P F Tinmore
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- Dec 6, 2009
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LONDON WikiLeaks supporters struck back Wednesday at perceived enemies of founder Julian Assange, attacking the websites of Swedish prosecutors, the Swedish lawyer whose clients have accused Assange of sexual crimes and the Swiss authority that froze Assange's bank account.
MasterCard, which pulled the plug on its relationship with WikiLeaks on Tuesday, also seemed to be having severe technological problems.
The online vengeance campaign appeared to be taking the form of denial of service attacks in which computers across the Internet are harnessed sometimes surreptitiously to jam target sites with mountains of requests for data, knocking them out of commission.
Per Hellqvist, a security specialist with the firm Symantec, said a loose network of web activists called "Anonymous" appeared to be behind the attacks. The group, which has previously focused on the Church of Scientology and the music industry, has promised to come to Assange's aid by knocking offline websites seen as hostile to WikiLeaks.
"While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons," the group said in a statement on its website. "We want transparency and we counter censorship. ... This is why we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."
Hackers strike back to support WikiLeaks founder - Yahoo! News
MasterCard, which pulled the plug on its relationship with WikiLeaks on Tuesday, also seemed to be having severe technological problems.
The online vengeance campaign appeared to be taking the form of denial of service attacks in which computers across the Internet are harnessed sometimes surreptitiously to jam target sites with mountains of requests for data, knocking them out of commission.
Per Hellqvist, a security specialist with the firm Symantec, said a loose network of web activists called "Anonymous" appeared to be behind the attacks. The group, which has previously focused on the Church of Scientology and the music industry, has promised to come to Assange's aid by knocking offline websites seen as hostile to WikiLeaks.
"While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons," the group said in a statement on its website. "We want transparency and we counter censorship. ... This is why we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."
Hackers strike back to support WikiLeaks founder - Yahoo! News