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Anorak News | Can 4Chan Save Julian Assange And Avenge The Wikileaks Founder’s Arrest?

Can 4Chan Save Julian Assange And Avenge The Wikileaks Founder’s Arrest?

by | 8th, December 2010

HAVE no fear Wikileaks, the chaps from 4chan are here to support free speech and truth (and once Julian Assange has decided what that is, he’ll let you know) by distributing denial-of-service attacks against Paypal , Mastercard and Swiss bank PostFinance. All three have declined to process Wikileaks cash. They are all capitalist enterprises, and Assange, an arch capitalist, will surely be sympathetic to the market forces that influence their decisions.

On 4chan, “Coldblood” vows that any organ “bowing down to government pressure” is a legitimate target for their payback.

The campaign is called Operation Paybaks, or Operation Avenge Assange.

Knocking down Paypal is no easy thing. It is a giant on the web. The ThePayPalBlog.com was hit and did go down. Postfinance is a Swiss bank and was offline for around 16 hours. Also offline is the website of the Swedish prosecutor’s office, the Åklagarmyndigheten. That’s the institution that has decided Assange has alleged rape charges to answer. (You can read the history of that case here.) Says a spokesman for it:

“Our website was overloaded on Tuesday night and our hosting company then decided to shut it down. We don’t know the cause of the overload, but are now looking into it.”

Mastercard is under attack. @Anon_Operation weeted:

“WE ARE GLAD TO TELL YOU THAT http://www.mastercard.com/ is DOWN AND IT’S CONFIRMED! #ddos #wikileaks Operation:Payback(is a bitch!) #PAYBACK”

Wikileaks was itself hit by a cyber attack, believed to come from a hacker of hacking group called Jester.

It remains to be seen how effective cyber attacks are on helping or hindering Assange and Wikileaks. But one thing is for certain: Assange is not reading the web right now. He’s in a jail…

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Supporters of Julian Assange Wikileaks founder Julian Assange outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London after he was remanded in custody today after appearing in court on an extradition warrant.



Posted: 8th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Technology Comment | TrackBack | Permalink