The next Wikileaks IT attack on legitimate businesses coming soon

[Oakie]

Talking to a shop assistant today in the process of getting a refund credited to my Visa and I commented that I had made two Visa purchases on Saturday 18th that had not appeared on my Visa by Thursday 23rd. He smiled and said that would be him and his 80000 cohorts who had attacked and 'taken down' Visa and Mastercard last week and they are still recovering.He said "what right did they have to withdraw their financial service to Wikileaks?" As much as I felt my initial response surging from my brain and getting ready to leap from my lips, I choked it off as I just didn't have time to debate the rights and wrongs.

He then said that the next attacks are timed for next week and will be against two "dirty, very dirty" banks, one in the UK and one in USA. Hope they don't fall off their moral high ground as they fu*k things up for these bank's clients as they did for VISA and Mastercard's millions of clients.

Unfortunately their 'White Knight' antics aren't very selective.

So what of it guys? Do two wrongs make a right? (I don't even know if VISA and Mastercard's action in withdrawing their service were legal or not. I guess it'll be covered in the conditions of service?)

[george formby]

This whole saga is really ripping my nightie. I have an interweb cafe & everyday I'm having issues from the network or individual sites which is costing me $$$$$$.
I have a lot of international customers & the time I have spent trying to make them understand that my computers are fine but the network/hotmail/Bank of El Salvador/Yahoo etc sites are being f*&%^#d with beggars belief.
I'm all for freedom of speech but leave my connection alone.

[BMWST?]

Talking to a shop assistant today in the process of getting a refund credited to my Visa and I commented that I had made two Visa purchases on Saturday 18th that had not appeared on my Visa by Thursday 23rd. He smiled and said that would be him and his 80000 cohorts who had attacked and 'taken down' Visa and Mastercard last week and they are still recovering.He said "what right did they have to withdraw their financial service to Wikileaks?" As much as I felt my initial response surging from my brain and getting ready to leap from my lips, I choked it off as I just didn't have time to debate the rights and wrongs.

He then said that the next attacks are timed for next week and will be against two "dirty, very dirty" banks, one in the UK and one in USA. Hope they don't fall off their moral high ground as they fu*k things up for these bank's clients as they did for VISA and Mastercard's millions of clients.

Unfortunately their 'White Knight' antics aren't very selective.

So what of it guys? Do two wrongs make a right? (I don't even know if VISA and Mastercard's action in withdrawing their service were legal or not. I guess it'll be covered in the conditions of service?)

Oh well they might bugger up there own salary processes

[Oakie]

Oh well they might bugger up there own salary processes

There would be a delicious irony to that.

[Marmoot]

Thanks for the warning.
You deserve two hundred and thirty internetz.

[Squiggles]

Should have offered him a tissue

[Winston001]

Thanks Oakie, was completely unaware of this. I'm not sure how a lowly shop assistant can attack Visa etc unless they somehow do a DNS by flooding the servers with requests.

Morally? Hmm... Its a breach of employment and pretty treacherous to the person who pays your wages. Are Visa etc even going to notice? If they do (because of the problems) are they really going to think twice in future? My guess is Not.

[scissorhands]

Wikileaks didnt start that Visa fight, but they sure hit em where it hurts.

Who really likes banks anyway? I hate the ASB after being dicked around for speaking out to them, 2 check deposits never appeared. Banks are scum.

[Elysium]

Can't wait for all these "wiki leaks" idiots to be rounded up and shot.

[Gremlin]

Thanks Oakie, was completely unaware of this. I'm not sure how a lowly shop assistant can attack Visa etc unless they somehow do a DNS by flooding the servers with requests.

One person cannot take a server down by themselves (well, unless they are the admin and fuck it up...). There either needs to be a lot of individuals, running scripts etc, or using/controlling a lot of other machines.

It also depends on the servers. Some will counter-attack when attacked, so if you say you are server xyz, attacking abc, server xyz will be attacked by abc, while you sit back and enjoy the party. A server's resources are significantly greater than your average pc, both in bandwidth and number crunching.

Basically, there is a lot to DOS (Denial of Service)

[Buyasta]

Wikileaks != Anonymous.

Wikileaks is an organisation dedicated to providing whistleblowers a safe way to leak documents, who sadly happen to have rather a jackass as their spokesman and founder, who seems more interested in media whoring than actually revealing various misdeeds of governments and corporations.

Anonymous (the group performing the DDOS's) is a group of random folks who grew out of the /b board on the forum 4chan. They've been around for quite some time, and have taken action against many people before Visa, Mastercard, etc - for example, Scientologists, and the RIAA and MPAA. They're entirely unrelated to Wikileaks, aside from having a problem with the way various corporations have behaved in the wake of the cable leaks.

