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MasterCard Hit By WikiLeaks Payback Attacks
An anonymous reader writes "MasterCard's website has been hit by a distributed denial of service attack. Netcraft describes how the attack uses a voluntary botnet of LOIC (low orbit ion cannon) users to swamp sites with traffic. PostFinance, the PayPal blog and Swedish prosecutors have been targeted previously."
Such stupid actions will only serve to discredit Wikileaks further. The best and only response should be: take your own money elsewhere.
CU, Martin
Don't target the website, target the servers that do the money-traffic!!!!
And now because of Slashdot linking to MasterCard, their denial of service attack increased even more.
Adding a slashdotting to a DDOS, good job Anon.
"voluntary botnet"
why does such a thing even exist??
Did voluntary Borg exist?
Let's beat that dead horse with a slashdotting! Good thinking.
I wonder how they feel being denied due process...
Can someone enlighten me as to why anon is targeting Mastercard? Paypal I get, but what has Mastercard done?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
...and the assault will be over. PayPal and the rest are doing fine now, right?
Reminds me of an article I saw on Techdirt the other day pointing out that Visa and Mastercard were getting all high and mighty about morality in regards to Wikileaks but happily fielding transactions for sites like the KKK.
My work here is dung.
Dear CC companies,
Some things in life are priceless, your demonstrating the evils of digital currency is one of those things.
Fuck You,
The World.
I keep trying to read the story at http://www.mastercard.com/ but nothings happening.
anytiem
This is stupid. It's news for a day or two, then anon goes back to fapping to amateur/child porn, arguing the benefits of an uncircumcised vs circumcised penis, or asking anonymous women to show their breasts.
Plenty of websites they've targeted are still up. Gene Simmons appears to be still collecting a paycheck.
Unfortunately, every time I've download a copy of LOIC from anyplace (including sourceforge) it's been infected with crap......
Note that the latest leaks show that the US Govt put pressure on Russia, to avoid legislation that would level the field for Visa/Mastercard competitors:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-russia-visa-mastercard
Anon DDOS attack? ... Priceless
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Thank Anonymous.
I don't understand what the big deal is with these attacks. A DDoS of a day or two is only a nuisance really. If they really want to punish people they need prioritize their enemies and keep the worst offenders down for longer periods of time while aiming fractions of their attack elsewhere. No one's really going to change policies due to any attack unless you can keep them down for weeks at a time, not hours or days.
And i keep answering them, your government is not the threat to free speech, you can vote them out, you can use a munition box in last resort. The true threat to free speech is commercial entity. Against whom do you want to revolt ? Against whom you want to fight ? How can make your voice be heard ? Increasingly, the commercial sector by drowning signal in noise, and by refusing certain type of speech out of business "reason", restrict the speech of people. Sure you can speak around the street on a ballot box, make your own pamphlet. But it isn't 1800 anymore, young people and people my age increasingly see news not coming from electronic medium as low value, and pamphlet as advertising or stuff from fanatic extremist. They have been used to it. Cut the electronic news source because the few journal or ISP don't want to support your business, and you are quite effectively isolated, quarantined, easier to handle. Try to imagine wikileak without a supporting architecture of server. See how far it would have gone...
So much win in the way the summary begins.
Regardless of the merits of Wikileaks and the service/information that the supply, I really don't see this as a productive response by their supporters. Rather, it just makes it appear as if a significantly-sized contingent of destructive, if not criminally-minded people support Wikileaks. It may or may not be Wikileaks' fault but the fact that groups are using, albeit incorporeal, violent action to pursue their political agenda is pretty much the definition of terrorism and they're really just making it easier for the government and media to paint Wikileaks with that brush. A campaign against companies which are at the heart of the modern economy is easy enough to paint as a threat to economic stability and therefore "national security" and is probably going to come back to bite them in the ass, one way or another.
Of course, they're going to do what they're going to do. As long as they don't knock out the credit card processing capabilities then it won't affect me since I never go to the websites of these companies. But still, as they say on The Boondocks: "that's not a good look" and will probably have no positive outcome for those participating in the action.
with websites selling fake viagra.
Last year I got a complaint from a Danish ISP that i was spamming their customers. I requested and got forwarded one of my supposed emails. A little bit of poking around I found that the viagra company was based in Hong Kong. Whois told me the address, names, telephone numbers etc. (you'd thing scum like that would hide their info better).
I phoned and emailed Visa, MC, the spam company, even their service provider. The only response was from that Danish ISP their tech guy if you can call him that was complaining about my continual spamming even after I gave him the proof that the email originated from China not Canada. You would think traceroute and whois are kind of basic tools and any dumbass should be able to use them but this guy didn't even know how to look at email header info.
As for visa MC they would not be bothered even though I gave them all the info (btw they were shipping their product from Texas) Visa and MC told be to get bent.
Imagine the shitstorm that will happen , if well something really does happen . Be it Assange or further attempts to take wikileaks completely down.
