to have links to the Anonymous collective has confessed to a recent pro-life attack on the UK's largest abortion service.

James Jeffery, a 27-year-old from the West Midlands confessed to attacking the British Pregnancy Advisory Service's (BPAS) website, defacing its front page and stealing the personal details of around 10,000 women.

In his confession at Westminster Magistrate's Court, Jeffrey admitted to two offenses under the UK's Computer Misuse Act and was refused bail.

Mounted earlier in March, the attack raised particular concern when Jeffery publicly threatened to release the women's stolen details via Twitter. At the hearing Jeffrey backtracked on his previous threat, suggesting he chose not to publish the information online as he felt it was wrong.

Jeffrey reportedly attacked BPAS to voice his pro-life, anti-abortion beliefs. "An unborn child does not have an opinion, a choice or any rights. Who gave you the right to murder that unborn child and profit from that murder?" Wrote Jeffrey in a statement he posted on BPAS's front page.

"The product, abortion, is skilfully marketed and sold to women at the crisis time in her life. She buys the product, and wants to return it for a refund. But it's too late."

Though Jeffrey credited the attack to Anonymous, there has been confusion regarding the collective's stance. Once news of the attack broke, many Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous actually admonished rather than praised Jeffrey's actions.

The confusion has since been cited as an example of the confusion Anonymous's loose membership policy can cause. As noted by F-Secure security experts Mikko Hypponen during an interview with the International Business Times UK:

"Anonymous is like an amoeba, it's got too many different operations run by truly different people which might not share a single person with another operation, but they use the same branding - they are part of the Anonymous brand, just like al-Qaida. It's just a brand nowadays, nothing else. It's run the same, so that, like al-Qaida, anyone can credit an attack to Anonymous and no-one's there to say otherwise. Like they say themselves; 'we all are Anonymous'."

Jeffrey is set to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court later in 2012. For further news on Anonymous's recent activities check out the IBTimes UK Cyber Warfare section.