Thread: Wikileaks opponents face DDoS attacks

^ get a grip. These denial of service attacks are no more than the Internet equivalent of standing outside the office and shouting boo, shame on you. If these people deserve jail, so does everyone who's driven whilst using their mobile or tired. That most of us and that does cause harm.

If wikipedia is breaking us law and as a result these companies should not deal with wikipedia, then the us gov could get injunctions. But for some reason they have not bothered.

Given that these are the same institutions that took us to war on a lie, why would you trust them now. Tese firms could have offered to suspend the accounts for short while, whilst the gov got an injunction; then they could have explained they were genuinely just obeying the law, what they did was political and people have the right to protest over it. I would have sympathy for them if they applied the same criteria to the various supremacist and ro life groups that are associated with acts of terrorism in the us.

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested in the Netherlands in connection with cyber attacks on MasterCard and PayPal by Wikileaks sympathisers. According to the Public Prosecution Office, the boy was arrested in The Hague.

WikiLeaks supporters around the world have carried out digital attacks on finance companies which have refused to transfer money to Wikileaks accounts. The MasterCard site was down for ten hours on Wednesday.

According to Dutch public television news broadcaster NOS, the coordination of the attack was organised from the Netherlands. It is not known what the role of the boy, who has confessed to the so-called DDos attacks, was. His computers have been confiscated. More arrests could follow.

A group calling itself "Anonymous" has threatened anyone with an anti-WikiLeaks agenda. The groups says it has 4000 "hacktivists" willing to help the whistle blower site. NOS reports that "hacktivists" are planning to stage a cyber attack on the site of internet retailer Amazon for removing Wikileaks from one of its servers.

The founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange was arrested on Tuesday after turning himself in to the police in London. The Australian could be extradited to Sweden to face rape charges under the Scandinavian country's strict rape laws.

Wikileaks publications have recently embarrased the US government, after thousands of cables between the US and its embassies were revealed.

Dutch teen arrested for pro-Wikileak cyber attacks | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Originally Posted by Mid

Amazon also removed their hosting services, saying that the content Wikileaks posted was not theirs and could harm others.

Originally Posted by Mid

Amazon, which for a time hosted the site, said that WikiLeaks was failing to ensure that it "wasn't putting innocent people in jeopardy." PostFinance said that Assange lied on an application form.

Amazon WikiLeaks ebook back on sale as retailer denies hypocrisy
Chris Davies
Fri Dec 10th, 2010



The WikiLeaks Kindle ebook on Amazon UK has is prompting further controversy, with Amazon adding a statement to the product page and various reports that the author had taken the text down.

However, at time of writing the ebook is still listed as available to buy, albeit with the added proviso that “This book contains commentary and analysis regarding recent WikiLeaks disclosures, not the original material disclosed via the WikiLeaks website.”



Amazon found itself in hot water earlier this week, after the ebook was spotted up for sale for its Kindle ereading platform, while its web-hosting arm AWS had closed down the official WikiLeaks account.

The retailer was accused by many of hypocrisy, but has argued that the ebook does not actually contain the full leaked cables (despite the product description).

slashgear.com

WikiLeaks Defenders Threaten Amazon
Dec 10, 2010

"CNN is announcing that, starting at 11 AM EST, the hackers (coined Operation Payback) responsible for the DDoS attacks on MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, and PostFinance have promised to commence an attack against Amazon for their revocation of the WikiLeaks EC2 account.

osdir.com

Attack on Amazon.com appears to fail
Jaikumar Vijayan
December 09, 2010

The loosely-knit group of hackers dubbed Anonymous today apparently failed in its effort to launch a DDoS attack on Amazon.com.

This morning's planned distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against Amazon.com by Anonymous, a hacker group that has launched similar attacks against organizations it sees attempting to censor WikiLeaks, appears to have failed.

Anonymous started attacking Amazon's website at 11 a.m. EST, but quickly appeared to abandon the effort after realizing how little impact it was having, said Paul Mutton, a security analyst with U.K.-based Internet monitoring firm Netcraft.

"The attack didn't seem to make a dent on Amazon.com," which is not surprising considering Amazon's network infrastructure, he said. "The size of [the Anonymous] botnet was not large enough to have any impact."

