Re: Hackers Attack Those Seen as WikiLeaks Enemies

Link

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/world/09wiki.html?_r=1&hp

On Dec 8, 2010, at 11:27 PM, Lance McLain wrote:

> Hackers Attack Those Seen as WikiLeaks Enemies
>
> By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYAPublished: December 8, 2010
>
> LONDON — In a campaign that had some declaring the start of a  
> “cyberwar,” hundreds of Internet activists mounted retaliatory  
> attacks on Wednesday on the Web sites of multinational companies and  
> other organizations they deemed hostile to the WikiLeaks antisecrecy  
> organization and its jailed founder, Julian Assange.
>
> Within 12 hours of a British judge’s decision on Tuesday to deny Mr.  
> Assange bail in a Swedish extradition case, attacks on the Web sites  
> of WikiLeaks’s “enemies,” as defined by the organization’s  
> impassioned supporters around the world, caused several corporate  
> Web sites to become inaccessible or slow down markedly.
> Targets of the attacks, in which activists overwhelmed the sites  
> with traffic, included the Web site of MasterCard, which had stopped  
> processing donations for WikiLeaks; Amazon.com, which revoked the  
> use of its computer servers; and PayPal, which stopped accepting  
> donations for Mr. Assange’s group. Visa.com was also affected by the  
> attacks, as were the Web sites of the Swedish prosecutor’s office  
> and the lawyer representing the two women whose allegations of  
> sexual misconduct are the basis of Sweden’s extradition bid.
>
> The Internet assaults underlined the growing reach of self-described  
> “cyberanarchists,” antigovernment and anticorporate activists who  
> have made an icon of Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian whom they  
> consider one of their own.
>
> The speed and range of the attacks also appeared to show the  
> resilience of the backing among computer activists for Mr. Assange,  
> who has appeared increasingly isolated in recent months amid the  
> furor stoked by WikiLeaks’s Web site posting of hundreds of  
> thousands of secret Pentagon documents on the wars in Afghanistan  
> and Iraq.
>
> Mr. Assange has come under renewed attack in the past two weeks for  
> posting the first tranche of a trove of 250,000 secret State  
> Department cables that have exposed American diplomats’ frank  
> assessments of relations with many countries, forcing Secretary of  
> StateHillary Rodham Clinton to express regret to world leaders and  
> raising fears that they and other sources would become more reticent.
>
> The New York Times and four other news organizations last week began  
> publishing articles based on the archive of cables made available to  
> them.
>
> In recent months, some of Mr. Assange’s closest associates in  
> WikiLeaks abandoned him, calling him autocratic and capricious and  
> accusing him of reneging on WikiLeaks’ original pledge of  
> impartiality to launch a concerted attack on the United States. He  
> has been simultaneously fighting a remote battle with the Swedish  
> prosecutors, who have sought his extradition for questioning on  
> accusations of “rape, sexual molestation and forceful coercion” made  
> by the Swedish women. Mr. Assange has denied any wrongdoing in the  
> cases.
>
> American officials have repeatedly said that they are reviewing  
> possible criminal charges against Mr. Assange, a step that could  
> lead to a bid to extradite him to the United States and confront him  
> with having to fight for his freedom on two fronts.
>
> The cyberattacks in Mr. Assange’s defense appear to have been  
> coordinated by Anonymous, a loosely affiliated group of activist  
> computer hackers who have singled out other groups before, including  
> the Church of Scientology. Last weekend, members of Anonymous vowed  
> in two online manifestos to take revenge on any organization that  
> lined up against WikiLeaks.
>
> Anonymous claimed responsibility for the MasterCard attack in Web  
> messages and, according to one activist associated with the group,  
> conducted waves of attacks on other companies during the day.
>
> The activist, Gregg Housh, who disavows a personal role in any  
> illegal online activity, said in a telephone interview that 1,500  
> supporters had been in online forums and chat rooms organizing the  
> mass “denial of service” attacks. His account was confirmed by Jose  
> Nazario, a senior security researcher at Arbor Networks, a  
> Chelmsford, Mass., firm that tracks malicious activity on computer  
> networks.
>
> Almost all the corporate Web sites that were attacked appeared to be  
> operating normally later on Wednesday, suggesting that any economic  
> impact was limited. But the sense of an Internet war was reinforced  
> when Netcraft, a British Internet monitoring firm, reported that the  
> Web site being used by the hackers to distribute denial-of-service  
> software had been suspended by a Dutch hosting firm, Leaseweb.
>
> A sense of the belligerent mood among activists associated with the  
> Anonymous group was given when one contributor to a forum the group  
> uses, WhyWeProtest.net, wrote of the attacks: “The war is on. And  
> everyone ought to spend some time thinking about it, discussing it  
> with others, preparing yourselves so you know how to act if  
> something compels you to make a decision. Be very careful not to err  
> on the side of inaction.”
>
> Mr. Housh acknowledged that there had been online talk among the  
> hackers of a possible Internet campaign against the two Swedish  
> women who have been Mr. Assange’s accusers in the Swedish case, but  
> he said that “a lot of people don’t want to be involved.”
>
> A Web search showed new blog posts in recent days in which the two  
> women, identified by the Swedish prosecutors only as Ms. A. and Ms.  
> W., were named, but it was not clear whether there was any link to  
> Anonymous. The women have said that consensual sexual encounters  
> with Mr. Assange became nonconsensual when condoms were no longer in  
> use.
>
> The cyberattacks on corporations and others Wednesday were seen by  
> many supporting them online as a counterstrike against the United  
> States. Mr. Assange’s online supporters have widely condemned the  
> Obama administration as the unseen hand coordinating efforts to  
> choke off WikiLeaks by denying it financing and suppressing its  
> network of computer servers.
>
> Mr. Housh, an American activist, described Mr. Assange in an  
> interview as “a political prisoner,” a common view among WikiLeaks  
> supporters who have joined Mr. Assange in condemning the Swedish  
> accusations of sexual abuse as part of an American-inspired “smear  
> campaign.”
>
> Another activist used the analogy of the civil rights struggle for  
> the cyberattacks.
>
> “Are they “disrupting business?” a contributor using the name  
> Moryath wrote in a comment on the slashdot.org technology Web site.  
> “Perhaps, but no worse than the lunch counter sit-ins did.”
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