With some of its most active participants neutralized, Anonymous really wants to show it's still a threat, and on Wednesday it made that point by taking down the Vatican's website.

In trying to digest the effect of the arrests on Anonymous, The Guardian's James Ball wrote on Wednesday that to focus on the arrests "misses a wider series of problems in clamping down on hackers, and maintaining law and order, online." As if on cue, the Italian branch of Anonymous claimed credit for attacking the Vatican's Web presence, writing on its blog: "This is NOT intended to attack the Christian religion or against the faithful around the world, but to the corrupt Roman Apostolic Church and all its emanations." The Vatican's not the group's only target. On one of its main Twitter feeds, the group teased what sounds like a planned release of FBI agents' personal information: "Dear FBI, you can tell Special Agent Scott Andrew Love that we know he rents his house there in Pasadena." Clearly, Anonymous doesn't intend to go quietly.

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Adam Martin