Instead, the group now appears to be focusing its attention on api.Paypal.com, a secure payment transaction handling Web site, Mutton said.

The site is not currently accessible, which could be due to the attacks or because of defensive measures PayPal is taking to protect the site, he said. An Anonymous attack earlier today knocked http://paypal.com offline for about an hour, he said.

The planned attack on Amazion.com was announced in an Anonymous tweet posted by Netcraft.

The provocation for attacking Amazon.com appears to be due to the online retailer's decision to start selling a Kindle e-book version of the leaked U.S. State Department cables after it had earlier booted WikiLeaks from its hosted cloud service.

The e-book includes the first 5,000 leaked State Department cables posted by WikiLeaks in tagged, searchable format. Amazon is offering the e-book on its U.K site for 7.37 ($11.62 U.S.).

Anonymous has begun using Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and a newly established Twitter account to announce new DDoS targets. The group's main website anonops.net has been hit with numerous DDoS attacks over the past few days, and yesterday was suspended by its ISP.

Nonetheless, support for Anonymous appears to be growing as has the sophistication and use of its DDoS tools, according to security researchers.
Up to now, the loosely-affiliated group of Internet vigilantes had been more known DDoS attacks on various entertainment industry Websites over copyright enforcement issues, in an effort called Operation Payback.

Earlier this month, Anonymous' organizers announced plans to extend Operation Payback by attacking any organization perceived as attempting to censor WikiLeaks.

Over the past few days, support for the Anonymous group appears to have grown substantially, according to Sean-Paul Correll a security researcher from PandaLabs. Correll has been chronicling the attacks in a blog that is now under a DDoS attack.

The Anonymous group has made available a DDoS tool called LOIC, or Low Orbit Ion Canon, that anyone can use to link their computer into a voluntary botnet for launching DDoS attacks against specific targets.

Security firm Imperva's Hacker Intelligence Initiative, which has been closely tracking the Anonymous Group and its attacks against various Web sites, said that LOIC was originally developed as an open source network stress testing tool. It was recently tweaked to include a central command and control module, Imerva added.

LOIC host GitHub shows more than 37,000 downloads of of the tool set so far. In addition to the downloadable version of LOIC, users can install a JavaScript version of the program that does not require a download, according to Imperva.

"Operation Payback's ability to challenge serious sites and do that simultaneously is very much coupled to the introduction of the new version with its C&C capabilities," said Amichai Schulman, chief technology officer at Imperva in an e-mail. "My speculation is that due to the substantial increase in downloads, it is highly likely this is no longer just a social movement, but also a technical movement like a botnet."

According to Imperva, the hacker group is in the process of coordinating botnets with over 100,000 computers capable of generating 800 MGBPS traffic to increase the attack horsepower. An attack of this scope is likely to better test Amazon's ability to deal with DDoS attacks.

Anonymous has so far claimed responsibility for DDoS attacks against MasterCard, Visa , PayPal, EveryDNS and Swiss payment transaction firm PostFinance . Each of these organizations terminated their services to WikiLeaks after the whistleblower website began posting thousands of leaked classified cables from the U.S. State Department earlier this month.
Anonymous has also launched attacks on the Web sites of U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and the Web sites of the Swedish prosecutors who are pursuing rape charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The attacks resulted in each of the Websites becoming unavailable for varying lengths of time. PostFinance's web site, for instance, was knocked offline for more than 33 hours, while MasterCard's main Website was down for much of Wednesday. A note posted on MasterCard's site suggested that service is still not yet fully restored.

Visa initially appeared to fend off the Anonymous DDoS attacks before it was finally knocked offline yesterday. The site appeared to be working normally this morning.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at [at]jaivijayan , or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His e-mail address is jvijayan[at]computerworld.com .

Read more about cybercrime and hacking in Computerworld's Cybercrime and Hacking Topic Center.

csoonline.com

Wikileaks DDoS tool downloads grow rapidly
John E Dunn
10 December 10

UK users especially active

A disproportionate number of people downloading the open source DIY tool being used to launch DDoS attacks on companies deemed hostile to Wikileaks appear to be based in the UK, new figures have suggested.

