Inside 'Anonymous': tales from within the group taking aim at Amazon and Mastercard. "Just don't use my name, OK, please?
" said the person on the other end of the phone. "I don't want this to get out. " His cause for concern? He'd helped produce some innocuous content - nothing actionable legally in any way - for "Anonymous", the vague online group spawned by 4Chan's /b/ forums. The real reason he was worried wasn't that he thought law enforcement might find out. How do I know?
One thing both my interviewees had in common is recent contact with higher education: one is still a student in the UK, while the other recently left a British university. My main guide we'll call an0n (his chosen name for our conversation, though not his online handle). The choosing of a target is a messy process - you could barely call a process except that it has an outcome (or sometimes none). They get lost in the flow: these chatrooms have up to 3,000 people, and the questions come in a stream and pass by in a river of commentary, observations, links and jokes.
Anonymous Wikileaks supporters explain web attacks. 10 December 2010Last updated at 18:39 'Coldblood', a member of the group Anonymous, tells Jane Wakefield why he views its attacks on Visa and Mastercard as defence of Wikileaks.
A group of pro-Wikileaks activists who coordinated a series of web attacks have explained their actions. The Anonymous group said they were not hackers but "average internet citizens" who felt motivated to act because of perceived injustices against Wikileaks. The group said it had no interest in stealing credit card details or attacking critical infrastructure.
The details were posted online by one of the many factions claiming to carry out the attacks. "Anonymous is not a group, but rather an internet gathering," it said in a statement published on 10 December. It said the ongoing attacks were a "symbolic action" targeted at corporate website that had withdrawn services from Wikileaks. "We do not want to steal your personal information or credit card numbers. Numbers game. Julian Assange supporters plan protests worldwide. People hold images of Julian Assange in front of their faces at a demonstration in Brisbane, Australia.
Photograph: Steve Gray/EPA Protests will be held around the world today against the detention of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. Demonstrations are planned in the capitals of Spain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Peru to demand Assange's release, the re-establishment of the WikiLeaks domain name and the restoration of Visa and Mastercard credit services to allow supporters to donate money to the whistleblowing site. A statement on the Spanish-language website Free WikiLeaks said: "We seek the liberation of Julian Assange in United Kingdom territory.
" The website called on protesters to gather at 6pm (17.00 GMT) in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville and three other Spanish cities. Assange is in Wandsworth prison in south London after being refused bail on Tuesday. Web Attacks Test PayPal's Defenses. Coming next: A swarm of leaks. Call of Duty cyber attack prompts arrest of boy, 17. 9 December 2010Last updated at 14:10 The cyber attack affected online players of Call of Duty A teenager has been arrested in connection with a cyber attack which put the online version of the computer game Call of Duty out of action.
The 17-year-old was arrested in the Beswick area of Manchester by the Metropolitan Police's central e-crime unit earlier. It followed a "denial of service" incident, which saw large numbers of people unable to play the game online. Games company Activision contacted police in September this year. Denial of service attacks are aimed at making websites unusable. The attack came about via a malicious program called "Phenom Booter", which was also being offered for sale on a web forum which allowed those playing Call of Duty to score more points while stopping other people playing the game.
Detectives established that the server was hosted within the UK and further investigation traced the IP address more specifically to the Greater Manchester area. Joining Pro-WikiLeaks Attacks Is as Easy as Clicking a Button. A screenshot of an online application to participate in Anonymous's denial of service attack against companies that cut off services to Wikileaks.
This page comes complete with it targeted at PayPal's payment infrastructure. (Click the photo for a larger version).Screenshot: Wired.com In a Web 2.0 twist in the ongoing attempts to punish Visa, Mastercard, Amazon and PayPal for cutting off donations to WikiLeaks, those seeking revenge by turning their computers into a traffic-flooding zombie no longer even have to download software. Instead they can just visit the right webpage and let JavaScript, the lingua franca of the interactive web, do the work for them. Those who have been joining in the so-called Operation Payback attacks Wednesday, Thursday and Friday on the companies have been mostly relying on a downloadable tool. Anonymous’ DDoS tool allow members to connect to the botnet voluntarily, rather than mobilizing hijacked zombie machines, as traditional DDoS tools do.