DDOS caused by a voluntary botnet... Is it just me or could that also describe having the MasterCard website linked in a Slashdot article?
I really don't think the folks at wikileaks are coordinating the attach, probably some low brain supporter or someone trying to discredit wikileads. Best action for supporters of wikileaks is to cancel or stop using their mastercard, their paypal and their amazon account.
Given the numerous politicians and media figures calling for the assassination and persecution of Julian Assange, these companies are just protecting themselves from the very real threat of insane, shouty lawmakers harming their reputations. This is the very essence of a "Chilling Effect": Threatening JA on TV has little to do with JA himself, and everything to do with scaring the shit out of people so that they don't dare support Wikileaks in any manner - in the press, on the /., or financially.
"Because I love Pat Benatar." -- Britney Spears, when asked why she covered Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"
our wider enemy is now also AVG who claim LOIC is a threat.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
Ah the Slashdot effect....legitimately contributing to most major DDOS attacks since the late '90's. I am so proud to be a member of this site. =)
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
So the getting of DNA samples from UN authorities from US fucking diplomats is something that in your opinion all those taxes are for?
Comcast is blocking access to any websites reporting wikileaks related stories.
This is exactly what I would suspect they would do.
What can you expect from a big corporate interest?
Yes, that's how you get change. complain but somewhere where you won't inconvenience anyone else.
That's how ALL change has happened!!!
Tell me, do you not complain about bad service at a resturaunt because your complaint may stop the server from going to another customer quickly and therefore inconvenience them? Or do you complain, holding them up and slowing the meal of others in order to make your complaint?
WikiLeaks Founder Says Next Target Is Major US Bank
"Early next year, WikiLeaks will publish tens of thousands of internal documents from a major U.S. bank, exposing the institution's rampant corruption and unethical practices and executives' brazen self-interest, Assange said in an interview with Forbes magazine."
They are a journalistic organization and are reporting news. The NYT would have done the same thing.
Sorry, I disagree.
CC companies are sneaky to be sure, but they do serve a purpose - they're a hedge against short term super-crunches. That's the real problem in society - a giant tragedy of the commons type thing (slight off, but I don't know the correct term). What I mean is that when landlords and mortgagers force a certain price for housing, while other companies force down wages, citizens get caught in a colossal game of musical chairs until they just can't hold on.
This first shows up as a micro-crunch - being 12 days short of being able to pay rent is enough for people to lose their homes. Voila Overdraft Protection. The unfortunate part is that once they're in the red, people aren't yet trained to eat bread and butter and 3-day cheese for 8 days straight to catch up to neutral, so THAT's when they get cooked with a balance that never dies.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"Ku-Klux-Klan ja, Wikileaks nein"
"Apoyo a organizaciones racistas"
'Je mag met je Visa- of Mastercard wel geld geven aan de Ku Klux Klan, maar inmiddels geen donaties meer doen aan WikiLeaks.'
"Ku Klux Klan'a bagis var, Wikileaks'e yok" [Sorry for the spelling, but
"[..]- nie ma za to problemów z donacj np. na róne odamy Ku-Klux-Klanu"
Indeed. I'm curious as to what sort of liability this is going to open for them in the future. Previously they only refused transactions that the government required them to or in cases where they suspected fraud.
If they're now blocking transactions which the government doesn't require them to and that they have good reason to believe the cardholder consented to, that's got to open up all sorts of liability over their connection with cybercriminals.
Soon mastercard will issue a statement that the loic misfired because mastercard switched their server off to prevetn getting hit by a hackers attack.
They are a journalistic organization and are reporting news. The NYT would have done the same thing.
Actually, the real sticking point is how WikiLeaks obtained those files.
Did the actively solicit them or recruit people to get them? If so, that's the definition of espionage.
There's no Journalism license out there. Bloggers are not journalists? What about people who provide context in the comment section of an online newspaper story?
Until they start handing out Journalism licenses, the threshold for being a journalist is saying "I'm a journalist."
I understand that Credit Cards can be nice. Nice to make large purchases now. Nice to cover the gap until payday when your bank account is empty. Nice for a lot of things. But people will be fine if their CC doesn't work for a day or two. There are other resources available to put food on the table, etc.
I think my original point still stands though. If your credit card not working for a couple days has a significant affect on your life (i.e. your ability to provide for your family), then YES you are too dependent on credit cards. If you NEED a credit card to put food on the table, you're already in the red - using a credit card will just put you further into the red. Credit card companies surely deserve some, but not 100% of the blame for that situation.
you're comparing this to anti-segregation protests???
Who needs to get a grip, one who equates one protest with another or one who ridicules such comparisons?
Quite frankly voters can not make informed decisions when they are not informed. Wikileaks is informing voters of what their government is doing.
Falcon
Now as for "informed voters" that is another subject.
Should there be a Law?
