wikileaks - operation payback

[kugs]

I've been sitting in the operation payback (the anon group ddossing mastercard, visa and paypal) irc room all day, and it's amazing how disorganized this 'hacker army' is. The irc channel and the software they are using constantly crashes (up until a couple days ago it was only tested with about 100 users - irc is 2-3000 users now, ddoss software 1500-2000), and the room is just a spam of troll chat suggested new targets.
Much of their success seems to be a handful of botnet ops in the channel, following and supporting their moves. Seen people claiming to control 15k botnets and above.. most probably trolls, but I imagine are at least a couple would be willing to support the cause.
Since I've been watching they managed to take down mastercard.com and disrupted it's payment servers. After that it all went messy. They tried to attack visa and took down it's main site, but some were attacking http, some https, some still on mastercard.. etc.
Then they tried paypal. There was a vote on the target, and many people disagreed (from what I could see more than those who agreed). Quite a few people left at this point. The bot showing the number of ddoss clients was already broken for hours, so no idea how this effects the attacks. Nonetheless they attacked. Again the main site went down, but everyone was attacking different targets, so the site kept popping up and down.
The main irc room has been visited by many reporters as well as FBI agents during the day (and probably members of other security services).
They are still attacking paypal at the moment, with not that much success. The main site is up and down, the target keeps switching from http to https, and comments I've seen in the media suggest that people are getting pretty pissed off (espically small business who rely on paypal).

The most common idea is to attack the verified by visa site, which I'm really surprised they haven't done yet as that would have a huge effect on global finances. The whole exercise seems to be more about attracting media attention though, rather than disabling finances.

All in all, an entertaining day . Note - I'm just watching. I support wikileaks to a point, but I really don't agree with attacking big finance sites just because they are under government pressure to withdraw support. It effects a lot of innocent people who rely on those sites to survive. That said, it's a great international soap opera

[GTFO. Irritant]

To be honest I don't agree with wikileaks publication of these documents at all. They are not in the public interest (the fact that the public might be interested in reading them is not the same thing), nobody is going to benefit from them being published and they are not uncovering any great evidence of wrongdoing that we all have a right to know about.

This is simply a case of someone publishing them simply because they can. I really hope all involved get to regret their decisions.

[Russian Guyovich]

I've lurked in some 'raids' before regarding people who break rules 1 & 2, as well as an attempted raid on Gawker.

One of the writers on the site lurked as well and ended up publishing this article:

http://gawker.com/5590840/4chans-sad-war-to-silence-gawker

It was pretty pathetic. Some raids are pretty funny (Justin Bieber being voted to start his tour in North Korea), but these ones like attacking Mastercard just give 4chan a bad name and bring way too much attention to the site.

Well, more of a bad name.

[GTFO. Gash]

IMO im all for it, but i was under the impression it was a bit more organised than this :/

IMO i think its disgraceful what the governments are doing to assange, and whilst some of the leaks aren't neccessary (where soldiers lives are put to risk), most of the stuff should be made public...

[r3loaded]

I give my tacit agreement to Anonymous - while they're a rather delusional and childish bunch (not to mention highly unfocused), they have made everyone stand up and pay attention.

However, I believe the media should stop focusing on Assange and Wikileaks' issues, and instead focus on the content of those cables. The whole arrest and account suspension drama is simply a charade by a bunch of governments desperate to distract attention from the real issues. Wikileaks themselves should drop Assange - he's not necessary for the site to function, it'll draw the heat away, and they can concentrate on calmly analysing, redacting (to protect identities) and releasing the cables.

[GTFO. Jamie]

at the end of the day, the information Wikileaks published is already out there, so hunting down Assange and trying to close the wikileaks website isnt going to stop it spreading.

I think its right for Assange to be arrested though, as a legal warrant was issued for his arrest for an alleged sexual assault in Switzerland so cant really say anyone is at fault for arresting him. He does seem to be criminalized quite a bit over the leaked information and at the end of the day he is a journalist and is just publishing the information which has been leaked to him. Journalists have been doing that forever.

I can see both sides of this. On the one side, i can see how the human rights/freedom of speech people can see this as a big problem, but unfortunately in the real world, no government is going to be 100% transparent about everything to its people and the rest of the world, it just wouldn't work. Diplomacy would go no where if everyone knew what everyone truly thinks of each other.

