Twitter account launches WikiLeaks parody

Twitter is known for its parody accounts. Some of them are so popular that their targets sometimes ask that the operator of the fake account make it clear it is a joke. Think @BPGlobalPR.

Twitter does police this: The rule is that parody accounts should not deceive or confuse users.

There probably will be no such request in this case: With the corporate websites of Visa and MasterCard under apparent cyber attack Wednesday from alleged WikiLeaks supporters, someone started @wikileakcables.

"Way to go hacktivists! You're keeping it classy with operation #payitforward.  Niceness is contagious! #wikileaks," was the first update in the account. Reads another update: "Once we take down all the credit card companies, it will be back to the barter system! What's a rabbit pelt worth these days?" And another: "Diner's Club, you're next!!!"

In the meantime, Twitter apparently didn't think one account was too humorous: It has suspended @Anon_Operation, the account purportedly being used by the hackers to organize attacks. It soon returned as @Anon_Operationn, presenting Twitter with a classic whack-a-mole dilemma.

Twitter declined to comment on why it suspended the account. A person familiar with the situation said the final tweet from @Anon_Operation included a link to a file containing consumer credit card information.

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Operation Bank-Troll: Rumored leak of MasterCard numbers is Web attack in the name of WikiLeaks

'Operation: Payback claims to have shut down Visa website in defense of WikiLeaks

'Operation: Payback' announces on Twitter planned Web attack on Visa

-- Jessica Guynn

Photo: Activists who support the free flow of information on Tuesday rallied near Westminster Magistrates Court in London where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was denied bail after appearing on an extradition warrant. Credit: Kirsty Wigglesworth / Associated Press

 

Operation Bank-Troll: rumored leak of MasterCard numbers is Web-attack in the name of WikiLeaks

Operation: Payback is being followed by Operation Bank-Troll -- an online effort to spread a rumor through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and other social media websites that MasterCard has been hacked and credit-card numbers have been leaked. 

On Twitter, some messages claiming that MasterCard numbers had been leaked included links to a PasteBin.com, a file sharing website where hundreds of numbers and dates were posted -- numbers MasterCard says are fake.

One image circulating on Twitter described how to take part in Operation Bank-Troll step-by-step in an effort to trick MasterCard users into canceling their credit cards.

MasterCard has also taken to Twitter to deny the rumors, which have been dubbed Operation Bank-Toll on various websites and in images passed around online.

In response to a message from Drew Olanoff, who tweeted:

looks like a huge dump of mastercard data was posted online. check your statements closely kids.

MasterCard wrote:

@thatdrew Rumors of security breach are false. Numbers published fake. Customer information is secure. @MasterCardNews http://bit.ly/hqr8Qe

In statement on the earlier attack that downed mastercard.com, and the rumors of credit card number leaks, the company said:

MasterCard has made significant progress in restoring full service to its corporate website.

Our core processing capabilities have not been compromised and cardholder account data has not been placed at risk. While we have seen limited interruption in some web-based services, cardholders can continue to use their cards for secure transactions globally.

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Images: (Top) Promotion of Operation Bank-Troll.  (Bottom) Screenshot of a tweet from MasterCard denying the Operation Bank-Troll rumors

twitter.com/nateog

Operation: Payback claims to have shut down Visa website in defense of WikiLeaks [Updated]

Operation: Payback may have been a success.

At about 1 p.m. Visa.com was unreachable. Users trying to access the website were informed by their browsers that it was unavailable or could not be found, or they timed out.

At about the same time, a group of hackers going by the name Anonymous said on Twitter that the shut down was the result of its Operation: Payback campaign, retaliating agianst credit card companies in the name of WikiLeaks.

Its tweet read:

TARGET: WWW.VISA.COM :: FIRE FIRE FIRE!!! WEAPONS http://bit.ly/e6iR3X ::: SET YOUR LOIC TO irc.anonops.net ::: #DDOS #PAYBACK #WIKILEAKS

And shortly thereafter, another tweet:

http://isitup.org/www.visa.com IT'S DOWN! KEEP FIRING!!! #DDOS #PAYBACK #WIKILEAKS

The group also took credit for crashing MasterCard's website with an earlier distributed denial of service attack, a tactic hackers use to overload a company's servers with requests for information from its website. 

A public relations firm representing Visa said the company was looking into it but did not yet have a comment. Officials at MasterCard were unavilable for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Both Visa and MasterCard were apparently struck, by Anonymous and possibly others, because they stopped doing business with WikiLeaks after the website began releasing secret U.S. diplomatic documents on its website.

The release of the U.S. diplomatic cables has resulted in political problems and embarrassment for world leaders and a backlash from some companies that had done business with the controversial site.

[Updated 2:27 p.m.: Visa spokesman Ted Carr e-mailed the Times this statement: "Visa’s processing network, which handles cardholder transactions, is functioning normally and cardholders can continue to use their cards as they routinely would. Account data is not at risk.

