Anonymous attacks PayPal in 'Operation Avenge Assange'
Wikileaks = 'freedom and democracy', say 4chan anarchists
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Anonymous has launched a broad-ranging campaign in support of Wikileaks, starting with a DDoS assault on a PayPal website.
The denial of service attack lasted for eight hours and resulted in numerous service disruptions, Panda Security reports.
The group, spawned from anarchic message board 4chan, first came to prominence with a long running campaign against the church of Scientology, its beef with the Hubbard faithful centering on their attempts to censor content from the net.
PayPal's decision to stop processing donations for Wikileaks following its controversial publication of US diplomatic cables as well as the withdrawal of hosting services by Amazon are seen on 4chan and elsewhere as attempts to censor the whistle-blowing site, a development Anonymous intends to oppose. It said on its website:
While we don’t have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency and we counter censorship. The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we can not say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas.We can not let this happen. This is why our intention is to find out who is responsible for this failed attempt at 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.
Operation Avenge Assange will incorporate a combination of political lobbying (writing to MPs etc), a consumer boycott of PayPal as well as practical support (mirroring) and advocacy for Wikileaks. The traditional denial of service attacks will also come into play with an assault against the ThePayPalblog.com. ®
COMMENTS
boycott
As a member of a rights group that tries to organise donations via Pay Pal (and it doesn't friggin work) I'd welcome a worldwide boycott of Pay Pal, e-bay and its other scam-magnet affiliate, gumtree. They all deserve it for their own annoying ways.
with a slight difference
Anon doesnt have money. They dont lobby senators and MPs on golf courses. its beyond the realm of possibility that the things they want will be quietly greenlit into law by civil servants without review.
They also dont have unified agreement. If you dont support Assange, then you dont have to campaign. its not like the FDA or GlaxoSmithKline-Beecham, where if you disagree with something you can just not do it.
So no, its not a valid comparison. they can DDoS and subvert, but they cant threaten trade embargoes. they cant recall your countries debt or intimate that unless you sell them cheap _resource x_ you'll get it from elsewhere and you'll buy everything else their country sells from somewhere else too.
Anonymous' agenda, and its effectiveness in pursuing that agenda is only as limited as the drive and commitment of each individual member _to each specific cause_.
Genius tag because you're obviously being wilfully obtuse.
Yeah, but...
I prefer the reasons why Anonymous are doing this rather than the reasons why Governments are trying to halt the activities of WikiLeaks and character-assassinate Assange.
Personally I think the world will be a better more open place in 3 years time once the WikiLeaks dust has settled.
Is it time for new Assange devil/angel icons on the comments here?
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