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MasterCard Site Partially Frozen by Hackers in WikiLeaks 'Revenge'
Operation: Payback hacks into MasterCard site over payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks
The website of MasterCard, the international credit card, has been hacked and partially paralysed by hackers, in apparent revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks.
Mastercard was partially frozen by hackers in WikiLeaks 'revenge'. (Photograph: Mastercard) In an attack it is calling "Operation: Payback", a group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous appear to have orchestrated a DDOS ("distributed denial of service") attack on the site, bringing its service to a halt for many users. Attempts to load www.mastercard.com are currently unsuccessful.
Its latest salvo in the increasingly febrile technological war over WikiLeaks, after Mastercard announced on Monday that it would no longer process donations to the whistleblowing site, claiming it was engaged in illegal activity.
The group, which has been linked to the influential internet messageboard 4Chan, has been targeting commercial sites which have cut their ties with WikiLeaks. The Swiss bank PostFinance has already been targeted by Anonymous after it froze payments to WikiLeaks, and the group has vowed to target Paypal, which has also ceased processing payments to the site. EveryDNS.net, which suspended dealings on 3 December, Amazon, which removed WikiLeaks content from its EC2 cloud on 1 December, and Visa, which suspended its own dealings yesterday, may also be possible targets.
The action was confirmed on Twitter at 9.39am by user @Anon_Operation, who later tweeted: "WE ARE GLAD TO TELL YOU THAT http://www.mastercard.com/ is DOWN AND IT'S CONFIRMED! #ddos #wikileaks Operation:Payback(is a bitch!) #PAYBACK"
No one from Mastercard could be reached for immediate comment, but spokesman Chris Monteiro has said the site suspended dealings with WikiLeaks because: "Mastercard rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal."
DDOS attacks, which often involve flooding the target with requests so that it cannot cope with legitimate communication, are illegal.
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132 Comments so far
Show All"DDOS attacks, which often involve flooding the target with requests so that it cannot cope with legitimate communication, are illegal."
Does this apply when government IT security staff do the same to Wikileaks?
Certainly not -- the US attacks Wikileaks in the name of justice. Likewise for their trumped up sexual assault charges.
You have knowledge that the charges were "trumped" up?
troll
rube
Well, let's see - the story was rape, at first - oh, but that changed to sexual assault - oh, it was having consensual sex without a condom (I mean, what, she couldn't see he didn't have a condom?) - then the prosecutor threw the case out for being too ridiculous, all happening, just coincidentally of course when Assange and his organization were releasing lots and lots of embarrasing and maybe incriminating documents about the conduct of the US and other governments. Well, gawrsh, Wilbur, ya think?
HelpUsObi 1, you ask if it is illegal?
To reprise the parting words of the then Empire whoremaster of the Empire's Vietnam crimes, Richard Nixon, "if the president (ie. figurehead Emperor) does it, then its legal"
Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and the latest faux Emperor, Obama, would, and arrogantly DO, fully agree with this law of the land, which when properly rephrased is; "If the ruling-elite's global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE (which merely hides behind the facade of its 'owned' TWO-Party 'Vichy' sham of democratic government) says its legal, then it is!
Hell, John Yoo has legal documents that were specifically written to insure that the EMPIRE was well within its "divine right" to do anything, anytime, to anyone, anywhere on its earth (it thinks) --- and of course without proof.
Christ, how can you argue with such omnipotence vested solely (though not soul-ly) in EMPIRE? Maybe that's why HE confronted it with love as his seminal earthly task.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Well said Alan, Hope they are not on the way to Sanford for you!
I'll help ease the traffic by not using my MasterCard - or VISA.
It's back to cash and checks and snailmail for me.
OR - you could show support for Wikileaks, Assange and yes, for Anonymous - the white ops arm of internet ethics. Hopefully, they will cause some serious financial damage to the organizations which have attacked Assange.
Seeing that SCrOTUS said that money = free speech for corporations under their citizens united case, aren't these corporations denying real peoples free speech by denying actual humans to spend their money (free speech) to support Wikileaks?
How is this double standard allowed? This case should be brought up to SCrOTUS. I would love to see the Robert's kangaroo courts twisted reasoning as to why MC/VISA is allowed to deny human free speech, which I'm sure we can all assume would be their ruling.
If the oligarchs decide to have the Supreme Puppets perform in this venue, you can be absolutely certain they (The Puppets) will do an outstanding soft shoe of Mr. Bojangles or anything that their bosses want. And they will do it with a smile on their little faces.
Well, when you think about it, it is all perfectly consistent. What's going on here is the transfer of power from average people to the super-rich and the corporations. All of our government's actions are geared toward facilitating this process. If you recall, there was a similar double standard at play when the Court decided in the Humanitarian Law Project case last summer to uphold the government's broad application of the "material support" clause of the Patriot Act. This decision dealt a serious blow to the First Amendment activities of actual people engaging in humanitarian work and conflict resolution, but that didn't seem to matter to the SCrOTUS.