Freedom of speech!* Freedom of expression!* Freedom of opinion!* Freedom of association!*
*Unless you disagree with us, then we'll attack your assets and interfere with your business.
The Klan is not against the law in the united states. The dissemination of classified materials is.
Personally, I'm fine with keeping free speech.
You and I simply disagree on this. I don't think buying a domain and installing wikimedia, wordpress, etc automatically makes one a "journalist."
Ain't no different from buying a printing press 50 years ago when that was all that was required to be a member of the press.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The dissemination of classified materials isn't. There are many reasons:
1) Shouldn't be classified.
2) Evidence of wrongdoing cannot be classified to hide it
3) Whistleblower rules.
4) No contract between them.
5) Not under US jurisdiction.
6) Public Interest.
7 Freedom of the Press.
and many others.
The Klan is against the law in the UK.
Therefore they are illegal and Mastercard should stop allowing payments and hold the accounts.
> The dissemination of classified materials is.
No it isn't. The initial leak, not done by WikiLeaks, is illegal. After that it's legal to distribute.
See how newspapers are also publishing some of the leaks - they wouldn't be doing that if it was illegal.
Wikileaks hasn't even been legally accused of doing anything illegal.
So, telling the world about the bad actions of the banks is unethical because it might hurt those banks?
Sure, just like I have the "right" to cheat on my wife. Just as Swiss banks had the "right" to refuse to release money to the families of Holocaust victims when they were unable to produce death certificates.
You are confusing legality with ethics.
Has anyone noticed what actions MC has taken to deal with the DDOS? It looks like they've done almost nothing--they are still trying to serve the same content and haven't moved their DNS servers off network. They did reduce the TTL on the DNS records to 15 minutes, but I'm not sure how that helps?
I would think that the inability to get to the DNS records would be blocking all the email traffic into MC (I couldn't see their MX records), which would bounce all the mail.
I would have thought that they had a backup plan to handle this kind of event--perhaps serving static web pages, backup DNS and a standby CDN contract to handle the traffic. It also seems odd that the DNS servers are on their network, but I'm sure that they have multiple carriers and centers.
It's surprising that a major IT-dependent firm isn't better able to handle this. On the other hand, as it's been pointed out, the website isn't used for the financial traffic.
What should they be doing to handle this kind of attack?
It's not a flaw at all.
Truth is, we've got all sorts of laws for journalists gone bad, so let's just use them!
If one is engaging in the act, the protections are there. Without that, we don't have free speech. Think about it some.
Blogging because I can...
COS attempts to suppress those who portray their organization in a negative light (typically by exposing the internal workings that they try to keep secret.) Your analogy is terrible. Assange has been working in conjunction with the mainstream press for some of these very same leaks. Functionally there's very little difference between the two. Considering the sorts of documents that they are publishing, there needs to be some fall back method of distributing the documents in case they are attacked, shutdown, killed, etc. I would have to guess that any major news outlet that is performing investigative journalism goes through similar steps as to prevent a particular story from being so fragile that the death or imprisonment of any one person could somehow make it disappear.
I really don't know what Julian Assange and Wikileaks or anyone else thought would happen when they started down this road. They've basically just threatened every nation, politician, financial institution, university, business and so on and yet, they expected them to not turn against them? What potential target would help them? Of course Mastercard isn't going to support them - they may next be on Assange's hit list. Or has he promised not to reveal anything damaging or embarassing about those who assist him?
Why would any company want to support an organization that purposefully breaks US law and jeopardizes our own nation's safety? Any corporation that helps to shut down wikileaks can have my business.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Even if mastercard says they have changed their ways and suddenly become gods gift to the US first amendment, they really won't have done this - they exist to make money. If theres no money in it,
You don't know how credit card work do you? MasterCard and every other credit card that Wikileaks accepted does profit from that acceptance. They get a set fee for each transaction, whether it be a $10 or a $1000 transaction. Then they get a percentage of the total transaction amount.
As for most of your post, I agree. A new way to make payments, donations, could be set up. Where I disagree is where you say MasterCard is a business, sure it is but as it already has be said the government asked businesses to stop processing donations.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Neither John F. Kennedy nor Nikita Kruschev would have had the support of their governments had their positions been known because of something like a Wikileaks release.
Why would you assume that the public would have chosen nuclear war over bargaining?
Assange is not behaving like an ethical member of the press.
The press is not behaving like an ethical member of the press. The failure of the press in the last decade to act as anything except a mouthpiece for the US government and the special interests that control it has caused far more damage to this country and the world than anything Assange could dream of. It's time for the pendulum to swing the other way.
He has threatened to leak even more information about financial institutions. Folks, he is potentially threatening to hurt your own financial futures for his personal gain
If your financial future is at risk, it's not Assange who did it. It's the criminals who run the banking institutions. They need to be exposed to protect your financial future.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why MasterCard, why not any of the others, does it have something to do with the measures of security taken by the company against such attacks???
