Operation Bahrain: Anonymous Dumps Grand Prix Ticket Sales Data

Following its attack on the official Formula One website in support of the Bahraini protests against the Grand Prix, Anonymous has released data stolen from an official F1 ticket seller, including information relating to ticket sales for the racing event.

The collective promised to assault Formula One websites for the duration of the races in solidarity with the Bahraini activists, who protested against Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone for his decision to stage the Grand Prix despite the government's continued crackdown on activists, professionals and opposition members.

The hacktivists launched a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against the official Formula One website, as well as taken down the country's only Internet Service Provider and the websites of the Bahrain stock exchange, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and many others.

Through a statement released on its own AnonCentral website, the collective condemned the oppressive regime of King Hamad bin al Khalifa and claimed responsibility for the cyber attacks.

"As in the past, we have DDOSed websites of the Bahrain government," the statement said. "And as the media has already reported, we have DDOSed or defaced a number of sites associated with F1, which has gone ahead with its event in a country that has been the subject of a brutal government for over a year.

"On top of it all, we have decided to contribute some additional excitement to the day by hacking F1's servers and taking the personal information of those attending the race, among other things."

A link on the new data-sharing sit AnonPaste shows a redacted version of the names, passport numbers, e-mail and home addresses of people who bought tickets for the Grand Prix. The information was edited to protect privacy.

The hacking group has created AnonPaste to host pastes of code and other messages, without moderation or censorship of the information posted.

Anonymous also expressed its support of the activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who has entered day 74 of his hunger strike in protest over the human rights violations in the country, such as mistreatment and torture of political prisoners.

"We call on the government of Bahrain to immediately grant him freedom and to do the humanitarian thing in sparing his life," the statement said. "Abdulhadi Alkhawaja is a human rights worker who has committed no crime and has been unjustly granted [sentenced to] life in prison by a military court for his activism," the statement continued, adding: "Should anything bad happen to Alkhawaja or his family, Anonymous will respond with fury and rage the likes of which have never been seen."

The collective announced the relaunch of Operation Bahrain last week with another statement on AnonPaste:

"As of tomorrow, Friday - 20 April, 2012 the entire global Anonymous will begin to take up the cause of the Bahrain Revolution," it said. "Mr Eccelstone, you are either one evil mother f***er to hold your race in support of this regime... or else you have been lied to and are ignorant of the atrocities committed by these tyrants."

The hacktivists also called an all members of the collective to e-mail and phone bomb the official numbers and addresses of the Federation International de l'Automobile (Fia), the governing body of Grand Prix auto racing, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Europe.

Bahraini protesters had promised "three days of rage" to coincide with the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix .

Protesters in Bahrain are angered by the lack of an international response to the continued government crackdown.

While Fia decided to go ahead with the race this year, tensions between the security forces and protesters have escalated in recent days and there are fears that the violence is set to increase.