The fallout begins
A group of online hacker activists (hacktivists) calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ today launched a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against companies who have ceased trading with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in the wake of the US embassy cablegate releases.
The DDoS attacks are similar to those which WikiLeaks have reported on their own website in the past weeks and have been targeted at a number of websites including the Swiss bank Postfinance who have frozen Julian Assange’s assets and PayPal which has stopped donations to Wikileaks through its online payment services.
Anonymous, it is understood, is a relatively loose collective of hacktivists, although it is believed many of its members have links to the hackers message board 4chan.
Last week domain name provider EveryDNS ceased trading with WikiLeaks, claiming that DDoS attacks on the WikiLeaks website was the reason.
Amazon has refused to host the site anymore in the US, claiming the site has broken its terms of service by not being able to assure them it ‘wasn’t putting innocent people in jeopardy’ through its cablegate revelations.
In addition,PayPal and MasterCard Worldwide are also now refusing to continue trading with WikiLeaks, and Swiss bank Postfinance ha cslosed Julian Assange’s bank account where much of his defence fund is thought to be kept.
Although all of the companies have cited DDoS or breach of contract as the reason for ceasing their involvement with WikiLeaks and Assange, the hacktivists believe that it is pressure from the US and other world governments that’s the real reason for such actions.
As well as atacking the sites that they believe are attempting to inhibit free speech through their withdrawl of services to WikiLeaks and its founder, Anonymous are also establishing a large number of mirror websites where anyone can download the US Embassy cables from in the event of a mass outage on the WikiLeaks site, thus ensuring the information remains in the public domain.
In a statement, Anonymous said: ’While we don’t have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same: we want transparency (in our case in copyright) and we counter censorship. The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we can not say what we think and not express how we feel,’
Adding: ‘We can not let this happen, that is why we will find out who is attacking WikiLeaks and with that find out who tries to control our world. What we are going to do when we found them? Except for the usual DDoSing, word will be spread that whoever tries to silence or discourage WikiLeaks, favors world domination rather than freedom and democracy.’
Speaking to the BBC, a member of the Anonymous hacktivist collective who goes by the handle Coldblood said that ‘multiple things are being done’ to help WikiLeaks and their information stay online, and to send a message to the companies involved that censorship will not be tolerated.
‘Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets,’ he said.
‘As an organisation we have always taken a strong stance on censorship and freedom of expression on the internet and come out against those who seek to destroy it by any means.
‘We feel that Wikileaks has become more than just about leaking of documents, it has become a war ground, the people vs. the government,’
He added: ‘The idea is not to wipe them off but to give the companies a wake-up call,’ he said. ‘Companies will notice the increase in traffic and an increase in traffic means increase in costs associated with running a website.’
He concluded that this is ‘the only effective way to tell these companies that us, the people, are displeased’.
Yawn. Why don’t the “hacktivists” take-down Amazon.com’s website?
Instead, they pursue organizations whose websites are incidental to their businesses (swiss bank, paypal, visa/mastercard). None of the latter organizations rely on their websites in a meaningful commerce manner…except…Amazon.com.
The actions of the hacksters lack substance, unlike those who are attacking WikiLeaks’ website…
aussi and dutch, two sites of the pole, lets all keep together in mind and heart .
and for now: welcome to cyberwar, i’m afraid.
lets do our best
They keep forgetting one important aspect, we are more than they are …
The reaction to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange tells us all we need to know about the total corruption of our “modern” world, which in fact is a throwback to the Dark Ages.
Some member of the United States government released to WikiLeaks the documents that are now controversial. The documents are controversial, because they are official US documents and show all too clearly that the US government is a duplicitous entity whose raison d’etre is to control every other government.
The media, not merely in the US but also throughout the English speaking world and Europe, has shown its hostility to WikiLeaks. The reason is obvious. WikiLeaks reveals truth, while the media covers up for the US government and its puppet states.
Excerpted from: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12022010.html
Mr Assange should be grateful he is white and in West. If it were any other the US govt would have sent its drone or CIA operatives to silence him. Before you jump on and shout me down. Just think abou it – if Assange was in some Middle Eastern/African/Asian country he would have been declared a terrorist by now “for putting innocent life at risk”.
There are not many of us Australians on this planet, but the Aussies making news are goddamn awesome.
Why dose america and it’s cronies think they can ruel the world!??? can they really expect that no will find out there dirty laundry eventually?
Money power and control is what it’s all about folks control being the main goal.
the usa was founded on freedom and now its after turning on it the very principles it was based on.
So now they play dirty and will misinform and ruin the repuation of wiki leaks and any one associated with it, thats why all the other companys are pulling away agentle nudge and the treat of loseing money and influence is all it takes.
I think thats standerd operating procedure for the cia and govt agencys.
So now it starts folks the battles of truth against what they want you to hear and by the way its not just america brittan is in on this too as are a lot of other countrys.
I presume my email will be watched along with thousands of others but that dosent scare me doing nothing is what scares me and it should you too.
The bullys have power only if you let, them time to stop them now before it gose too far……….. or has it allready?
This is pure hipocrisy! I can’t believe the government has made these allogations against assange. If they can’t play by the book, of which assange was. NONE OF US WILL!
US government need to get their act together. First mckenna exploited the real security of the US government. Even still they can’t keep these simple security standards in place. Maybe they should of thought about it before giving a research analysist 2 laptops with optical drives and cd’s insted of using dumb terminals. But how is taking assange down going to stop this? If anything, its just going to fuel the fire and boil the hatred.
Understand the basics. If you don’t want anyone to read your password, dont fuckin write it down!