Whilst i can see the attraction for Wikileaks in exposing certain stories hidden by the government, i completely disagree with wikileaks when they publish detailed information about individuals, their political allegiances, their home address, contact information, whether they have children, whether they are married and their employers details, which did then cause real harm and danger to lives of individuals (am referring to the BNP membership leak from a while back which was also in the news)

I disagree with them targeting payment sites like mastercard payments, visa and paypal as that fucks up things for innocent people and will just make more and more people believe that Wikileaks are in the wrong and a nuisance to the world rather then a blessing, even if they didnt condone the attacks themselves.

[GTFO. Ragostini]

I think its right for Assange to be arrested though, as a legal warrant was issued for his arrest for an alleged sexual assault in Switzerland so cant really say anyone is at fault for arresting him.

Sweden, apparently he had consensual sex with a woman twice, the second time without a condom, it would seem this is enough to constitute a sexual assault charge to the Swedish authorities.
This is a ruse of course, as the case against him, is at best flimsy, the real purpose is to get him to Sweden, where he can be rapidly extradited to the US, where a luxury apartment at Guantanamo awaits.
As to releasing this stuff, I say fuck yeah, that was always supposed to be the job of journalists, to expose the lies and deceit of those in power, not merely be the government stenographers they have become.
As for the idiots doing attacks on corporate sites, that's just retarded, and plays into the hands of the very people they are trying to get back at.

[moubmaster]

I think wikileaks has taken a great deal of care to prevent any danger, the cables I have read have all been checked over and anything pertaining to names has been obviously deleted.

As for mastercard and paypal, I think they deserve much worse than 4chan DDOS'ing them. Just from a purely ethical standpoint how can they dictate who I donate money to?

[GTFO. Jamie]

I think wikileaks has taken a great deal of care to prevent any danger, the cables I have read have all been checked over and anything pertaining to names has been obviously deleted.

As for mastercard and paypal, I think they deserve much worse than 4chan DDOS'ing them. Just from a purely ethical standpoint how can they dictate who I donate money to?

well, they are under a great deal of pressure from various governments over it and i cant really blame them if they think "you know what, we dont want to be involved with this" and then take a step back and disassociate themselves from Wikileaks. If your using mastercard/paypal to send money, its up to them really if they choose to provide their service to or withdraw it.

If people really want to send money to wikileaks, then wikileaks im sure can set up a independent way to get funds to them without going through 3rd parties.

[GTFO. Gash]

at same time jamie, there french server provider (think server provider), are still honouring, and there viewpoint is that they do not want nor ask for wikileaks however they have a contract with them and will honour that... and ruling in the french high court can't make them stop...

and how would you propose they receive funds??? cash via the post???

[DataStorm]

ppl really wont go out their way using something else to donate to one particular site. If you use paypal or a credit card, you want to use that to book some over for it. its disabling their own clients to send the money. Wikileaks needs those for their income, cos it disables a lot of ppl to donate. Sure, ppl really intended to donate will do it, but others will say: oh, cant use my paypall or CC, nah, too much trouble. And those ppl are often the bigger part of the money.

I could understand for a terrorist organization or w/e to be blocked. But wikileaks is hardly that. There is controversy bout it, sure, but thats all bout the "security ppl" on those gov's.

As for publishing the info so far... by marking so much of that shit as "secret", and much of it isn't really any "secret" stamp worthy, they try to obfuscate anything that is really secret in their traffic. And so far I didn't hear about any really shocking stuff. Most was either already suspected (nukes in the Netherlands etc), or are just communications of impressions, bit of spywork on personal life of prominent non-US-residents. Seems to me that there should be some light shining on that. Just to raise the awareness level that the US is not as nice as they seem.