I have always had a feeling that MasterCard was always a little guy compared to all the other CC companies. Maybe it might be they did not sufficiently secure their websites???
People dont be idiots, this can be done by hundreds other factions you name it, who more than happy to see instability and big hype around it.... Or it was done from IP address of Assange's personal smartphone....!? Of course not....
And you're not a programmer without being a member of.... well actually you just have to know how to program.
And you're not a grave digger unless you... well just digging some graves makes you a grave digger.
And you're not a translator unless you're a member of..... actually just being fluent in multiple languages can qualify you as a translator.
And you're not a musician unless you're a member of... well being able to play a musical instrument and being called a musician pretty much qualifies you to claim that title.
Anyone who breaks news stories, anyone who does the job of a journalist is a journalist particularly if they do it well and wikileaks have been doing it very well.
the Internet's ability to allow people to self-publish via web sites is not a flaw.
it is one of it's best attributes.
and you absolutely can turn up somewhere, claim the title of a journalist and if they want to they might let you in.
A bunch of my friends printed themselves off a loads of "[their blog name] news team" t-shirts and when they went out drinking and got into clubs free because club owners wanted to get free advertising.
To be fair they did post pictures of their nights at the clubs.
fantastic idea though.
you could start publishing your own little newsletter and try turning up up to things and asking to be let in as a reporter for your own newspaper.
They don't have to let you in, they might not but you have every right to try.
I can't wait, if that's true.
they don't call people up going "hey, please please leak us some information"
they left an open invitation to anyone in the world to send them documents anonymously.
they are not breaking the law hard as it may be for you to believe.
This first shows up as a micro-crunch - being 12 days short of being able to pay rent is enough for people to lose their homes
This isn't a "micro-crunch", this is evidence of someone who's failed at life.
The lack of a controlled budget, proper savings, and an emergency fund to cover off surprises is illustrative of a financial illness for which credit card use is a symptom, not a cure.
Credit cards have their use, yes, primarily in the avenue of consumer protection (it's far easier to convince a CC company to reverse a charge than a bank to give you your savings back). But they are *not* useful as a financial crutch, as they simply act to exacerbate the problem by adding unmanageable debt to the equation.
morality vs. legality folks. l2comprehend
The US government should have secured it's own databases then if that information is so important.
they're the ones who fucked up.
not wikileaks.
not the other press organisations which are publishing this.
this whole fuckup is squarely on the US governments head.
again and again I see retards like you unable to understand the difference between "leaked by" and "leaked to"
nothing was leaked by wikileaks.
A huge amount was leaked *to* wikileaks.
use your brain and understand the difference.
So, telling the world about the bad actions of the banks is unethical because it might hurt those banks?
You are assuming that these are bad actions and not just inside information. Isn't that a big assumption to make?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So some are more equal than others.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Assange is not behaving like an ethical member of the press.
The press is not behaving like an ethical member of the press. The failure of the press in the last decade to act as anything except a mouthpiece for the US government and the special interests that control it has caused far more damage to this country and the world than anything Assange could dream of. It's time for the pendulum to swing the other way.
He has threatened to leak even more information about financial institutions. Folks, he is potentially threatening to hurt your own financial futures for his personal gain
If your financial future is at risk, it's not Assange who did it. It's the criminals who run the banking institutions. They need to be exposed to protect your financial future.
Why are you assuming that this information is criminal and not just simply insider information which can be potentially damaging? What if Assange started to leak credit card numbers and bank account numbers? Would you be his staunch supporter? What if it was your account information?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
You only believe in the freedom to be a douchebag to people you don't know. None of us fear your threats.
Visa, and Mastercard are not caving in to the government pressure.
You're behind the tymes: PayPal admits US pressure over WikiLeaks account freeze.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Neither John F. Kennedy nor Nikita Kruschev would have had the support of their governments had their positions been known because of something like a Wikileaks release.
Why would you assume that the public would have chosen nuclear war over bargaining?
Because neither side wanted to show weakness during the crisis. Which is why both JFK and Kruschev went to such extraordinary lengths to negotiate behind closed doors. We know the Soviet leadership was very hardline, and on the US side, Curtis LeMay argued that we could win with a pre-emptive nuclear strike of our own on Cuba. LeMay thought we could use a limited nuclear campaign, destroy Soviet forces in Cuba, and basically throw down the gauntlet to the Soviets, in essence saying "OK, we just proved that we'll win in a limited exchange, and we're prepared to strike your homeland. You'd better back down now". Now, maybe LeMay was right and his tactics would have worked and the Soviets might have backed down... but it would have resulted in a radioactive Cuba off of the US southern coast, too.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I wish people would get their facts straight before posting multi-paragraph rants. Assange did NOT leak those documents, a US government employee did. Don't get me wrong, you are correct in that governments must be able to feel they can talk to their counterparts on sensitive issues without a transcript showing up in tomorrow's paper and getting taken out of context, etc., but the US government has no one to blame but their self for this mess. 3 000 000 people had access to these documents, on systems which obviously didn't have the level of security required to keep them from copied and mass-distributed. All Assange did was forward those on to the rest of us, no different than the major news organizations in the 70's with the Pentagon Papers . HE WAS NOT THE SOURCE OF THE LEAK!! How could he be, he's not even American! If anything, the anger should be directed at the lax policies which allowed these leaks to be possible in the first place, not that you'll ever see the US government admit responsibility when it's all too easy to brand someone a terrorist. Thankfully, some other higher-ups in various countries (Australia's Kevin Rudd for example) seem to realize this and hopefully they'll get the message across to their American counterparts, both for our's and future historian's sake.
