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Title: ‘All-out cyber war’ erupts over WikiLeaks: ‘Anonymous’ hackers take MasterCard, Visa offline
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Published: Dec 8, 2010
Author: rs
Post Date: 2010-12-08 16:48:46 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 249
Comments: 11
‘All-out cyber war’ erupts over WikiLeaks: ‘Anonymous’ hackers take MasterCard, Visa offline By Stephen C. Webster Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 -- 10:47 am submit to reddit Stumble This! 1772Share 14diggsdigg mastercardworldwide All out cyber war erupts over WikiLeaks: Anonymous hackers take MasterCard, Visa offlineThird update: 'Operation Payback' targets Visa.com, site goes down in minutes 'Anonymous' hackers flexed their muscle again Wednesday, orchestrating a successful denial of service attack against Visa, the largest credit card provider in the world. A Twitter account connected to the hackers declared the start of the attacks and the site was unavailable less than 16 minutes later. The attack was allegedly orchestrated as an act of vengeance over Visa's decision to cut off electronic donations to secrets outlet WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks said Wednesday that its payments processor, Iceland-based DataCell, planned to sue Visa and MasterCard for terminating payments to the site. Second update: Cables show Obama admin lobbied Russia on behalf of MasterCard, Visa UPDATE: MasterCard confirms service interruption for cardholders MasterCard Worldwide confirmed on Wednesday morning that the "MasterCard Directory Server" had gone down and that cardholders were experiencing service interruptions. The revelation was made as a massive denial of service attack was staged against MasterCard, ostensibly for refusing further payments to secrets outlet WikiLeaks. "Please be advised that MasterCard SecureCode Support has detected a service disruption to the MasterCard Directory Server," MasterCard said. "The Directory Server service has been failed over to a secondary site however customers may still be experiencing intermittent connectivity issues. More information on the estimated time of recovery will be shared in due course." An earlier report follows... Sites for Visa, PayPal, Sen. Lieberman also targeted Yesterday, MasterCard Worldwide became the latest financial institution to face the wrath of online hackers acting to avenge secrets outlet WikiLeaks over the credit card provider's declaration that the site was engaged in "illegal" activities. Not 36 hours after MasterCard froze payments to WikiLeaks, their website was down as hackers with the group "Anonymous" launched a new wave of cyberattacks. The company said its customers could still use their credit cards for purchases, but the PayPoint retail network told a BBC reporter that MasterCard's "SecureCode" service had been taken down, interrupting service all over. The hackers also claimed responsibility for taking down the website for Swiss bank PostFinance, after it froze an account with over €31,000 set aside for site founder Julian Assange's legal defense. Assange was arrested in London yesterday on an Interpol warrant out of Sweden, where he's wanted for questioning in an investigation of sexual assault. "Anonymous" has dubbed their cyber warfare campaign "Operation Payback," threatening to "fire" on any entity that attempts to censor WikiLeaks. Service to mastercard.com was unavailable at time of this writing. The website for the Swedish prosecutor's office was also offline, as was a site for the lawyer representing Assange's accusers. Secure Computing Magazine called what's happening "an all-out cyber war," noting that massive botnets were attacking each other by mid-Wednesday morning as even the 'Anonymous' group had come under fire from another group of hackers that sought to defend US interests. That group, which was successful in taking WikiLeaks offline in late November, was also thought to be behind attacks on the 'Anonymous' website, anonops.net, which was still online at time of this writing. A "botnet" is Internet slang for a massive shadow network of computers that have been unknowingly hijacked by malicious software. They are typically used for nefarious purposes, such as distributed denial of service attacks. Credit card processor Visa also suspended payments to WikiLeaks on Tuesday morning, but its website was functional at time of this story's publication. It too was expected to come under denial of service attacks. "Operation Payback" also promised to attack PayPal, the online payment service that last week cut off WikiLeaks and froze over $60,000 in electronic donations, but their site was still online Wednesday morning. Topics trending on Twitter suggested an attack may also target the micro-blogging site. Others to suffer downtime this week include PayPal's blog, EveryDNS -- the domain name service provider that pulled WikiLeaks off it's .org address -- and Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) .gov website. Lieberman's staff was responsible for prompting Amazon.com to take WikiLeaks off its US-based cloud servers. Researchers with Panda Security have been tracking the wave of attacks, blow-for-blow. In recent days, the online to-do over WikiLeaks has been called the world's "first serious infowar" and a "war for control of the Internet." "What is this all about? And what does it have to do with censorship and Operation Payback?" 'Anonymous' asks on their website. "While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency and we counter censorship. The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we can not say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas. "We can not let this happen. This is why our intention is to find out who is responsible for this failed attempt at censorship. This is why we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy." Raw Story will continue following the latest developments.