[GTFO. Jamie]

at same time jamie, there french server provider (think server provider), are still honouring, and there viewpoint is that they do not want nor ask for wikileaks however they have a contract with them and will honour that... and ruling in the french high court can't make them stop...

and how would you propose they receive funds??? cash via the post???

yea OVH the french provider have it at the moment (afaik), but apparently they are now under pressure from the french government to disassociate themselves as well so will be keeping a eye on it to see what they do. If a court in france of competent jurisdiction orders OVH to stop (court order), my bet is they will oblige rather then risk being taken to court themselves because of one of their customers. Who knows whats going to happen though. Stopping the domain name/hosting wont stop the tons of information which has already leaked, and the many mirror sites which have been set up.

if need be, yep cash through the post. At the moment, they rely on 3rd parties to get them their money and unfortunately when you piss off alot of people in high places, and start such as scandal, its going to come back and bite you on the ass.

will be interesting to see where it goes next

[kyub]

Anonymous are a LOL but seriously, what a bunch of clowns. I'm sitting in IRC (internal) with the PayPal Site Ops guys right now and they are in talks with the FBI and other groups. This isn't that big of a deal for PayPal being honest, but it is for the small businesses and other people that rely on it.

[r3loaded]

This is a ruse of course, as the case against him, is at best flimsy, the real purpose is to get him to Sweden, where he can be rapidly extradited to the US, where a luxury apartment at Guantanamo awaits.

Why doesn't the US extradite him directly from here, since we have a very one-sided extradition agreement (we require a much lower standard of proof to ship someone off state-side than the other way round).

On the other side, the case was originally picked up by a prosecutor in Stockholm, dropped due to a lack of probable evidence, then filed again by a different prosecutor in Gothenburg - hundreds of miles from the alleged incident. Apparently, it might have been filed through the intervention of an MP...Make what you will of that.

[GTFO. Ragostini]

As I understand it, it is usually much less hassle for the US to get someone extradited from Sweden than from the UK.

[GTFO. Jamie]

As I understand it, it is usually much less hassle for the US to get someone extradited from Sweden than from the UK.

all depends on what they are going to try and persecute him for.

No single US law makes it a crime specifically to disclose classified government documents, but legal experts say the government would most likely prosecute under the Espionage Act of 1917, although Mr Holder cited "other tools at our disposal".

Under the Espionage Act, prosecutors would have to prove Mr Assange was aware the leaks could harm US national security, or show he had a hand in improperly obtaining them from the government.

Espionage is seen as a political crime, and political offences are not subject to extradition under the US-UK, US-Sweden and UK-Sweden treaties

reference: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11952817

[GTFO. Ragostini]

Under their twisted logic, they will probably designate him an "Enemy Combatant" and get him under the provisions of the patriot act.
There are already calls from senior congress and senate representatives to have him assassinated.

[r3loaded]

There are already calls from senior congress and senate representatives to have him assassinated.

Should be strong enough grounds to grant him asylum. And while we're at it, perhaps we should charge those senators and congressmen with incitement to murder, and potentially state-sponsored terror. Leading on from that, we then have a casus belli for invading the United States, which can be duly authorised by the UN and NATO.

Or am I missing something here?

[moubmaster]

There are already calls from senior congress and senate representatives to have him assassinated.

Should be strong enough grounds to grant him asylum. And while we're at it, perhaps we should charge those senators and congressmen with incitement to murder, and potentially state-sponsored terror. Leading on from that, we then have a casus belli for invading the United States, which can be duly authorised by the UN and NATO.

Or am I missing something here?

Given the large involvement of 4chan I feel fully justified in using the phrase

FLAWLESS LOGIC

[GTFO. Ragostini]

There are already calls from senior congress and senate representatives to have him assassinated.

Should be strong enough grounds to grant him asylum. And while we're at it, perhaps we should charge those senators and congressmen with incitement to murder, and potentially state-sponsored terror. Leading on from that, we then have a casus belli for invading the United States, which can be duly authorised by the UN and NATO.

Or am I missing something here?

I'd agree with all of that, but there is the "Special Relationship" to consider. (ie. they own us)

[Dvveh]

http://fromtheold.com/news/internet/16- ... back-20928

Seems like it didn't quite go as planned for some

Found the article on a danish newspaper, so i just googled it, and this was the first thing to come up. So there´s probably more about it on other sites.

[deewany]

What is the most interesting thing on WikiLeaks? I have heard a ton about it, but just don't feel like getting on the website and going through all of its stuff. What is the most interesting thing you have heard or read on WikiLeaks?
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