One can only come to the conclusion that the point of all of these actions (Citizens United, Humanitarian Law Project, the attack on WikiLeaks) is to systematically dismantle democracy. That's what is happening, and when you look at it like that, you see that there are no double standards here, no inconsistencies whatsoever. They are implementing fascism and eliminating every last one of our democratic rights, one by one. It's just that they are not honest about what they are doing.
I think this analysis is basically correct, particularly regarding the path to fascism. I agree, there are no inconsistencies. We are headed there fast. Weeks or months, not years away. Or are we already there already?
The other thing I find very interesting is how the US government can applaud the use of Twitter by Iranian dissidents and yet very soon thereafter try to squash the equivalent at home. Gotta love that Das Homeland hypocrisy. Constitution? "We" don't need no stinking Constitution. "We" have Money. And Guns.
They are winning all the battles, but they cannot win the war.
If you want to know how the battles are going then you should read the newswire on this site. Watch the video on starving polar bears. This is where the real battles are being won or loss. The Extinction rate is how this will be understood. Major parts of the world are disappearing from exploitation. You are quite right though, it is one battle at a time and no one wins the war.
Is Cheney on Interpol list yet ? Got to go, someone is banging at the door. (kidding for now) Imagine... Peace.
go anonymous!!! everything we do is illegal...every thing they do is legal...it's time to disrupt big business and show them we will not sit by idle and helpless...
you can bet the us government is involved in the arrest of assaunge on flimsy charges...the woman claimed the sex was consenual but that assaunge was wierd--is that a crime??
"the woman claimed the sex was consenual but that assaunge was wierd"
Indeed, the south Florida Cuban woman with the CIA ties.
"the sex was consensual but.............."
Look out most men in the world. Stay out of Sweden! Or....If this is so unusual there that it merits an indictiment......Welcome to the USA Swedish men! (sorry, it warranted a bit of humour, i thought).
Their God is Money.
Divorce them from their God!
Go Go Go Team
We now have a fighting chance and the Pleasure of destroying corporate structures without the worry of physical harm to unintended bystanders.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOO Anonymous !!!!!!!!!
Support Assange !
"They got the guns, but, we got the numbers..."
As one of the numbers, I canceled my Pay Pal account and will call my bank today to demand they issue me a debit card that is not Visa/MC. Boycott the businesses that help the US attack on Wikileaks!
A sensible solution to advocate your opinion.
...sez the mightyTROLL.
That's hitting the mercinary scum where it hurts! BRILLIANT!
Tony Vodvarka
Yessssss, HIT EM HARD!!!!
Let's see, Wikileaks is illegal because they lost their appeal after they were convicted in fair trial in a court of law? Oh, wait, not convicted, but they were indicted, right? And a court ordered injunction was issued to stop their illegal activities? Oh wait, no indictment. So it's illegal because someone somewhere, at Mastercard, PayPal, Fox News, USG? says so? and that's enough to suspend payments without the permission of the payor or the payee? Land of the Free, way to go!
Supper, surely best of show.
"So it's illegal because someone somewhere, at Mastercard, PayPal, Fox News, USG? says so?"
john yoo must be moonlighting.
bloody marvellous.........btw, didn't see any fall out from the 'en masse' withdrawls from banks yesterday.
Nothing happened.
"Footballer-inspired mass withdrawal plan falls flat as banks across France report no extra demand at cashpoints..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/eric-cantona-protest-banks-france
"The boot is on your throat, what are you going to do about it?" asked the newsman. "Nothing," replied everyman.
thanks ted for the link...........
They may be lying.
The psyops techies know that this kind of endeavor is only successful if people think it is. If people get the impression that "no one is doing it," they'll lose interest but if they think "it's all the rage!" everyone will want to take part. Yes, people are very much like sheep.
Do what you think is right and forget what the in crowd is doing.
Heyduke lives in each and everyone of us.
Just like in 1776 when nobility created a Republic just for the rich,
comes now corporations super-big to create the new WEB Republic,
for they are now judge, jury and executioner to establish an
illusion of justice, a capitalist democracy the public is sure to love.
"a capitalist democracy"
No such thing.
Capitalist democracy: one ruled by the 51% most aggressive and wealthy, all those with great jobs, terrific home and deluxe healthcare.
You see, the difference between us is simple, you feel the lubricant that gets things done in our empire is ignorant, whereas I feel its greed.
you mean "ruled by those with 51% of the WEALTH"... which, in the US, is less than 5% and shrinking fast...
Yes, cent, although John is generally very very on-target, and may have just nominally used the "51%" phrase to show that the ruling-elite .1% corporatist (fascist) "malefactors of great wealth" can get (buy, confuse, fool, intimidate, etc.) 51% to bend over and follow like sheeple.
