Operation Payback and Hactivism 101

Orome1 writes "While individual acts of hacktivism are inconvenient, something else happens when hacktivists group together — they commonly perform a DDoS attack. Techniques have advanced to automate the process, making the attacks more powerful and thus more able to bypass security controls — the effect, however, remains the same. Let us take a look at the recent Operation Payback which has gained notoriety in the past few months."

For further explanation of this concept

[digitaldc]

The DDOS Wikipedia Entry [wikipedia.org] is much more informative than this article, I would suggest reading it instead.

Next Target:

[WiglyWorm]

Whomever coined the word "Hactivism" has a DDoS with their name on it, as far as I'm concerned. Hate, hate, hate, that word. It's neither hacking nor activism.

Re:Let's break the law

[Ihmhi]

Only the public websites of Visa, Mastercard, et al. are being hit. The actual functionality of their payment system has been untouched.

It's a slap in the face without disrupting their actual business.

Re:Wikileaks did it to themselves

[SuricouRaven]

They actually do retact the information. That's why it's coming out so slowly, a little at a time, rather than just sticking a multi-gig torrent up.

Well it worked ....

[unity100]

At first paypal was blabbering that they cut wikileaks due to 'violation of tos', and there was no political pressure involved. (probably liebermann warned them to say that). A few days with anonymous, they came around to openly say that they did it due to political pressure. A few more days, they decided to release the wikileaks funds they were holding ...

you cant say it didnt work.

Re:This isn't activism

[Score Whore]

Amazon first. Wikileaks didn't host at Amazon until their Swedish provider collapsed under the DDOS they were experiencing. So they moved to Amazon and brought the DDOS with them. Regardless of any government action, it's not that shocking that they kicked them out. Just like you'd kick someone out of your restaurant if they walked in the door and took a shit in the kitchen.

As far as Paypal and Mastercard go, who knows what's happened there. Again, ignoring the government aspect of things, it's been reported (and not disputed) that Julian opened a bank account using fictitious information and he also provided a false address to the British courts, what do you think the odds are that he provided correct information to Paypal and Mastercard? Both of them are companies that are trying to do business and they have to operate within the various regulatory environments they are subject to. Allowing people to use false information on the accounts is a violation of those rules. If Julian and Wikileaks feel that there has been some malfeasance they have legitimate means of recourse.

Finally, there is a huge difference between not associating with someone and preventing them from doing associating with others.