"Separately, Visa’s corporate website –- Visa.com -– is currently experiencing heavier than normal traffic. The company is taking steps to restore the site to full operations within the next few hours."]

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twitter.com/nateog

Images: (top) A screenshot of Anonomyous hacker-activists as they aim their cyber attack at Visa.com and (bottom) a screenshot of Visa.com being unavailable to a user

Operation: Payback announces on Twitter planned Web attack on Visa

Operation: Payback is one of the latest examples of hackers taking to social media websites such as Twitter, blogs and other forums on the Internet to plan and take credit for Web-based attacks agianst MasterCard and next Visa in defnese of WikiLeaks.

A group of hackers calling themselves Anonymous said on its Twitter account, that Operation: Payback is an "ongoing campaign by Anonymous against major anti-piracy & anti-freedom entities."

From @Anon_operation, a tweet sent at 11:32 a.m. today read:

NEXT TARGET: WWW.VISA.COM | TR:30 MINS. GET YOUR WEAPONS READY http://bit.ly/e6iR3X #ddos #wikiealsk #payback

The hash tag #ddos indicates that the group is planning to use a distributed denial of service attack, a common method used by hackers to crash a website's servers and make it temporarily unavailable to  users.

WikiLeaks tweeted last week, after releasing thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables, that its site was temporarily unusable because of DDoS attacks.

The tweet about the group's plan against Visa follows similar messages in which the group took credit for an attack on MasterCard in retaliation for the credit card companies stopping their acceptance of donations to WikiLeaks.

Last week, a self-proclaimed "hacktivist" named Jester tweeted that he was responsible for an attack on WikiLeaks last week.

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Image: A screentshot of a tweet from Operation: Payback.

WikiLeaks' Facebook account won't be shut down [Updated]

Facebook isn't planning to shut down WikiLeaks' account, despite a growing backlash against the controversial document-sharing website.

Over the last few days Amazon has stopped hosting WikiLeaks, MasterCard stopped accepting payments for the site, PayPal dumped it and founder Julian Assange's bank accounts have been frozen.

Tuesday morning, Assange turned himself into police in Britain after Swedish authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Assange is being held without bail until a hearing next week on possible extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations he sexually assaulted two women.

But none of that is Facebook's concern as of now.

The contents of the posts on WikiLeaks' official Facebook page is what has determined how the social networking site is handling the issue, said Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes in an article from ReadWriteWeb, a technology blog.

"The Wikileaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies," Noyes told ReadWriteWeb.

More than a week ago, WikiLeaks began publishing, alongside news outlets such as the New York Times, about 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables that have revealed state secrets and concerns, as well as political gossip that have increased tensions between world leaders.

[Updated 1:09 p.m.: Andrew Noyes, of Facebook, e-mailed this statement along to the Times: "We haven't received any official requests to disable the Wikileaks page, or any notification that the articles posted on the page contain unlawful content. If we did, of course, we would review the material according to our rules and standards, and take it down if appropriate.

"The mere existence of a Wikileaks fan page on Facebook doesn't violate any law and we would not take it down just like we don't take down other pages about controversial topics. We’re continuing to monitor the situation."]

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Amazon says it dumped WikiLeaks because it put innocent people in jeopardy

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Image: WikiLeaks' Facebook page

Amazon says it dumped WikiLeaks because it put innocent people in jeopardy

Amazon Inc. explained Thursday why it kicked WikiLeaks off its servers, saying it was not prompted by the U.S. government as many reports suggested.

WikiLeaks, which recently exposed troves of sensitive diplomatic cables, had been hosted by the online retailer Amazon.com Inc.’s servers. But on Wednesday, WikiLeaks posted on Twitter that it had been “ousted” by the Seattle company.  

Amazon is best known as an online bookseller, but the company also has an internet hosting service, called Amazon Web Services, which enables institutions and individuals to make their websites accessible online.

Until now, Amazon had not responded to questions about why it chose to dump WikiLeaks. In a scathing statement, Amazon laid out why it decided to drop the website known for publishing hundreds of thousands of top-secret government documents.

“It is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy,” Amazon said. “Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments.”

Some people speculated that the decision came because of inquiries by the government. Amazon called those reports “inaccurate.” Rather, Amazon said, WikiLeaks violated “several parts” of the company’s terms of service.

Amazon said that it does not pre-screen its customers and that some of its customers’ data are controversial.

“That’s perfectly fine,” the company said. “But, when companies or people go about … publishing this data without ensuring it won’t injure others, it’s a violation of our terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere.”

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Image: In a photo illustration, a WikiLeaks graphic is displayed on a laptop. Credit: Bebeto Matthews / Associated Press

WikiLeaks' new home is in a former bomb shelter

WikiLeaks, the website known for publishing top-secret government information, has found a new home for its trove of covert dossiers: inside a Cold War bomb shelter.

Truly the stuff of spy films, the site features solid steel doors and high-powered computers and is resilient against a nuclear attack. The ultra-secure bunker is buried inside the Pionen White Mountains in Sweden. Check out pictures here.

