The vigilante cyberskirmish surrounding WikiLeaks has now spilled over onto the wider Internet, and Web sites like Mastercard.com and Visa.com have become collateral damage.
First came The Jester, a hacker who temporarily took down WikiLeaks' website. Copycats also began hitting WikiLeaks and its mirror Web sites. That prompted other hackers to launch a pro-WikiLeaks campaign, promising to keep the whistle-blowing website afloat and attacking government agencies and corporations that appear to oppose WikiLeaks.
The attacks have generated a lot of noise online -- and a lot of media coverage -- but so far neither side has scored many political points, or landed much of a digital body blow. In fact, the hacker battle might best be compared to a bar fight that's spilled out onto main street and bloodied a few bystanders.
The latest victim appears to be Visa.com, which was knocked offline Wednesday afternoon, following a similar disabling of Mastercard.com earlier in the day. The group taking credit for the attack, which calls itself "Anonymous," is a loose confederation of hackers who congregate around a Web site named 4Chan.com. The group also claims to have attacked websites run by PayPal, the Swiss bank PostFinance and the Swedish government -- all in the name of sticking up for WikiLeaks. It has given this virtual scorched Earth campaign the name "Operation Avenge Assange," and other take-downs are expected.
"They are not just making noise. Everyday consumers, everyday people are getting caught up in this now," said Dean Turner, a computer security researcher at Symantec Corp.
On all sides, the attacks have been mostly a nuisance. Both Mastercard.com and Visa.com are more like virtual brochures, notwishstanding headlines that say, "MasterCard is down." Knocking those Web sites offline didn't interfere with the standard processing of credit card payments, for example. The PayPal attack was relatively harmless, also -- the firm's blog was disabled, but payments were not disrupted. Anonymous did cause real headaches for PostFinance, however, as the bank’s online banking site was disabled for the better part of a day.
The attacks shouldn't be confused with a political movement, however. Groups like Anonymous and 4Chan are amorphous. Even among 4Chan users there's disagreement over what side to take on the conflict.
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7 comments:
The geek squad !
Wikileaks Cablegate was propagated by the U.S. Government to give them an excuse to take control of the internet. Watch what happens next.
anonymous 9:21, I couldn't agree more.
Exactly , and could also be an argument or at least a seed of doubt planted against gays in the military being the accused leaker is gay.
then you will get what u always wanted...people will have to use their names. Yay for you
I'm not sure exactly what it means when a group named "Anonymous" campaigns for transparency. Of course, this whole war is topsy-turvy, with freedom as repression and repression as freedom.
eventually the internet will only be useful to people with the technical prowess to navigate behind the veil of imposed safety and security controls
live many other venues in society at large
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