I'm reminded of the country song whose chorus goes:<p>"I've got friends in low places."<p>--<p>[1] I agree, as noted by Nathan below, that this isn't helping Wikileaks' reputation any (despite, of course, WL having nothing to do with this). That's the problem with (and sometimes, benefit of) friends in low places -- no one ever accused them of being sophisticated.<p>[2] A related thought.... The system consisting of [ Person who leaks info + Wikileaks ] seems to be a modern instance of the Robin Hood archetype. Instead of "robbing from the rich to give to the poor," this system takes information from the powerful and gives it to the (relatively) powerless. Just as with Robin Hood, there's room for debate about the moral characteristics of this approach (particularly on the taking side). And just as with every Robin Hood reincarnation, this system is despised by modern aristocrats.<p>As I believe pg noted in an essay, during the time-setting of Robin Hood, wealth was nearly a zero-sum game. Today, wealth is not zero-sum, but <i>power</i> still is -- making this archetype all the more fitting.
Is it wrong to think of this at a very high level, where basically the internet as an system that relies on information to function properly has turned on its immune system?<p>I know this is a very meta idea, and its extremely easy to break this down to the component entities (Visa corporation, thousands of individuals, etc). But under the meta concept, wouldn't that be like individual t-cells talking to each other?
So I'm some average merchant, anywhere in the world.<p>Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family.<p>Aside from your personal feelings, what are the odds I blame Visa, and what are the odds I blame Wikileaks? All of a sudden Visa doesn't work, MasterCard doesn't work, some sites can't be accessed, sometimes the net is slower than it should, etc.<p>Maybe I'm smoking crack, but from where I sit, the more hackers thrash out over WL, the more ticked millions of people are going to become at both Wikileaks and the hackers involved.<p>This is a very sad development. People of all opinions need to take an active hand in trying to settle this down as quickly as possible. This is no good for anybody. No good can come from this.<p>EDIT: If you want to support the idea of leaking to fix governments (and not the massive attack of government nodes through information overload), which I do, then WL needs a standard of conduct: what it will and will not publish. It needs a standard of acceptable behavior: what cyber protests are in line with it's mission and what protests are not.<p>Without these things, I can't support WL, they're going to lose track of their message and the larger media narrative, and they are going spectacularly shoot themselves and the rest of us in the foot. This is becoming dangerously nihilistic.
What this whole wikileaks payment processing issue has made me aware of is how bottle-necked this whole area is.<p>A client of mine a couple of years ago selling personal protection equipment (smoke & hazmat masks, mostly). They were based out of Australia and selling globally. Apparently they breached some US advertising restriction with one of their products (disposable hygienic suit) by having the words bird flu in the description.<p>Simultaneously to contacting (apparently they tried to contact earlier during US work hours), they contacted paypal and had the account shut down entirely. The US was never a major market so they put a big red sign on the product page: "Not for Sale in the USA." Getting paypal back online took weeks. Whatever department shut them down was not concerned with reversing the damage and paypal seemed like they knew which side to stay on.<p>Basically, paypal (and apparently visa & mastercard) is the on/off switch that various players within the US government can use. It does not take a high level one off phone call. This is an issue.
Considering that the Jesus was the original revolutionary and one of his major acts was throwing the money changers out of the Temple, I am stunned about the internalized commercialization of Christmas and the comments that put into question the current protest.<p>And I am saying this even though I hate DDos viscerally, my business was a victim of such an attack. But I have to say, as long as no one gets killed or injured this is a legitimate form of protest.
I wonder how much money Visa and Mastercard have to lose before they regret their decision.<p>For the attackers, instead of positioning the DDOS attack as revenge, you should give them as an easy-out. Stop blocking wikileaks and we'll stop the DDOS. Since Visa/Mastercard are loosing millions of dollars for each hour they are down, it would turn the issue into a simple business decision and they could change their position without losing face.
I find outrageous that compagnies like VISA or MASTERCARD take the right to forbid people to do what _THEY_ want with _THEIR OWN_ money.<p>Please continue the DDOS until they bankrupt.
