Censorship Wars: Anonymous Answer Megaupload's Death with Anonyupload Alternative

Following the high profile shutdown of Megaupload, the Anonymous collective is developing its own file sharing alternative, imaginatively called Anonyuploads.

Still only a landing page containing a request for funding, the alleged anons building the Anonyupload site posted a statement clarifying Anonymous hopes to have it online by 25 January.

The new site promises to offer the same services as the now inactive Megaupload - letting users share video and music files by uploading and downloading files. Despite the collective's hopeful overtures, the 25 January launch date may have changed, as at the time of writing the landing page was inactive producing an error message when clicked.

The new Anonyupload site is the latest in a series of protests against internet censorship being mounted by Anonymous. Prior to Anonyupload the collective had mounted a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against a number of US government agencies and music companies.

The attacks were all cited as protests against the US government ordered shutdown of media-sharing site Megaupload.com by Anonymous. Following on from its initial statement, the collective issued another statement via its AnonymousIRC Twitter feed claiming the attack on the FBI the DDoS was its largest ever.

Anonymous' rampage started after the US Justice Department filed an indictment forcing the Megaupload.com site to be shutdown and calling for the arrest of its founders. The charges against Megaupload's founders currently include racketeering conspiracy, money laundering and plotting to commit copyright infringement.

Prior to this the collective had actively protested the US' Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property acts.

UPDATE 4:41pm 23/01/2012: The frontpage has since gone back online with a message clarifying "If you see an Error Page, no problem ! Use this URL : http://anonyupload.com or http://www.anonyvideo.com."