According to security company Impreva, the total download for the ‘manual’ version of the Low Orbit Ion Canon (LOIC)tool in its various versions is still tiny by Internet standards at around 33,000 and growing. Not surprisingly, a third or almost 10,000 of those are from users based in the US, but despite its much smaller population the UK comes in second with 3,200.

Other European countries, including Germany, France, Russia, Spain and The Netherlands are all between 1,000 and 2,000 downloads each. Eighty-five percent of downloaders are Windows users.

What is perhaps more alarming is the rate of increase in downloads, which is accelerating. Of the nearly 50,000 people who have now downloaded the tool, roughly 60 percent have happened one 9 and 10 December.

Meanwhile, the server version of LOIC had been downloaded at least 33,000 times as of around 5pm GMT on 9 December. A third Javascript version cannot be measured because it does requires no download.

Anyone in the UK thinking of looking at LOIC should be warned that even downloading it could be illegal under the Computer Misuse Act if that download is discovered and evidence of intent is proved. Proving that would be incredibly hard but the warning stands.

“The “voluntary” botnet is illegal. These attackers are downloading code which is performing an attack. Although they did not write the code, and although they are hiding behind the mask of so-called ideology, they are engaging in activity to disrupt a service,” said Imperva’s CTO, Amichai Shulman.

Realistically, LOIC is a still more of a marketing tool for the Anonymous cause more than a serious botnet tool. The group is likely using involuntary botnets to do most of its DDoS, that is launching attacks using hijacked PCs without their owners being aware that it is happening.

news.techworld.com

Originally Posted by Mid

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested in the Netherlands in connection with cyber attacks on MasterCard and PayPal by Wikileaks sympathisers. According to the Public Prosecution Office, the boy was arrested in The Hague.

Hackers target police websites over WikiLeaks arrest
Dec 10, 2010

THE HAGUE // A police spokesman said hackers have attacked the websites for Dutch police and prosecutors, a day after the arrest of a 16-year-old in The Hague for involvement in a cyberattack on several prominent financial payment websites.

The National Police Service spokesman Dennis Janus says the "hacktivist" group Anonymous "tried to take down" the two sites, apparently using a so-called denial of service attack.

Both sites were sporadically online Friday.

National Prosecutor's Office spokeswoman Desiree Wilhelm says prosecutors are investigating the problems with their website.

Prosecutors said the young hacker police arrested on Thursday has confessed to participating in attacks by WikiLeaks sympathisers on websites including MasterCard, PayPal and Visa, among others.

thenational.ae

i downloaded the "network stress testing" tool the groups are using to carry out the DDOS attacks. The code is less than 1 page..
I typed in the ip of my LAN router and started flooding it, it was brought down immediately. I tried it on another connected PC to the LAN, brought that down too.

Instead of an IP you have the option of typing in a URL or connecting to the "hive". Its quite effective. A small group (10 or more) using this tool would be able to effectively "stress test" a small scale site and see results.

Originally Posted by Mid

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested in the Netherlands in connection with cyber attacks on MasterCard and PayPal by Wikileaks sympathisers.

According to the Public Prosecution Office, the boy was arrested in The Hague.
Dutch teen arrested for pro-Wikileak cyber attacks | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Police arrest second WikiLeaks 'hacktivist'

Dutch police arrested a 19-year-old on suspicion of a cyber attack on a government website, marking the second teenage arrest for such offences linked to the WikiLeaks fallout.

Police arrested the man yesterday afternoon in the municipality of Hoogezand-Sappemeer, suspecting him of being one of the people responsible for an attack on the website of the national prosecutor.

An anonymous group claimed responsibility for the attack on microblogging platform Twitter, saying it was to avenge the arrest of a 16-year-old who had attacked opponents of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, the prosecutor said in a statement.

The 19-year-old is alleged to have incited others to take part in Friday's attack.

Under Dutch law the maximum penalty for a denial of service attack - in which a target computer or website is rendered unusable - is six years in prison.

Cyber attackers, or "hacktivists", have been targeting those they perceive as opponents of WikiLeaks, including companies who in recent days have deprived the organisation of their services.

However, the internet activist group Anonymous, which brought down the websites of credit card giants MasterCard and Visa this week, says it has abandoned its strategy of online attacks.

In an overnight blog post, Anonymous announced a change of strategy, saying it now aims to publish the US diplomatic cables as widely as possible and in ways that makes them as hard as possible to trace.

