Warlogs

[ewmayer]

What we need is to organize DDOS (distributed denial-of-shopping) attacks against Amazon and the like.

[Xyzzy]

I was preparing for my annual bout of holiday online shopping late last week, and after reading about Amazon.com`s action vis-a-vis Wikileaks, I diverted my planned purchases away from there…

Amazon lost a modest purchase from us today. It is only a drop in the bucket, but enough drops might make a difference.

Besides, B&H rocks. And they matched Amazon's price.

[ewmayer]

My older sister put a wishlist on Amazon, so I just took the list over to secondspin.com and got these DVDs, all used, for less than $30 total:

Seinfeld: Seasons 1 and 2 [4 Discs]
Good Shepherd [Widescreen]
Great Escape [Widescreen]
Hurt Locker

If you think you might want to buy some used DVDs from the above site, note that almost always have some special promotion going which they e-mail to registered customers (but anyone can use the promo code) – current one is $10 off any purchase of $40 or more, promo code is DECTEN. (Last day for that is Dec 9th). Since they always offer free shipping for orders of $30 or more, any order qualifying for the promo gets free shipping, too. My order above was just over $40 before the promo.

[Xyzzy]

We are trying to not use Visa or MasterCard right now…

[ewmayer]

And speaking of MasterCard...

Hackers launch online attacks upon MasterCard, other perceived enemies of WikiLeaks' Assange

LONDON (AP) -- Hackers rushed to the defense of WikiLeaks on Wednesday, launching attacks on MasterCard, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank and others who have acted against the site and its jailed founder Julian Assange.

Internet "hacktivists" operating under the label "Operation Payback" claimed responsibility in a Twitter message for causing severe technological problems at the website for MasterCard, which pulled the plug on its relationship with WikiLeaks a day ago.

MasterCard acknowledged "a service disruption" involving its Secure Code system for verifying online payments, but spokesman James Issokson said consumers could still use their credit cards for secure transactions.

The online attacks are part of a wave of support for WikiLeaks that is sweeping the Internet. Twitter was choked with messages of solidarity for the group, while the site's Facebook page hit 1 million fans.

Late Wednesday, Operation Payback itself appeared to run into problems, as many of its sites went down. It was unclear who was behind the counterattack.
...
The pro-WikiLeaks vengeance campaign on Wednesday appeared to be taking the form of denial-of-service attacks in which computers 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 network of web activists called Anonymous -- to which Operation Payback is affiliated -- appeared to be behind many of the attacks. The group, which has previously focused on the Church of Scientology and the music industry, is 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. "We want transparency and we counter censorship ... 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."

The website for Swedish lawyer Claes Borgstrom, who represents the two women at the center of Assange's sex crimes case, was unreachable Wednesday.

The Swiss postal system's financial arm, Postfinance, which shut down Assange's bank account on Monday, was also having trouble. Spokesman Alex Josty said the website buckled under a barrage of traffic Tuesday.

"Yesterday it was very, very difficult, then things improved overnight," he told the AP. "But it's still not entirely back to normal."

My Comment: Apparently they also managed to bring down Visa`s website ... note it doesn`t look like any actual transaction-processing services are affected, at least so far.


The Electronic Freedom Foundation (which sponsors the prime prizes which have greatky helped GIMPS in its PR efforts, among other things) released a statement on the controversy yesterday:

Join EFF in Standing up Against Internet Censorship

Over the past few weeks, we here at EFF have watched as whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has fueled an emotionally charged debate about the secrecy of government information and the people's right to know. We have welcomed this debate, and the fact that there have been myriad views is the embodiment of the freedom of expression upon which this country was founded.

However, we've been greatly troubled by a recent shift in focus. The debate about the wisdom of releasing secret government documents has turned into a massive attack on the right of intermediaries to publish truthful information. Suddenly, WikiLeaks has become the Internet's scapegoat, with a Who's Who of American and foreign companies choosing to shun the site.

Let's be clear — in the United States, at least, WikiLeaks has a fundamental right to publish truthful political information. And equally important, Internet users have a fundamental right to read that information and voice their opinions about it. We live in a society that values freedom of expression and shuns censorship. Unfortunately, those values are only as strong as the will to support them — a will that seems to be dwindling now in an alarming way.

On Friday, we wrote about Amazon's disappointing decision to yank hosting services from WikiLeaks after a phone call from a senator's office. Since then, a cascade of companies and organizations has backed away from WikiLeaks. A public figure called for the assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa axed WikiLeaks’ accounts. EveryDNS.net pulled Wikileaks’ DNS services. Unknown sources continue to cripple WikiLeaks with repeated denial of service attacks. Even the Library of Congress, normally a bastion of public access to information, is blocking WikiLeaks.

There has been a tremendous backlash against WikiLeaks from governments around the world. In the United States, lawmakers have rashly proposed a law that threatens legitimate news reporting well beyond WikiLeaks. We expect to see similar efforts in other countries. Like it or not, WikiLeaks has become the emblem for one of the most important battles for our rights that is likely to come along in our lifetimes. We cannot sit this one out.

[Xyzzy]

…"hacktivists"…

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

We are trying to not use Visa or MasterCard right now…

Just use Paypal for everything.

[ewmayer]

Pirates’ Catch Exposed Route of Arms in Sudan Conflict: It was September 2008 and a band of Somali pirates made a startling discovery.

The Ukrainian freighter they had just commandeered in the Gulf of Aden was packed with weapons, including 32 Soviet-era battle tanks, and the entire arsenal was headed for the regional government in southern Sudan. The Ukrainian and Kenyan governments vigorously denied that, insisting that the tanks were intended for the Kenyan military.

“This is a big loss for us,” said Alfred Mutua, a spokesman for the Kenyan government, at the time.

But it turns out the pirates were telling the truth — and the Kenyans and Ukrainians were not. According to several secret State Department cables made public by WikiLeaks, the tanks not only were headed to southern Sudan, but they were the latest installment of several underground arms shipments. By the time the freighter was seized, 67 T-72 tanks had already been delivered to bolster southern Sudan’s armed forces against the government in Khartoum, an international pariah for its human rights abuses in Darfur.

Bush administration officials knew of the earlier weapons transactions and chose not to shut them down, an official from southern Sudan asserted in an interview, and the cables acknowledge the Kenyan officials’ assertions that they had kept American officials informed about the deal. But once the pirates exposed the arms pipeline through Kenya, the Obama administration protested to the Ukrainian and Kenyan governments, even threatening sanctions, the cables show.

Vann H. Van Diepen, a senior State Department official, presented the Ukrainians with a sales contract that showed southern Sudan as the recipient, according to a November 2009 cable from the American Embassy in Kiev. When they dismissed it as a forgery, Mr. Van Diepen “showed the Ukrainians cleared satellite imagery of T-72 tanks unloaded in Kenya, transferred to railyards for onward shipment, and finally in South Sudan,” the cable said, referring to the early deliveries of the weapons. “This led to a commotion on the Ukrainian side.”

[Xyzzy]

Just use Paypal for everything.

http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/...kileaks-funds/

The account is still "restricted".

[ixfd64]

Wow, and you'd expect major companies like PayPal and Visa some decent DDoS protection...

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by wblipp

But so what? Is any of this really a surprise? Your points all strike me as confirmation of what any thoughtful observer would have suspected. What's the motivation of the leaker?

My powder's still dry William

Sundance