[2] In 2011, Anonymous launched Operation Darknet, an anti-child pornography effort against activities on the dark web.

[4] News reports linked a Firefox browser vulnerability to a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operation targeting Freedom Hosting's owner, Eric Eoin Marques.

The FBI acknowledged they were responsible for the attack in a 12 September 2013 court filing in Dublin;[9] further technical details from a training presentation leaked by Edward Snowden showed that the codename for the exploit was EgotisticalGiraffe.

[12] Marques was arrested in Ireland on 1 August 2013, on a provisional extradition warrant issued by a United States court on the 29th of July that year.

[22] On 6 February 2020, Marques pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to advertise child abuse images, as part of a plea agreement that would entail a prison term of 15 to 21 years.