Oh, that's right, sheeple don't have to bend over to get screwed, as they already walk bent over on all fours --- like 'domesticated' animals.
Best,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Mastercard's website does appear to be down, but their payment processing, which is really the only important part of the company, seems to be working fine. Visa is up. Paypal seems fine as well, I can access my account there without an issue and have received and made several payments in the last 24 hours.
I reckon these payback attacks have to be a lot more damaging than this or they are an IT inconvenience alone. Seems like the rest of these leaks so far, embarrassing but no real info or damage...
If the processing stopped it would be different of course.
I hope that the the ability of all these corporations to conspire to indict, try and convict Wikileaks entirely through the "free market" - absent them breaking any actual laws at all - is leading all these "libertarians" to re-assess their worship of "free markets".
True, for it is free only to the extent that it is freedom for those most aggressive and wealthy to plunder by unfair competition.
In a "free market", corporations are allowed to fail no matter how big they are. We are not living in a free market society when the "big boys" are bailed-out with taxpayer dollars or are using high-frequency trading and naked short selling, both of which can bring down the global market in a matter of seconds. Supply and demand has taken a back seat to this type of intervention condoned by alleged, free market governments.
Extremely well stated.
In a true theoretical free market, wealth unaviodably gets concentrated in very few hands - simple physics and calculus dictates this, per the simple diff. eq: dW/dt = kW (where W = wealth). Its solution is: W = e^kt, i.e. under conditions of free markets, wealth is, first and foremost, the power to accumulate more wealth without limit. This leads to exponentially accelerating accumulation and concenetration of wealth, in accordance with the above solution.
Sure, under such hypotetical "free markets" a big corporation would be allowed to fail, but their assets would simply be bought up by a comparably large or larger corporation, now with one less competetor, which would be put in a position of even greater power and wealth accumulation.
Surely, you are not so naive that, under conditions of supposed "free markets" in the retail sector if say, Wal Mart went belly-up, it would would lead to a flowering of mom-and-pop stores everywhere? Ever heard of Target, K-mart, or (across the lakes) Canadian Tire? They would have one less competetor.
Yes, government does intervene unfairly on the sides of large corporations, but the solution you propose, no regulation of a markets at all, would turn into a Hobbsian nightmare. It's already been tried, as well chronicled by people like Charles Dickens or Upton Sinclair.
If most were honest your concept of an unregulated free market would work. But most of our society has little or no conscience, surely only with everyone involved in government, nothing done behind closed doors in government, only by such transparence and well regulated oversight could there every be democracy.
Classic capitalist democracy,
declared guilty by the lazy rich,
until proven innocent by a jury of the working poor.
Certainly the legality and/or illegality of each of these situations gives a clear depiction as to who "the law" is designed for and by.
So please no more carping about "obeying the law" when discussing the acts of demonstrators, anarchists, communists or any others who dissent actively against the depredations of The State.
What I like about this is the loyalty it shows of Julian's peers, individuals who have the computer savvy and skills to do these things. The amount of harm done to the corporate technomob is not relevant. What is says is we (some of us) are going to the cyber-mattresses. We will get down and dirty in warring with you.
I wish I had knowledge to sabotage those who are determined to harm or destroy Mr. Assange. And the same goes for Bradley Manning. Julian has not =thrown Bradley under the bus to save himself=. Bradley is already condemned to be eaten by military hyenas, blood dripping from their jaws.
Trylon
i'm a geek... altjough this is beyond my technical headlights... there's a couple of points...
for YEARS... on the left... has been the cry... we need to get organized... to no avail... no money... no organization... like when comcast unilaterally raises fees for millions of customers by pennies... the left has no counterweight...
the hackers were caught off guard... they didn't plan for this... but... within days... a rag tag group of anonymous individuals are causing havoc to some very deep pockets companies... i'll assure you... vis/mc do not hire second rate security...
so... in walks julian assange... and the resources of the entire world's political... police... and corporates... first can't find him... and now... uncounted minions come to his defense...
see you have to understand geeks... they're well... geeky... computer technology is not that complicated... it just takes time... 99% of the population wants to click and have an orgasm... geeks are willing to delay gratification... for a superb orgasm...
where do you think all security comes from... the same people who hack it...
so let the bit wars begin... for less than a thousand dollars and a little patience... they're hitting the corporate elite where it hurts...
give 'em a few days... weeks... they can afford to be patient... today's hack didn't work... go out get laid... come back tomorrow... meanwhile mr corporatist is hoping real hard his damn business accounts aren't emptied out some wee hour of the morning somewhere someday....
if nothing else... they're scrambling... the new political activism... "revenge of the nerds"...
i say "bring 'em on"... hell george bush said... he didn't even know what an email was...
When amoral and immoral thugs write and enforce so much of the law, an individual who cares about the welfare of human society must follow the individual's own conscience in deciding whether to follow it.