Anonymous exposes visitors to child porn sites

The online "hacktivist" group Anonymous claimed on Wednesday to have published the Internet Protocol addresses of nearly 200 visitors to child pornography forums.

In a statement posted to pastebin.com, Anonymous said it was exposing the IP addresses as part of a campaign dubbed "Operation Darknet."

An IP address is the unique number used by every device that connects to the Internet.

Most of the IP addresses of visitors to child porn sites exposed by Anonymous were in the United States but some were located in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

Anonymous said it captured the IP addresses of visitors to child porn forums by tricking users into downloading a fake update to Tor software, which can be used to obscure an Internet user's identity.

The purported Tor update actually routed traffic to a forensics server controlled by Anonymous that logged incoming IP addresses and destination.

During a 24-hour period last week, Anonymous said it captured the unique IP addresses of 190 visitors to child porn forums.

Anonymous has been involved in scores of hacking exploits including the recent defacing of a website of Syria's Ministry of Defense to protest a bloody crackdown on anti-government protestors.

Last year, the shadowy group launched retaliatory attacks on companies perceived to be enemies of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.