Bitcointalk is1 a website. Websites tend to get hacked from time to time. They run on software stacks their operators run, often without much of an understanding of the different parts and how they fit together. Ergo, they tend to be vulnerable to attack from any adversary who cares to find a whole in the stack that the site operator didn't care to know about. Some incarnations of Anonymous as well as other groups have been pointing this out for a while.
Redditards and forum refugees are gathered looking at the payload and issuing declarations that they have found "nothing malicious" never the International Obfuscated C Code Contest and the Underhanded C Contest are things. Just because Javascript doesn't have its own formal contest doesn't mean there isn't an informal contest happening live on the internet. Trying to make authoritative declarations during the breaking of news just means you have a chance to look as foolish as these guys.
I have to say though that if I were an anthrocized 3 letter agency of the US Government that had just arrested the operator of an underground market, I'd probably want to lift the database holding messages the the underground site's users were passing back and forth in "private" messages on a related venue. After having done that what better way would there be to make it look like skiddies and not l33t NSAFBIDEAOMGWTFBBQ haxxors were the intruders than to vandalize up the site. I personally have doubt that this scenario would be the case, but the world is to weird of a place to preclude the possibility.
- probably not was, but you never know [↩]
The NSA was responsible and we all know it. You Zionist!
Update: Theymos threw this out on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1nmdq4/bitcointalk_hacked/ccjyjti
I have no idea who was or was not involved. I also swear on my copy of the Chumash that I am not a zionist.