After the recent financial collapse I assume all banks are criminal. The bank data could consist of nothing but account numbers and the resulting fraud would cause but a tiny fraction of the damage the fraudsters on Wall Street committed. In the worst case scenario Assange is still better than the people our government not only allows to operate, but protects and even welcomes into their ranks.
But we'll have to wait and see exactly what the bank data entails. Until then, lets discuss the fact that the Press has acted far more irresponsibly in the past decade than Assange has. Why do they not draw the ire Assange does? Perhaps the objections are not as much about journalistic integrity as they are about protecting those in power?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
and the real hackers come out of the wood work and utterly GARBAGE the usa's websites.
until know i have sat back and watched...do not threaten these youth's...you do so at YOUR PERIL.
WE think of the children unlike you and believe in freedom to the adverse of corporate fascism that you preach.
From how you type you are the child. DDOSing a website? That is amateurish script kiddie BS. You aren't advancing the cause of network neutrality, internet liberty, human rights or anything by taking down websites. The only thing you generate is negative publicity for yourself and for the internet as a whole.
This will result in Lieberman being able to pass the Internet Censorship bill. Don't you see you are a useful idiot? You are being used to help pass this bill which would never be able to pass if Anonymous did not do stupid pointless BS.
"The US government should have secured it's own databases then if that information is so important.
they're the ones who fucked up.
not wikileaks."
Oh, I completely agree that the US needs to do a better job of information security. One of our problems is that we have far too many people with security clearances and access to secret documents and data. We've been violating the "need to know" principle for a very long time.
BUT... that doesn't clear Wikileaks of the violation of diplomatic secrecy. Julian Assange has been quite clear that he's not fighting for anything as noble as "government transparency". He simply doesn't like the United States very much, and wants to harm the government. Take the man at his own words:
Assange's aim is not a more open United States, but a crippled United States. He sees the US as the pre-eminent evil in the world, and this is his way of making war with it.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
First, you're confusing "the public" with the government.
Second, if you mean "Why would you assume that the government would have chosen nuclear war", then you're assuming the government would have understood the choices and their consequences, which if you study your cold war history you will find is incorrect.
In fact, I'd suggest brushing up on your history if you aren't aware of the substantial part of each government that was prepared to choose nuclear war. This is not "assumption"; it's documented history.
Here's a simpler question: if the secrecy weren't needed to make the missiles go away, then why didn't they go away (on the authority of those from whom the deals were kept secret) without the secret dealings?
You are partially right, and wrong. This is about free speech. But it is also about voters knowing what their government is doing in their names. As a US citizen, one who served in the US military unlike so many other chicken hawks, and a voter I want to know what my government is doing. You may trust your government but I do not trust mine. Government scares me more than anything else, whether it is terrorists or not.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Really. It's essentially a marketing front end. By itself, it does not generate revenue for Mastercard.
Prosecution in this case is an opportunity to fabricate 'damages' and 'lost revenue' from losing access to an electronic version of a brochure.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
This is just incredible. I didn't even know Visa and Mastercard had an agenda of any kind outside of making money, but they're making it clear that they do.
Racism is a-OK with the two major cards, but not Wikileaks.
> The dissemination of classified materials is.
No it isn't. The initial leak, not done by WikiLeaks, is illegal. After that it's legal to distribute.
See how newspapers are also publishing some of the leaks - they wouldn't be doing that if it was illegal.
Wikileaks hasn't even been legally accused of doing anything illegal.
Your reasoning is wrong, but you may or may not be right anyway. The relevant law is US Code Title 18 Section 798. It says that publishing classified material of a certain type is against federal law (whether it has already been distributed or not). The fact that a newspaper has done something does not mean it is legal. The question is whether any of the published material is both classified and has to do with the US's "communications intelligence" (viz. eavesdropping activities).
n/t.
Getting them from an anonymous donor is not illegal. Being the anonymous donor is illegal.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
What do you expect? It's riot.
PS: and I do support it.
you're not a musician unless you're a member of... well being able to play a musical instrument
This statement is blatantly untrue. There is this type of music called "punk" which does not require you to play a musical instrument.
Every time I see Visa/Mastercard news I and dumbfounded at the ignorance some smart people have regarding payment networks.
1. visa and Mastercard are bank associations.