For those who are curious as to the exact methods, they are performing a DDOS, but rather than using a botnet of zombies, the tool they use, LOIC (Low-Orbit Ion Cannon) is run voluntarily.

In short, blaming Wikileaks for the actions of Anonymous is completely pointless as they are entirely unrelated.

[Headbanger]

I for one am disgusted with the banks deciding people can't donate to wiki leaks.

May they burn in hell.

Motherfuckers, It is not your fucking role, if you want to be a watchdog then don't let sick cunts buy child porn.

Cunts.

[Virago]

As always, such campaigns attract the same old slimy urban terrorists. Whether the are conducting e-attacks, or throwing rubbish bins through shop windows, they have no interest in who they are actually attacking or who is actually suffering the consequences.

[Oakie]

Wikileaks != Anonymous.

Wikileaks is an organisation dedicated to providing whistleblowers a safe way to leak documents, who sadly happen to have rather a jackass as their spokesman and founder, who seems more interested in media whoring than actually revealing various misdeeds of governments and corporations.

Anonymous (the group performing the DDOS's) is a group of random folks who grew out of the /b board on the forum 4chan. They've been around for quite some time, and have taken action against many people before Visa, Mastercard, etc - for example, Scientologists, and the RIAA and MPAA. They're entirely unrelated to Wikileaks, aside from having a problem with the way various corporations have behaved in the wake of the cable leaks.

For those who are curious as to the exact methods, they are performing a DDOS, but rather than using a botnet of zombies, the tool they use, LOIC (Low-Orbit Ion Cannon) is run voluntarily.

In short, blaming Wikileaks for the actions of Anonymous is completely pointless as they are entirely unrelated.

Interesting. So this 'Anonymous' crowd just look for an excuse to perform their nefarious deeds? I guess the relevant question then is "Has Wikileaks distanced themselves from the attackers actions or do they quietly condone them?" I guess it's unfortunate for Wikileaks then that Mr Assange's first claim to fame was as a hacker some 20 years ago.

[Buyasta]

I for one am disgusted with the banks deciding people can't donate to wiki leaks.

May they burn in hell.

Motherfuckers, It is not your fucking role, if you want to be a watchdog then don't let sick cunts buy child porn.

Cunts.

Yup, this is pretty ridiculous - Wikileaks is not actually illegal in the US, so although I'm sure they were receiving government pressure, they were under no obligation to stop processing payments, they chose to do so on ethical grounds, despite continuing to process payments for the likes of the KKK.
Even more ridiculous was that Bank of America then came out saying they'd refuse to transfer any payment that they believe may eventually be destined for Wikileaks. I'm sure they wouldn't take it that far, but if they followed that statement to the letter, they'd refuse to allow you to close your account and withdraw all your money, if they thought you might ever donate any of that money to Wikileaks.

"Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for WikiLeaks,"

The day your bank decides they should have some say in who you can give your money to is the day you should find a new bank, in my opinion.

Interesting. So this 'Anonymous' crowd just look for an excuse to perform their nefarious deeds? I guess the relevant question then is "Has Wikileaks distanced themselves from the attackers actions or do they quietly condone them?" I guess it's unfortunate for Wikileaks then that Mr Assange's first claim to fame was as a hacker some 20 years ago.

Yup, Anonymous really doesn't have any form of group structure or leadership, and is comprised mostly of people with a very childish mentality - if someone does something they don't like (or in some cases, just expresses an opinion they don't like), they'll attack that person, and their tactics can be a lot more slimy than DDOS's, like publishing names, photos, addresses, phone numbers, etc of people they dislike, and encouraging people to harass them.
Wikileaks did release an official statement to the effect that they had nothing to do with Anonymous, but did not condemn their actions.

What's a great deal more unfortunate for Wikileaks is that by all acounts, Assange is an egocentric control freak.
He's alienated many early members by refusing to take input from others and insisting on doing everything his way - a group of them have since left to form a similar organisation with the stated aim of doing much what Wikileaks does, but without all the drama - so they'll just release information to respected journalists rather than doing the whole media bit with announcing leaks ahead of time, calling press conferences, etc.
Then obviously there's the fiasco with his legal troubles in Sweden, which tends to help greatly in attempts to dismiss, discredit and marginalize Wikileaks... Although the charge of rape does seem a bit ridiculous, based on all the evidence released so far, there definitely seems little question that he is a misogynistic jackass, and whether he is guilty or not matters little in the court of public opinion.
In short, while I'm sure he was integral to getting them this far, they would probably be a lot better off if he'd just step down as the figurehead, and many people, both inside and outside Wikileaks have been calling for him to do so for quite some time now.