Hackers strike back to support WikiLeaks founder

[P F Tinmore]

LONDON – WikiLeaks supporters struck back Wednesday at perceived enemies of founder Julian Assange, attacking the websites of Swedish prosecutors, the Swedish lawyer whose clients have accused Assange of sexual crimes and the Swiss authority that froze Assange's bank account.

MasterCard, which pulled the plug on its relationship with WikiLeaks on Tuesday, also seemed to be having severe technological problems.

The online vengeance campaign appeared to be taking the form of denial of service attacks in which computers across the Internet are harnessed — sometimes surreptitiously — to jam target sites with mountains of requests for data, knocking them out of commission.

Per Hellqvist, a security specialist with the firm Symantec, said a loose network of web activists called "Anonymous" appeared to be behind the attacks. The group, which has previously focused on the Church of Scientology and the music industry, has promised to come to Assange's aid by knocking offline websites seen as hostile to WikiLeaks.

"While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons," the group said in a statement on its website. "We want transparency and we counter 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."

Hackers strike back to support WikiLeaks founder - Yahoo! News

 

[Jarhead]

Such is the backlash of our joining the rest of the world in outrage for something we are supposed to support....freedom of speech.

We should have recognized the err of our own ways when it happened and found ways to ensure classified docs are not stolen as opposed to making a big deal over the fact that someone published them....and our elected officials should have made it clear that we support freedom of speech and that WE are rtespponsible for what happened....and no one else. It would have sent a very strong message to the rest of the world....WE BELIEVE IN WHAT WE BELIEVE IN...EVEN WHEN IT WORKS AGAINST US.I mean, really...think about it....those docs could have just as easily been sold or given to North Korea...or Al Quaeda....would we have screamed "UNFAIR" if THEY read them or posted them?

We are guilty of transferring our anger at ourselves for letting those docs get out to those that capitalized on them....and we lost sight of the whole "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" thing.

 

[JBeukema]

xkcd: Wikileaks