That means a bank can join either one. Banks can and do belong to both associations. Banks get revenue a variety of ways when they issue Visa/Mastercard products. That's why they join!
2. Payment services inflate the cost of all goods at a retailer who accepts cards and cash.
The consequence is the cost of all goods is inflated. Anyone familiar with the merchant end of accepting these payment types can fill you in.
3. The associations have a duopoly on payment services in the U.S.
Resulting economic activity is constrained by the duopoly and wealth is destroyed. Look up the Visa and Mastercard anti-trust rulings won by Discover and Amex.
4. Paypal is not a bank and does not have a bank charter. Not even a 'commercial' bank charter. Paypal is its own 'closed' payment system.
You too can start a payment system. So long as you do not cut into Visa/Mastercard's business, you will not be bothered.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
And the muggers aren't to blame because you were on the wrong side of town after dark.
means that the Neuromancer future is closer than we thought.
Next time a company gets asked by the US (or any other government) to do something "evil", they will know it will not be free. Next time a company considers such a request, they will know what to expect. Will they be willing to put their money where their mouth is and foot the bill for Uncle Sam's arbitrary and warrantless requests?
This is so right on. The general public should have more sway than any government organization. The defenders of mastercard (and/or haters of wikileaks) keep saying "Mastercard is a private business and can do whatever they want".
Maybe the general public can help Mastercard figure out whose opinion counts the most.
So, according to the headline and all the news reports I've read, its those darn hackers, supporters of Wikileaks that are up to all of this. "They are the ones your honor, yep, those ones there". Exactly how, do we all know for sure that its supporters of Wikileaks? How? Or do the words "presume" and "assume" come into play in too too large a way once again with this story. Where I live (Canada) there is a political science professor looking at charges of inciting to commit murder because he called for the assassination of Julian Assange. He said it on live tv. I hope he loses his tenure and job (as a minimum) for this bit of idiocy and lunacy. Perhaps the courts will send him up the river. But in this case, it appears 'assume' and 'presume' are at fault. Plato scorned students who presumed. It leads to too many mistakes. So much for media in 2010.
Please see the case of NEW YORK TIMES CO. v. UNITED STATES which examines this section and the surrounding ones, and found that the New York Times was not guilty under it for publishing classified documents:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=403&invol=713
Not really, given the existing leaks which show the various governments doing some pretty bad things.
Labeled -1 and Troll.
Is this what the left means when they says people should be "open minded and tolerant of other peoples opinions?"
you are correct of course. :D
I retract that statement.
you do not need to be able to play an instrument to be a musician.
bullshit.
This is the government we're talking about, not some old lady tottering across town.
they're supposed to secure this data against concerted attempts to attain it by foreign intelligence agencies yet they're too inept to stop their own people spontaneously sending it to the press for shits and giggles.
and even in your horrible comparison, wikileaks is not the mugger, they're the local paper who the mugger gave your little black book to after he stole it, read it and noticed that your dates tended to turn up dead and that you were making notes about staking your neighbours.
Lots of outdates links making the rounds. Get the latest LOIC here: https://github.com/NewEraCracker/LOIC. This has the "hive mind" feature. Written in C#.
Be more creative Anonymous. If you don't want to be ridiculed as 12 years old hackers who know nothing other than DDoS attacks, that is. Take the example of Pirate Party, Sweden. Political presence requires you to be sincere about your ways.
This is not a left/right issue. It just so happens the right-wing is crazier in their anti-wikileaks rhetoric, as would be expected.
Visa & MasterCard have the same owners, FYI. That's why all their advertisements say crap about how people "don't take Discover."
I believe that they're run separately, but they're owned by the same folks.
The suspension of payments towards Wikileaks is a violation of the agreements with their customers. Visa users have explicitly expressed their will to send their donations to Wikileaks and Visa is not fulfilling this wish
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
The question I have to ask is in what way does VISA processing in Russia help the American people. Do you believe that any part of that income will ever appear on US soil ? We already know companies do their best to avoid US taxes on their "offshore" profits.
Why should American diplomats, who are part of government, who is supposed to serve the people, care that a company can or cannot do business that does not do anything for us here ? No extra jobs in US, no extra tax income in US. Why do we care ? Why do we spend our tax money on furthering their profits ?
found that the New York Times was not guilty under it for publishing classified documents:
No, that's not what they found, they found that the Government didn't overcome the burden of justifying the restraint. That's entirely different. If the Goverment could have shown there was justification in hiding the documents, then it wouldn't be violating the First Amendment.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
If you don't remember, most of these alleged DDOS all have accounts with MassaCod. It's no different than walking into a United States Postal Service Inc facility and just contributing to the long line with not much business other than buy a single 1-cent Stamp from the Clerk and ask about the rising cost of Stamps the next year and how they might effect buying a 1-cent stamp.
Seriously, foot-traffic entrance into Storefront costs no money, but Internet Access is no different than walking into such Private Carrier yet they are the one's paying for that single 1-cent Stamp.