"We have, at best, given them a black eye. The game has changed. When the game changes, so too must our strategies," said the blog post as it announces "Operation: Leakspin".

xxx.xxx.xx

WikiLeaks supporters abandon cyber attacks
Sunday, 12 December 2010

LONDON: A loose grouping of cyber activists supporting WikiLeaks has abandoned its strategy of online attacks on organisations seen as hostile to the site in favour of spreading the leaked documents far and wide online.

Internet activists operating under the name “Anonymous” temporarily brought down this week the websites of credit card giants MasterCard and Visa — both of which had stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.

In an overnight blog post, Anonymous announced a change of strategy, saying it now aimed to publish parts of the confidential US diplomatic cables as widely as possible and in ways that made them as hard as possible to trace.

“We have, at best, given them a black eye. The game has changed. When the game changes, so too must our strategies,” said the blog post announcing “Operation: Leakspin”.

The activists are now encouraging supporters to search through leaked cables on the WikiLeaks site and publish summaries of ones that have been least exposed, labelling them so they are hard to find by any authority seeking to quash them.

US President Barack Obama called Turkey’s prime minister and Mexico’s president yesterday to discuss the “deplorable action” by WikiLeaks, and said the cable releases should not harm bilateral ties.

“The president expressed his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks and the two leaders agreed that it will not influence or disrupt the close cooperation between the United States and Turkey,” the White House said, referring to Obama’s call with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Obama also telephoned his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon, and the pair “agreed (WikiLeaks’) irresponsible acts should not distract our two countries from our important cooperation,” according to a readout of the call.

The comments were Obama’s most forceful publicised by the White House against the website, which has come in for intense criticism — and support — for its disclosure of secret US diplomatic cables among some 250,000 documents believed to have been supplied by a US Army analyst.

Turkey in particular has been in the spotlight in the wake of the documents dump, which included 7,918 cables from the US embassy in Ankara, the post with the most cables in the leaked stash.

Obama’s call to Erdogan could be seen as an effort to soothe ruffled feathers in Turkey, where officials have railed against some of the information divulged by the documents.

Earlier this month Erdogan furiously denied he had secret accounts in Swiss banks and was involved in fraud, as claimed by US diplomats in cables revealed by WikiLeaks.

thepeninsulaqatar.com

Originally Posted by who

A group, linked with the imageboard 4chan, has undertaken distributed denial-of-service attacks against Paypal, Swiss bank Post Finance and other sites who refused their services to whistleblowing site Wikileaks.

.
A little jailtime is in order for these criminals.

.

The DDoS attacks originally started against the wikileaks site, with government involvement. Is a little jail time in order for those criminals too?

Originally Posted by Mid

“The president expressed his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks and the two leaders agreed that it will not influence or disrupt the close cooperation between the United States and Turkey,” the White House said, referring to Obama’s call with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Obama also telephoned his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon, and the pair “agreed (WikiLeaks’) irresponsible acts should not distract our two countries from our important cooperation,” according to a readout of the call.

Wonder what he told them?
"Can we still be friend even now that you know what we really think about you"

Backers Building Up Cyber Arsenal
12.11.2010

WikiLeaks supporters on Friday downloaded increasing amounts of the spam-shooting software used to attack companies seen as hostile - a development that could challenge even Internet giants such as PayPal and Amazon.com during the crucial Christmas shopping season.

U.S. data security company Imperva says downloads of the attack program used to bombard websites with bogus requests for data have jumped to over 40,000, with thousands of new downloads reported overnight.

"It's definitely increasing," Imperva Web researcher Tal Be'ery said in a telephone interview from Israel.

The freely available software is a critical part of the campaign by "hacktivists" seeking to take revenge on sites they believe have betrayed WikiLeaks, the group that has outraged American officials by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables and military intelligence reports.

Users who download the software essentially volunteer their computers to be used as weapons that volley streams of electronic spam at targeted websites. The more computers, the greater the flow of data requests, and the better chances are of overwhelming the targeted website.

The cyberguerillas, who gather under the name Anonymous, have generally been successful in foiling their enemies. Attacks directed at the main pages of Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. succeeded in making them inaccessible, in MasterCard's case for several hours. Attacks on online payment company PayPal Inc. have periodically rendered part of its website inoperative. Moneybookers.com, another targeted site, was inaccessible Friday.