The attack on MC supposedly took down SecureCode affecting those payments... Seems like Visa's equivalent, Verified by Visa is still up:<p><a href="https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partner=default&resize=yes" rel="nofollow">https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partn...</a>
Does anybody have any details on the the technical side of these attacks and what happens when anon decides to fire all phasers at a target? My impression is of a loose group of individuals herding a diverse range of botnets and attacks which they bring to force on command from an agreed upon leadership (or a target consensus is reached)?<p>Are they using the latest bunch of 'best-practices' to take down a site? (e.g. slowloris, UDP flooding, DNS or TCP amplification, TCP SYN attacks, whatever is flavour of the month)<p>With all the fluff and the bluster being written about them I haven't seen a good technical analysis so I'd love to hear any info you might have.
It's not surprising to me why the shutdown of Wikileaks donation channels, as opposed to TSA or any of the other civil liberties breaches, triggered such rage.<p>The answer is simple: People get fucking pissed when they can't spend their money where they want to.<p>And it holds throughout history.
Rumor has it the next target is Authorize.net (I assume not because anything they did but because that's how you actually take down the ability for Visa and MC to function). That would be quite dramatic to say the least.
I should point out that Visa itself hasn't actually decided to stop payments to WikiLeak- only Visa Europe, its subsidiary. The people that run Visa.com are only responsible for selling Visa Europe the rights to use the name.
There are so many active topics on the DDoS's happening today. I now wonder. What happens if Anonymous wins? If, under the pressure, Visa gives and succumbs to their wishes? What happens then?
Both Visa and MasterCard are down. This just shows how fragile the internet is and how 'easy' is to shut down the entire economy and system.<p>The point is that coordinated attack by terrorists or plain old criminals can cripple the entire world's economy and there is no easy and effective way to prevent it.<p>We do need to think about how internet can be re-organized to be 100% distributed system to prevent this of happening again.
Looks like Paypal is down too. Well only the server that redirects you to the secure page.<p>Just use the full path "<a href="http://www.paypal.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.paypal.com</a> or "<a href="https://www.paypal.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.paypal.com</a><p>We took down Chevron by spray painting over one of the signs at a gas Station. CHEVRON IS DOWN!!!!!
DDoS strikes me as a violent form of protest.<p>Has anyone started a non-violent protest (offline or digitally) for WikiLeaks?<p>EDIT: Rethinking my statement on DDoS as violent. I am still interested in knowing if there are other non-DDoS protests surrounding WikiLeaks.
I pity the poor sys-admins whose pagers are interrupting their late-night hacking. Visa & MC probably don't care at all (they're swimming in plastic money!), its the front-line guys that are feeling this the most!
Does this actually hurt visa? Wouldn't visa.com just Be a showcase type website eg "hey here's what visa is, here are some ringtones you candownload"<p>I'd imagine all their transaction processing happens elsewhere.
CapitalOne account center is down for me; I was trying to log in to access a Visa card. Coincidence? I have no idea why they'd be synchronously connected, but odd timing.
You have to think that paypal is also being attacked, in that case I am pretty impressed that they are managing to stay up while mastercard and visa get sunk.
And I haven't even seen any comments on the possibility of this being a smear campaign to tarnish Wikileaks further in the media?<p>I'm just saying, if you wanted to completely discredit an organization what's the fastest way to go about doing so?<p>Step 1: Manufacture accusations against it's founder for which there is no defence, where the individual is guilty before a trial even begins. Oh, I don't know, how about accusing a man of a sex crime? (Especially a funny looking foreign one!)<p>Step 2: Manufacture scary "hackers" who do scary "hacker" things. Hide your children!<p>Step 3: Let CNN and Fox do what they're paid to do. Spin and spin and spin.
Finally something has pissed off enough geeks. I thought the government's lack of respect towards due-process, the systematic breakdown of basic freedom or the massive wealth transfer to the rich via dollar printing/bailout would've done it.<p>V for Vendetta.
There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
A co-worker Engineer just went down to get frozen yogurt. They couldn't process his card. Apparently they route transactions through their domain DNS?<p>Suddenly corporate powers don't seem as strong. It's amazing how vulnerable something man made is.
This is a weird subject because it is totally dual sided.<p>1) It promotes freedom of speech and taking action as a community to promote change.<p>2) It is completely illegal which goes against the laws and freedoms they are trying to promote.<p><i></i> Right Idea - Wrong Method <i></i>