Increased traffic means the website is not efficient, because the smallest amount of data should be returned rather than a whole tree of Javascript client functions and big pictures for all kinds of fancy shit. The more traffic these websites are billed-for, then evolution of Society will sort this out like how other services with bandwidth meters. Eventually, websites will take on a whole better efficient look like back in the late-80's and early-90's when developers cared about efficiency. Yet, I don't see the ISP's complaining because this is lawful persuant to the Contract. Do Ham Radio Operators complain to the Sun and Moon and Stars for all the fussy radio waves or do they re-orient their antennas and improve their skills and increase the squelch?
Does anyone else find it humorous that an organization which prides itself on anonymity is coming to the defense of an organization that prides itself on transparency and holding people accountable?
Is the software open source? If not, there seems to be an incredible risk of a trojan horse type attack on the attackers. If I were some Chinese or Eastern European hackers, I could easily tap into the outrage over Wikileaks and encourage the installation of my software that has the ultimate goal of either establishing a second wave of botnets or monitoring users' keystrokes
"What if Assange started to leak credit card numbers and bank account numbers?"
Nice straw man. What if Jay Leno started eating babies? Would you still watch his show? You can't judge people on what they might do, we'd all be in jail. You judge their behavior. And so far Assange hasn't gone after individuals' financial info, he's revealed embarrassing truths about huge organizations.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
A government which has the consent of the governed doesn't face the sort of widespread opposition these ddos attacks represent. I've felt that we have a "predator state" on our hands. Some of this predator's cronies are being attacked by mass consent. Seems a reasonable thing to have happen, given the disparity in power between we, the people and our oligarchs. I, for one, welcome our new consent of the people overlords. I'm 59 years old and a retired naval reserve officer. The government *I* faithfully served has been hijacked by despicable predators. It's time to take basic human decency and the Bill of Rights back. Screw these oligarchs and their enablers.
"Nothing we despise in the other person is entirely absent from ourselves." -- Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Visa.com is also down.
That burden is set very high. And the decision came down with some heavy reinforcement of the First Amendment for exact cases such as this:
The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.
To find that the President has "inherent power" to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make "secure.
The word "security" is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.
Justice J. Black, in NY Times Co vs United States, 1971.
That's entirely different.
Really? "Maybe they didn't want to" is the logic here?
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Anonymous managed to get a lot of people, and they are aggressive and have guts, but it would be much smarter for them to help wikileaks, and risk themselves, to get what wikileaks needs - quality documents.
A temporary disruption of web service does little, and in exchange for getting labeled "violent terrorists" and all that nonsense, showing up on the police radars, etc, doesn't seem like a good deal.
Wikileaks got recognized - and attacked - because it does something smart, very relevant, and not easy to stop or attack. The best help would be at the same level.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Out of curiosity I installed LOIC and started an "attack" on mastercard.com for a few minutes. It was remarkably simple, but I am now wondering how easy it is for my IP address to be detected and whether there's any realistic chance I might be getting in trouble later? I didn't use any protection (ah.ah.) which was rather silly...any ideas?
So how do I sign up (to Anon, not Mastercard!) to lend my CPU cycles? Seriously!
And don't fight for what you believe in?
If Mastercard isn't an extortion based company then I don't know what is..
If so that is only because they haven't read the information. It's there for them to read. In other words, they ignored it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Not Zombies. A Hive Mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOIC
I couldn't find for the NFL or the White House but
Barret-Jackson would be way cooler to cover anyways.
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Espionage Act of 1917
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Visa and MC told be to get bent
A rather ironic comment considering what you'd just been accused of selling.
I wish people would get their facts straight before posting to correct other people's facts. There are approximately 3 million people with a SECRET level clearance. Having a clearance doesn't mean you have access to every document with a SECRET level categorization.
Well that sort of entirely depends on which day or two it is.
I pay off my credit card in full every month, keep a healthy bank balance and do all the responsible things that I ought to, but there have still been a couple of days here and there over the last 5 years where if I hadn't had my credit card I'd have been seriously screwed.
When you're talking about hundreds of millions of customers, you've got a safe bet at least someone is in those circumstances at any given time.
Well someone who is a friend of mine in the USA phoned me earlier in the UK about this. He is a dev and tearing his hair out at PayPal. The systems are old and he keeps hitting politics internally. So we just ended up laughing on the phone I said just wait for the dust to settle. Not a lot you can do though, but if you knew how some system admins work in Paypal and mastercard you will be horrified. they even have some windows server 2003.
Let's see what happens next.
All cows eat grass!
Because we're in a shootin' war with the Ruskies! Gotta win this one so we can go home!
There is no -1 Disagree.
That is what those cables seed light in the case of Mexico. I feel strongly about it since the mexican army almost killed my grandmother an 3 other family members in an illegal raid in their home just because the stupid assat that we have has president launched a war on drugs on US's government behalf.