All four sites have severed their links to WikiLeaks, often citing suspected "terms of use" violations, hurting the group's ability to accept donations. The moves angered WikiLeaks supporters and alarmed free speech advocates, whom claim the companies are caving in to U.S. pressure to muzzle the controversial website.

WikiLeaks has been careful to distance itself from Anonymous, saying "we neither condemn nor applaud these attacks."

A press release circulated under the Anonymous name Friday said the group was acting "to raise awareness about WikiLeaks and the underhanded methods employed by the above companies to impair WikiLeaks' ability to function."

Imperva said Friday that it had monitored Anonymous supporters boasting about bringing in huge numbers of extra computers to back the attacks - something it said might challenge Amazon.com - another site that cut its ties to WikiLeaks - at one of the retailer's busiest times of the year.

But Be'ery stressed the boasts were unconfirmed, and the Anonymous statement said its members did not want to alienate the public by causing online havoc over the holidays.

"Simply put, attacking a major online retailer when people are buying presents for their loved ones would be in bad taste," the Anonymous release said.

Dutch police said Friday they were investigating whether hackers were responsible for taking down the websites of police and prosecutors in the Netherlands after the arrest of a 16-year-old suspected cybercriminal and alleged WikiLeaks supporter.

In Australia, WikiLeaks supporters held rallies Friday in Brisbane and in Sydney, where more than 500 people gathered outside Town Hall, some waving signs that read, "Hands off WikiLeaks, We deserve the truth," and "Don't shoot the messenger."

One man sealed his mouth shut with tape on which the words "NO LEAKS" was written.

Among the most recent newsworthy WikiLeaks revelations was a claim that drug maker Pfizer Inc. hired investigators to dig up dirt on Nigeria's former attorney general in a bid to stop action over a 1996 drug study, and that the U.S. considered taking military action against an arms-laden Ukrainian ship after it was hijacked by Somali pirates two years ago.

The U.S. Department of Justice, meanwhile is considering whether to charge those behind the leaks under the espionage act or other laws, while U.S. diplomats, deeply embarrassed by WikiLeaks' disclosures, have struggled to contain the fallout.

"The deplorable WikiLeaks disclosures put innocent lives at risk, and damage U.S. national security interests," U.S. Ambassador to London Louis Susman wrote in an editorial Friday in The Guardian newspaper. "There is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends."

The U.S. may soon be facing more than WikiLeaks as an opponent.

A former WikiLeaks spokesman plans to launch a rival website Monday called Openleaks that will help anonymous sources deliver sensitive material to public attention. Daniel Domscheit-Berg made the claim in a documentary by Swedish broadcaster SVT airing Sunday but obtained in advance by the AP.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remained in a U.K. jail ahead of a Dec. 14 hearing where he plans to fight Sweden's request to extradite him to face sex crimes allegations.

thisdayonline.info

Originally Posted by lom

Originally Posted by Mid

“The president expressed his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks and the two leaders agreed that it will not influence or disrupt the close cooperation between the United States and Turkey,” the White House said, referring to Obama’s call with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Obama also telephoned his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon, and the pair “agreed (WikiLeaks’) irresponsible acts should not distract our two countries from our important cooperation,” according to a readout of the call.

Wonder what he told them?
"Can we still be friend even now that you know what we really think about you"

maybe Obama promised him to give him a new iPad

Sox First: Wikileaks backlash: the first cyber war

Oh dear God, how this made me laugh!

"The United States is pleased to announce that
it will host UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day
event in 2011, from May 1-3, Washington, D.C.

"The theme for next year's commemoration will
be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers,
New Barriers. The US places technology and
innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic
and development efforts. New media has empowered
citizens around the world to report on their
circumstances, express opinions on world events,
and exchange information in environments
sometimes hostile to such exercises
of individuals’ right to freedom of expression.

"At the same time, we are concerned about the
determination of some governments to censor and
silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow
of information."

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Oh dear God, how this made me laugh!


"At the same time, we are concerned about the
determination of some governments to censor and
silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow
of information."

[/quote]

That only applies to the bad guys who oppose US interests.

