Operation Payback Disrupts Christmas Shopping
Operation Payback, initiated by an anonymous group of hackers that launched an unprecedented cyber war against the websites that banned the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, makes Christmas shopping online or with credit cards a little harder.
Visa, MasterCard, PayPal were all targeted by the hackers in a coordinated action in one of the busiest shopping days.
One of the payment services said that the attack resulted in a complete loss of service for the clients, even though MasterCard reassured that its cards are perfectly functional, and were still secure.
According to a Twitter message, “www.visa.com is down.” The message was retweeted various times which could mean it is all a coordinated attack.
MasterCard’s slogan is also mocked by the “hacktivists,” saying that there are things WikiLeaks can not do, but for that there is Operation Payback.
The websites targeted by the hackers could crash if enough people use them at once, and that is exactly what the hackers are doing by directing other people’s computers to the targeted site.
A spokesman for this organization said that all sites that are complying with the policy of shutting down WikiLeaks will be targeted by the cyber war.
They also consider their action as a strong stance against censorship and in favor of freedom of expression on the internet.
Their action is not financial motivated and doesn’t even aim at destroying those sites, but only at sending them a very strong wake-up call.
Spokespeople for MasterCard and Visa said that though small disruptions have been noted, and some payments slowed down, the activity still goes on.
WikiLeaks has been under a lot of pressure these past few days as Julian Assange was arrested in the United Kingdom, and the website was banished from various servers, domain names providers and payment services.
Still, the activity continues and WikiLeaks goes on publishing documents that embarrass various governments of the world.
Yesterday, a little light was cast upon the controversial release of the author of the Lockerbie terrorist attack in the 1980s, as documents were published revealing threats made by Libya against the UK, that would have been carried out if the terrorist had died in British prison.
WikiLeaks promised to continue its activity, and stressed out that these predicaments only makes them stronger.