Or the fact that in the Honduras coup the ambassador and Clinton were fully aware that the removal of president Zelaya was illegal while they were lying to the public? Here in Mexico they confirmed the information of the prestigious magazine Proceso that currently is under attack in a smearing campaign by the mexican government and media megacorp Televisa.
Really, if americans citizens are so used to being lied at by their government then at least they should make all of us a favor and make pretty sure that their armed forces don't operate outside their country's boundaries and stop all that bullshit about spreading a democracy that they don't value or know.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
I understand that Credit Cards can be nice. Nice to make large purchases now. Nice to cover the gap until payday when your bank account is empty. Nice for a lot of things. But people will be fine if their CC doesn't work for a day or two. There are other resources available to put food on the table, etc.
I think my original point still stands though. If your credit card not working for a couple days has a significant affect on your life (i.e. your ability to provide for your family), then YES you are too dependent on credit cards. If you NEED a credit card to put food on the table, you're already in the red - using a credit card will just put you further into the red. Credit card companies surely deserve some, but not 100% of the blame for that situation.
Depends on how it's putting food on the table. These services aren't just there to support credit cards, there are vast numbers of debit card users that are not building any credit up on a card but the money comes straight from their accounts and for some people it's a damn sight safer than carrying around cash. I've been living in South America for three years and lived purely on cash in that time. On return to the UK I cannot work without a debit card as it used for making online payments for my business. No debit card.... no payments.... no income.... no food on the table. I hate credit cards, I hate debit cards but there is no way to avoid using them if a lot of circumstances.
If I went a day or two without my cards I would have just lost $1400 of turnover. I think you also need to realise the financial situation that a large chunk of the World is in and people do depend on credit cards to feed their children and even pay their mortgages. Lucky you if you've got the cash in your pocket every day. As for this situation, my children have no link with the US government, have no link with anybody elses government, know nothing about Wikileaks and don't use credit cards - but why the f*** should Wikileaks supporters have the right to determine if I can put food on the table for them...... sorry, they are trying to cure my 'addiction' for me aren't they.
which would be shaky at best even if they were american.
This applies to wikileaks about as much as Chinese laws against promoting discontent apply to americans.
Wait, are you saying if a Danish customer buys something from a Danish (non-exporting) firm, the money is first converted from Kroners to USD and then back?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
ha he
So uh, like a bank?
Or like other financial institutions and businesses. There are businesses other than banks that issue credit cards. For instance a number of oil companies issue them. Such as Gulf Oil, Shell, Marathon, and Sinclair. My first two credit cards were store cards, issued by the stores. I have never had a credit card issued by my bank, I haven't even applied for one there. Actually after congress passed and Obama signed new banking regulations my bank raised it's fees. My account originally was free but after those new regulations a new $10 per month fee was added. So I plan on moving my account to a credit union. Now there I probably will pay for a new credit card, credit unions usually have lower interest rates. Sam's Club, which most definitely is not a bank issues credit cards, and as a member I may apply for one. If so I'll apply for Sam's Discover card, Discover cards are the only credit cards Sam's accepts. And here is Sam's credit card website, both consumer and business accounts.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Then there is copyright, the USG can own copyright on its work in other juricdictions and there could easily be copyrighted communications in the cables. I know of at least one independent journalist, Michael Yon, who is looking into where Emails he has sent to the USG have be infringed. I'm also curious if whether the DMCA might come into play such that SIPRn might be considered a technological copy prevention method.
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and yet people claim that copyright doesn't hurt freedom of speach.
"no you can't show anyone those documents about us spying on people, we've copyrighted them"
It depends on if the US government created the cables or if it had some outside entity create them and assign the copyright.
http://stason.org/TULARC/business/copyright/3-6-Can-the-government-copyright-its-works.html
either way ask yourself this:
If some tinpot dictator started ethnic cleansing and the new york times got hold of documets about it and published them how would you feel about it? and would you think copyright law should give them the right to shut down the new york times or stop them from printing the information?
If some company was dumping toxic waste into american drinking water and documents about it got published online would you like the company to be able to use copyright law to suppress those documents and stop you from finding out about it?
you can't have it both ways.
screw over everyone else then apply the law one way then not have them use the same tactics against you.
Sorry but life just isn't fair, they are heading toward 400,000 documents and if they get fined for infrigement at U$250,000.00 a document, that's about U$ 100B times all the downloads of the Insurance file.
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and so the question stands:
If some tinpot dictator started ethnic cleansing and the new york times got hold of documets about it and published them how would you feel about it? and would you think copyright law should give them the right to shut down the new york times or stop them from printing the information?
If some company was dumping toxic waste into american drinking water and documents about it got published online would you like the company to be able to use copyright law to suppress those documents and stop you from finding out about it?
you can't have it both ways.
screw over everyone else then apply the law one way then not have them use the same tactics against you.
^-- This - wish I had mod-points