The good guys (USA) should be able to imprison and/or execute anyone who embarrasses them in the media.

Greek designer who issued “Anonymous” press release caught by metadata Jason Walsh
December 16, 2010

A 3D video game character designer in Greece has been arrested in connection with cyber attacks in defence of WikiLeaks, associated with the “Anonymous” phenomenon.

The graphic artist, Alex Tapanaris, was reportedly arrested by Greek police after he anonymously issued a press release explaining the “Anonymous” cyber community.

Unfortunately for Mr Tapanaris, metadata in the file revealed his name – and the fact that he used Open Office to compose it. (See screen grab below.)


Metadata from the PDF file

Anonymous hit the headlines recently when they targeted computers including those of Mastercard, PayPal and others with “distributed denial of service attacks” in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The so-called “Infowar” broke out because Mr Assange has been arrested by British police on charges pertaining to an alleged sexual assault in Sweden.

NewsWhip called Mr Tapanaris but his phone appears to have been disconnected. NewsWhip also attempted to contact Mr Tapanaris by e-mail and instant message.

Mr Tapanris’ web site disappeared shortly after his arrest. British web site Thinq.co.uk attempted to contact Mr. Tapanaris yesterday but he hung-up on them, saying only “No comment.” Seems like things are moving on…
Searches using the Wayback Machine did not produce a copy of Tapanaris’ site.

However, Google cache revealed a version of his web site.

According to DNS records, Tapanaris’ domain first appeared on the internet on 9 March 2009.


Some of Mr Tapanaris' work

In a separate development, British police are to investigate the attacks on web sites perpetrated in the name of the group.

The press release can be read in full or downloaded from NewsWhip here.

newswhip.ie

Originally Posted by Mid

Some of Mr Tapanaris' work

It is dead wrong when the authorities arrests a guy who creates such nice game characters

^ Not a very hardcore type is he....leaving meta data lying about...rather inept. I'd suggest he's also not a significant person....but then the anonymous thing was never any of the serious hackers.

FBI Raids Web Hosts Over Wikileaks Advocates' Operation Payback
Marshall Kirkpatrick
December 29, 2010



The FBI has reportedly raided a Texas web host and worked with international authorities to search servers in pursuit of the anonymous leaders of the group Anonymous, who blocked the website of PayPal earlier this month in retribution to the company's decision to stop its customers from making donations to Wikileaks.

That according to an affidavit posted in part by the legal watchdog website The Smoking Gun today. Dallas host Tailor Made Services was raided on the 16th of December, the site reported.

"These coordinated attacks, investigators allege," writes The Smoking Gun, "amount to felony violations of a federal law covering the 'unauthorized and knowing transmission of code or commands resulting in intentional damage to a protected computer system.'" How several hours of inaccessibility constituted damage to the system was not described in the part of the affidavit posted online.

According to the affidavit, the investigation included the co-operation of authorities in Canada, France and Germany.

As for code, the LOIC DDoS software believed to be used by Operation Anonymous remain available on the social code site Github and on SourceForge. Thousands of people have downloaded it from those sites.

The software allegedly makes it easy for a user to donate their computer's bandwidth to repeatedly messaging a target server until it is rendered inaccessible by other users.

The ephemeral group Anonymous, or Operation Payback, co-ordinated a series of such attacks earlier this month against Paypal, Mastercard, Visa and others. These global leaders in money transfer were criticized for preventing their customers from donating money to the controversial website Wikileaks, despite the site having been convicted of no crimes.

Clearly a sufficient number of people in the FBI believe the denial of service attacks may constitute felony-level damage to computer systems, but others have argued that the campaign falls broadly within the tradition of non-violent civil disobedience and political protest.

FBI Agent Allyn Lynd, whom The Smoking Gun reports signed the affidavit, has been in the technology news media before. He lead a 2009 raid on at least two Texas web hosts over an alleged federal crime concerning unpaid bills to AT&T and Verizon. Those raids disrupted a number of co-located but unrelated businesses, including some that allege the disruption cost them millions of dollars.

In this latest affidavit, Lynd argued again that he may need to disrupt some other servers temporarily in order to achieve his goal of determining which servers were relevant to his investigation. Due to the document's incomplete publication, whether any sense of irony was appreciated is unclear.

readwriteweb.com