Turkish websites attacked by Anonymous before vote

Official Turkish websites were attacked by Internet vigilante group Anonymous on Thursday as part of a protest against what it says is government Internet censorship, Reuters reported.

With an election three days away, access to Turkey's telecoms authority website, identified as a main target in the protest against a planned new Internet filtering system, was blocked as planned at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT).

While authorities worked to limit the disruption, other sites were also blocked including those related to social security, meteorology and several telecoms-related sites.

One of these was the official site where people can report inappropriate Internet content.

State-run Anatolian news agency quoted cyber security expert Huzeyfe Onal as saying Anonymous planned to disrupt the electoral authorities system during Sunday's election.

Anonymous denied this, saying the poll would not be disrupted.

Tens of thousands protested in Istanbul in May against Internet censorship and plans for a new filtering system, due to be introduced on August 22, under which users must sign up for one of four filters -- domestic, family, children and standard.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority says there will be no difference between the standard filter and the current system, but that the other filters would offer the option to restrict access for those who wanted it.

Anonymous said the filtering system would make it possible to keep records of people's Internet activity.

Turkey has previously banned access to various websites, including YouTube for a period of more than two years, under court orders imposed for infringing decency laws.

In December, Anonymous launched attacks that temporarily shut down the sites of MasterCard Inc and Visa Inc using simple software tools available over the Internet.

It attacked them with denial-of-service attacks that overwhelmed their servers for blocking payments to WikiLeaks.

Last month it denied responsibility for a cyber-attack on Sony Corp's networks that exposed the personal data of more than 100 million videogamers.