Internet wars - Operation Payback

[Bulle]

Since a couple of weeks the U.S. employed a group of hackers in order to attack Wikileaks, but now a group of Anonymous b-tards and Pirate Bayers are attacking the credit card companies and other stuff - in a weird kind of defence for Wikileaks. So far MasterCard website is down and PayPal is about to crash. The next one might be Visa or Amazon. They plan to keep this going to New Years Eve, and I think it all started yesterday. This is so guerilla warfare, I find it very intriguing.

Edit: It's in the news all over Europe so far, how is it in the U.S.?

 

[El Perro Finlandese]

I have not heard about it so it's not in the news all over Europe.

 

[Sarejo]

I have not heard about it so it's not in the news all over Europe.

But that's assuming you- Oh, nevermind.

I've heard of it. The only one potentially "harmful" could be the Amazon one, but I don't know what's useful about taking down Mastercard or Visa. Does anyone even use them?

 

[Archonsod]

Well, they claim that Mastercard has been taken out, but as far as I can tell they've only actually hit the external US mirror, which I expect will be sorted out as soon as their ISP starts filtering traffic.

If this is the best they can do I'd place them somewhere underneath the Cornish Liberation Army in terms of effectiveness.

 

[Ambalon]

Since a couple of weeks the U.S. employed a group of hackers in order to attack Wikileaks, but now a group of Anonymous b-tards and Pirate Bayers are attacking the credit card companies and other stuff - in a weird kind of defence for Wikileaks. So far MasterCard website is down and PayPal is about to crash. The next one might be Visa or Amazon. They plan to keep this going to New Years Eve, and I think it all started yesterday. This is so guerilla warfare, I find it very intriguing.

Edit: It's in the news all over Europe so far, how is it in the U.S.?

I wasn't aware of this.

[me=Ambalon]rides into /b/, cape moving in the wind.[/me]

edit - Seems like they're attacking companies that are openly against Wikileaks, don't know what good Anon thinks will come out of this.

 

[Bulle]

I have not heard about it so it's not in the news all over Europe.

Sorry, my mistake.
It's on the front page of the Guardian in the UK and they have a live blog that follows the event, it's on the news in Sweden, Germany, Romania, Croatia, Norway Spain and Polen. It's on computerworld.com and in some Australian newspaper. It was on BBC and so on. I can't really look up all of the countries. Maybe you should check different newspages in your country.

Well, they claim that Mastercard has been taken out, but as far as I can tell they've only actually hit the external US mirror, which I expect will be sorted out as soon as their ISP starts filtering traffic.

If this is the best they can do I'd place them somewhere underneath the Cornish Liberation Army in terms of effectiveness.

They might not be the best but the Mastercard stocks went down with 9%.

 

[Tuckles]

I'm worried about Visa and Paypal. How am I to buy my videogames then? D:

And Arch, I don't think they mean to cause any lasting harm, they may be /b/tards, but that doesn't mean they're retards (I has a rhyme :3).

 

[Bulle]

It seems like you can actually use their services, but you can't access the webpage.

 

[Verbeek]

Some people really have no life.

 

[Archonsod]

I'm worried about Visa and Paypal. How am I to buy my videogames then? D:

They're hitting the websites. Not anything useful, like the actual back end.

And Arch, I don't think they mean to cause any lasting harm, they may be /b/tards, but that doesn't mean they're retards (I has a rhyme :3).

Erm, yes, yes it does.

 

[Bulle]

I think as always, they are more interested in the actual publicity then causing harm. They tend to be big attentionwhores, even bigger then me.

 

[Archonsod]

Since the program they're using doesn't disguise or encrypt the IP address the packets originate from they're anything but anonymous.

 

[Sarejo]

What do we have here!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11935539

 

[Bulle]

And therefore they decide to be anonymous?

That's what they choose to call themselves, but they do publicity stunts all the time.

 

[Archonsod]

What do we have here!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11935539

Funny, Direct2Drive had no problem processing my Mastercard thirty minutes ago

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

This is so guerilla warfare, I find it very intriguing.

I think it's fascinating, and it's probably going to be a real wake-up call for many governments and companies, especially companies whose business is almost entirely web-based.

 

[Bulle]

Indeed, this is why I am going to follow it closely. I wonder what kind of repercussions they will get.

Edit: Now they have taken down Mastercard, Visa, Swedish prosecution, a Swiss bank and Liebermann's site. In 24 hours.

 

[Austupaio]

and by 'taken down' you mean put one mirror out of service. Mastercards and Visa's still work. So they haven't accomplished much. Who ever uses their sites anyways?

 

[Bulle]

Yes, all of those websites. Considering that Mastercard went down with 9% on the stockmarket, it must be doing something.

 

[Archonsod]

Offering credit during a recession mainly. Although by the same token, merely being listed on the stockmarket at the moment is a wonderful world of ups and downs.