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BY CHARLES MCKEAGUE
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Is it the beginning of an all-out cyber war? Online hackers are extracting revenge against financial websites supporting a crackdown on Wikileaks.
“It appears to be coming from Operation Payback, which earlier this week put on its website kind of a call to arms. They said that the first serious info war is now engaged...”
Among the targets so far -- MasterCard and Paypal. PayPal says it was pressured by the U.S. State Department to cut ties with WikiLeaks.
But a writer for the Christian Science Monitor says blame PayPal – not the State Department. In an op ed Matthew Humphries says organizations need to think twice before cutting off WikiLeaks.
“The State Department contacted PayPal and told them Wikileaks is performing illegal activities. ... PayPal cut off the site. … PayPal should remain independent and react only to facts, not requests. The same is true of any service working with Wikileaks or any other organization that has question marks hanging over its practices.”
MasterCard followed PayPal’s lead and said it would no longer process donations to WikiLeaks. Tuesday morning, Mastercard’s website was hacked, and shut down by a group of so-called “hacktivists”. TIME explains the attack.
“The way it works is that by launching a DDoS, a site is flooded with so many page requests that it becomes overwhelmed and drops offline.”
Many in the media say this is the beginning of a cyber war between WikiLeaks supporters – and governments around the world. Operation: Payback was quoted as saying “we will fire at anything or anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks.”
Fox News explains how the group is backing up that statement.
“There are other cyber attacks underway. The Swedish prosecutor in the Julian Assange case, his website has been attacked. The lawyer representing those two women who first made their complaints to the Swedish prosecutor, his website was attacked. So there is definitely a WikiLeaks response, or attack underway by these people throughout, not necessarily the U.S. but the whole world because it looks like Operation Payback is based in the U.K.”
And Twitter could be next -- according to Operation Payback – and the group published this video -- which describes its stance on information in an ever-changing cyber world.
“In these modern times, access to the Internet is fast becoming a basic human right. Just like any other basic human right we believe it is wrong to infringe upon it. … To move to censor content, based on your own prejudices is at best laughably impossible. The unjust restrictions you impose on us will meet with disaster and only strengthen our resolve to disobey and rebel against your tyranny.” (YouTube / AnonOfTheAbove)
So are you worried about a cyber war involving WikiLeaks? Or do you support it?
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Transcript by Newsy.
