It's meant to be as garish as possible. It's the modern day equivalent of a branding iron. You got pwned!
Actually, you're spot on. They started doing these style of splash pages a few years after hacking groups did.
I'd make a guess that they simply just hired those people (semi-voluntarily)
Quite a few former cyber criminals are on probation with three letter orgs…
Hector?
I wonder how far in advance of the actual seizure do they get these graphics ready. Or, perhaps they JIT them and delay the seizure until the final graphic is finished and signed off?
Idea for a HN contest: design a better DOJ domain seizure graphic. Bonus points for features like "enter personal identifying information here to be notified when your favorite illegal site is back online".
...although I guess they did that last part for a while before they changed the graphic.
"Show HN: I trained a GAN to generate DOJ seizure graphics!"
I enjoy how they incorporate the logo of the seized site on their notice.
If I didn't read the news first, I'd never guessed that the image is actually made by a law enforcement agency. It looks like some script-kiddie's prank from 20 years ago.