This is the home of Swedish Internet host Bahnhof AB.

It was built as the “heart of civil defense of Stockholm,” said Jon Karlung, a man described as the company’s chief executive in the YouTube video posted below.

WikiLeaks, which recently released troves of sensitive diplomatic cables, had been hosted by the online retailer Amazon.com Inc.’s servers. But on Wednesday, WikiLeaks posted on Twitter that it had been “ousted.”

“Free speech the land of the free – fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe,” a tweet said.

Bahnhof had previously hosted WikiLeaks, but the website abandoned the company in favor of Amazon when its computers had been attacked.

 

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Photos, from top: An entrance to Bahnhof's ultra-secure facility. Credit: Bahnhof AB. In a photo illustration, WikiLeaks graphic is displayed on a laptop. Bebeto Matthews / Associated Press

 

Amazon boots WikiLeaks from its computers

Amazon.com Inc. seems to have kicked WikiLeaks off its computers.

The website, which recently released troves of sensitive diplomatic cables, had been hosted by the online retailer’s servers.

But on Wednesday, WikiLeaks posted on Twitter that it had been “ousted.”

“Free speech the land of the free – fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe,” read one missive, quickly followed by another: “If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.”

Political pressure forced WikiLeaks to return to its original Swedish host, Bahnhof AB, which it had abandoned in favor of Amazon after saying that its computers had been attacked. 

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, had urged Amazon earlier to ditch WikiLeaks. He encouraged other hosts to “immediately terminate” any relationship with WikiLeaks, which he accused of “illegal, outrageous and reckless acts.”

“I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on WikiLeaks' previous publication of classified material,” Lieberman said in a statement. “The company’s decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.”

Swedish police are searching for WikiLeaks founder and Australia native Julian Assange, who has denied accusations of sexual assault.

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Photo: In this photo illustration, a "WikiLeaks" graphic is displayed on a laptop. Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo.

'Hacktivist' takes credit for WikiLeaks attacks via Twitter

A self-proclaimed "hacktivist" is apparently taking some credit for the Internet attacks that shut down many pages on WikiLeaks.org today.

The hacker, who goes by the name Jester, claims on his blog to have used distributed denial of service attacks to bring down websites in the past -- the same method WikiLeaks says it was hampered by on Sunday and today.

Jester often claims responsibility for bringing down websites on his Twitter account using the phrase "tango down," which is used by the military to indicate that an enemy has been eliminated in a firefight.

Today, he sent multiple tweets directed at WikiLeaks:

"www.wikileaks.org - TANGO DOWN - for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations #wikileaks #fail"

"If I was a wikileaks 'source' right now I'd be getting a little twitchy, if they cant protect their own site, how can they protect a src?"

"www.wikileaks.org - TANGO DOWN - INDEFINITLEY - for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops and 'other assets' #wikileaks #fail"

On his blog, Jester describes himself as a"hacktivist for good" and someone who is "obstructing the lines of communication for terrorists, sympathizers, fixers, facilitators, oppressive regimes and other general bad guys."

Hacker fan videos on YouTube, posted on Jester's website, state that "Jester claims to be an ex-military operative -- of which military he hasn't said -- and to have spent time in the Middle East physically fighting the war on terror."

The Web attacks on WikiLeaks come after the site released communications between world leaders and diplomats and U.S. government officials discussing government secrets, strategies, concerns and even details such as quirks and idiosyncrasies of politicians.

The Obama administration has condemned the release of the documents, which the White House has said were stolen, and said WikiLeaks has put at risk the cause of human rights and the "diplomats, intelligence professionals and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."

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Image: A screen shot of a tweet from a hacker named Jester directed toward WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks says its been hacked, crashed pages include U.S. diplomatic cables

WikiLeaks said its website is under a malicious attack online Tuesday morning, leaving major parts of the site unavailable to users.

The attacks follow the controversial release of thousands of pages of U.S. diplomatic documents on the website based in Sweden, which posts secret government documents from anonymous sources.

The most recent release has left the U.S. government scrambling to contain the damage done in exposing secrets detailing negotiations between world leaders, some of their fears and a bit of gossip as well. (The Times has collected all of its WikiLeaks coverage here.)

As of about 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, the WikiLeaks homepage was viewable, but other pages such as "Cable Gate," where the site posted its controversial U.S. diplomatic cables Sunday, and "War Logs," which had government documents pertaining to the Iraq War, were unavailable.

A statement on WikiLeaks' Twitter account said it was being hit with a distributed denial of service attack, a tactic hackers use to crash websites.

Officials at the website then sent out another tweet saying that the hackers were exceeding 10 gigabits per second, which is a large-scale attack.

The attack isn't the first on the website. WikiLeaks said it was hacked on Sunday as well.

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Image: Screenshot of WikiLeaks tweet describing an Internet-based attack on Tuesday. Credit: Twitter.com/wikileaks/