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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......
Including LOIC setup guide - Operation Payback: http://pastehtml.com/view/1c8i33u.html
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!
Distributing stolen files is not "free speech;" it's distributing stolen files. Free speech would be Julian and company voicing an opinion or their OWN work.
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."
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.
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?
Yes, because "geminidomino" has it all figured out! Everyone else is ignorant and apathetic! THANK BABY JESUS we have "geminidomino" to show us the light!!! Please! Tell us more about how you are the keeper of all world knowledge and how the world is black and white and that insignificant, douchebag little computer geeks are the true sages of our time!
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.
If this ANONYMOUS are the same guys who were fighting the Church of Scientology, they have just pissed away all of the good will they generated by fighting the COS. They are now acting just like the COS does when they go after so-called "suppressive persons".
Assange is not behaving like an ethical member of the press. He is acting like a terrorist. 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. He does not give a damn about anyone but himself.
ANONYMOUS should take a long look at themselves and realize that they have become what they claim to hate.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
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.
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?
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?
Freedom of speech, priceless. For everything else, there's Mastercard.
Your freedom of speech doesn't include the right to violate your government's diplomatic privacy, which is a long established principle of civilization... the confidentiality of diplomatic communications. Governments have to have the assurance that they can speak to each other at times confidentially, and Julian Assange is basically trying to that. There are damned good reasons why governments need to have this confidentiality with each other at times, and a story I read just this morning provides a stark example of why.
Two up and coming leaders in the Chinese government have now had their private conversations with US diplomats leaked by Assange and his gang, with probable consequences for US-Chinese relations. The men in question were on the fast track to replacing men in very, very high positions in the Chinese government... one of them equivilant to the Vice Presidency of the US. Both of these men were becoming known to US diplomats as believers in the rule of law, of technological and societal progress, and of friendlier cross-pacific trade and in particular, they had a zeal for cracking down on crime and corruption in China, including crime in the booming business community.
The leaks may have dealt their careers a blow. They're members of the Chinese Communist Party... officially, it's still a one party state, after all... and now they'll likely be seen as too soft and friendly towards the west by the hardliners in China's military industrial wing and the military leadership. Their ascensions to higher office may now be jeapordized. Had Wikileaks been around in the mid-80's, it's likely that someone like Mikhail Gorbachev could have never become General Secretary. This kind of practice will make it much harder for government reformers the world over to move into positions of authority, especially in non-democratic societies.
Look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. All of the negotiations that ended the standoff were held secretely, behind the scenes. The compromises that both sides made... the Soviets pulling their missiles from Cuba, the US pulling their Jupiter missiles from Turkey six months later... would have NEVER been supported by the rest of the governments of both nations, nor the publics of both nations. Instead of cooler heads prevailing, you'd have gotten more heated confrontation. 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.
Julian Assange is not fighting for your freedom. Wikileaks is not fighting for your freedom of speech. Because no one is stopping you from speaking. No one is stopping your free speech, because the diplomatic cables are not your speech. You have no right to them, nor any burning need to see what's in them. What Assange is doing is an act of petty vandalism. Like some half-ass Tyler Durden wannabe, he just wants to blow it all up.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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.
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?
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....
I can't wait, if that's true.
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
So some are more equal than others.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
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?
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
Visa and MC told be to get bent
A rather ironic comment considering what you'd just been accused of selling.
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!
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.
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?
^-- This - wish I had mod-points