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
Too bad that I am not able to assist in their honorable cause.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡ "The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good." -- Thomas Jefferson
The issues isn't knowledge about how to repetitively "ping" a website creating a DDOS but how to cleverly disguise yourself. Keep in mind, that in the US and most countries it is a felony offense if found. Beyond the software phenomena of either uploading or downloading HUGE chucks of data, you can use TOR, an easy addon in Firefox. TOR is not designed to obscure illegal approches but may disguise your "relay hops" so as to create a sense of anonymity for some of your Internet accesses. GOTO: TOR or even Vidalia or even better, goto: Liberte Linux The accesses to the Internet are a bit slower but you have anonymity... as there are thousands of TOR relays, some slow and some fast but you have capability to switch TOR on/off at leisure.
"In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," ... "In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it" -- Ron Paul, circa 2010-12-02
This whole thing is an intel operation. Remmeber the PROMIS/PTECH software that has been installed in the last decade. I think a Israeli company was the contractor. If so, all one needs is a secret code or backdoor to download these files from the US agencies. Indira Singh was a spearhead of these revelations years ago.
Mark If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers - normally good Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free - Americans who have been lulled into a false security (April 1968).---Ezra Taft Benson, US Secretary of Agriculture 1953-1961 under Eisenhower
The feeling you get when you hack into MasterCard: Priceless. lol
Solutions for Ireland. Say NO to the IMF/World bank. Default on our debt. Print our own debt free currency. Nationalise the trillion euros worth of gas and oil off our west coast. Take back our fishing (200 billion worth). Get our farmers growing again. Done deal if our politicians had the backbone. ~ Jim Corr
That id funny, thanks.
Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. /Sheeple
"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." K.M. Heaton, The National Educator
This is exactly part of the plan to shut down the internet. The minute it becomes an issue of inhibiting interstate commerce, it becomes a federal crime, and will be the justification of creating an internet taskforce that monitors the activities of everyone. Expect new Digital ID's very soon to access the internet, because the anonymous hackers are, well... Anonymous. Likely already on the government payroll. We are seeing the destruction of free speech, and it's all being done by design. The greatest generation of traitor politicians are bringing us the new Reich. Why? because their parents sacrificed and died for a lie, just like their kids and grand children sacrificed and died for lies. It's generational and will never end until the very rich in this world stop craving power over humanity, and begin to live for something more, that will actually benefit ALL of humanity instead of being for their sole benefit.
It is better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not. - Tommy The Mad Artist.
I am a student of history and you have provided a good synopsis. Now I am going into my backyard to throw up.
Just tried to get to Drudgereport.com It appears to be down.
It is better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not. - Tommy The Mad Artist.
Now it's working. Of course... After I post that it's down, it's back up.
It is better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not. - Tommy The Mad Artist.
#2. To: tom007 (#0)
#3. To: ghostdogtxn, DWornock, tom007 (#2)
I wish I knew diddly about how to hack, I'd be helping them out.
#4. To: tom007 (#0)
#5. To: tom007 (#0)
#6. To: irishthatcherite (#5)
"Satan / Cheney in "08" 
#7. To: Kamala (#4)
This whole thing is an intel operation. Remmeber the PROMIS/PTECH software ...
#8. To: tom007 (#0)
#9. To: TommyTheMadArtist (#8)
It's generational and will never end until the very rich in this world stop craving power over humanity, and begin to live for something more, that will actually benefit ALL of humanity instead of being for their sole benefit.
"Satan / Cheney in "08"
#10. To: tom007 (#9)
#11. To: All (#10)
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