WikiLeaks Defenders Threaten Amazon

healeyb writes "CNN is announcing that, starting at 11 AM EST, the hackers (coined Operation Payback) responsible for the DDoS attacks on MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, and PostFinance have promised to commence an attack against Amazon for their revocation of the WikiLeaks EC2 account. They released a do-it-yourself hacking tool online Thursday so other people can help with the attacks they say took down the websites of MasterCard and Visa..."

Comments

M.A.D.

[tverbeek]

Somehow I don't see escalation of online actions being to anyone's benefit in the long run.

Re:M.A.D.

[SuperRenaissanceMan]

No. A site slowdown could hurt Amazon's holiday sales, but not nearly as much as the government could for aiding a "terrorist."

Re:M.A.D.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's the terrorist? The one who did the *acts* reported in the documentation? Or the one who's letting others know they did it?

I know which it is, and it's not the one's letting the cat out of the bag.

That's right, the good ole US Gubernment is the terrorist now.

Re:M.A.D.

[dougmc]

We'll just call anybody a terrorist nowadays, won't we?

Re:M.A.D.

[Marc Desrochers]

Pretty much. There always an "ist" of some sort to battle against. There were fascists, that went away. Then came communists, that got old. Now it's terrorist. You have to tell people who the bad guys are or else they start looking at what you've been up to.

Re:M.A.D.

[Motard]

Yes, this will likely have the effect of governments exerting greater control over the internet - exactly what the script kiddies would be most outraged by.

Re:M.A.D.

[sycodon]

Essentially they are saying that if you don't agree with them and/or support their cause, they are going to blockade your business.

It's not a boycott and it's not a protest. It is actively interfering with business. No different than parking a cement truck in front of the doors.

If this becomes acceptable, then no one with a web presence is immune to wackos with a grudge or those with legitimate beefs.

Re:M.A.D.

[spidercoz]

To quote the Prophet Bueller, "Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself."

Re:M.A.D.

[mweather]

I think you underestimate Amazon's holiday sales, or overestimate the penalties they could face for hosting wikileaks.

Re:M.A.D.

[MozeeToby]

Yep, it's almost like if a group of people came in and took all the seats in the local diner and refused to leave, just because said diner refused to serve them.

Actively interfering with business can be a legitimate form of protest. In this case, I don't feel that it's right, since Amazon was forced to either capitulate or risk significant reprisals from the US government. It would be like blacks staging a sit-in at a privately owned diner, that was ordered by the feds to segregate, the owners of the diner aren't really the ones you should be pissed at.

Re:M.A.D.

[JockTroll]

Understand this: the governments have been trying to exert ABSOLUTE control over the internet from quite a time, and they won't stop. Nothing we do or do not do will change that. The choice is between taking it up the bunghole like good slaves or fight back even if the odds are far from fair. I say we fight.

Hackers?

[Degenerateuk]

Yet another case of script kiddies giving hackers a bad name...

DIY hacking tools

[digitaldc]

really isn't 'hacking' - or is it?

This news did nothing more than re-direct a lot of people to Amazon.com just to see if it was working. Then, they got distracted searching for something cool and subsequently made a few purchases.

This makes it worse

[Antisyzygy]

The US government now has another excuse for an internet-wide crackdown. Thanks assholes.

Re:This makes it worse

[healeyb]

The fear of a government crackdown is probably the best possible excuse to continue what you are doing.

Re:This makes it worse

[Antisyzygy]

I don't know about that. I think certain people in the government are just waiting for something like this to happen to help convince the 80 percent of the US that are morons its time to "stop the cyber-terrorists". Then its unique ID's on the internet, centralized and monitored network hubs, ect. Maybe Im being a tin-foil hat nut but I don't have alot of faith in the US population that allows themselves to be duped into the Patriot act and TSA gropings.

Re:This makes it worse

[healeyb]

You may be right. But to resolve to sit quietly and just take it all out of fear isn't the solution.

Re:This makes it worse

[retech]

Precisely. In the end we'll look back and see the mountains of spin the US Gov', CNN and FOX put on this to convince the world that hackers will eventually take over the world. They'll cite stats on how they compromise this or that. They'll interview ppl who had their identity stolen and close the interview with things like: "..it's only a matter of time before we all end up like John here."

While I do think their heart is in the right place, this is a woefully misplaced effort. If they could instead boycott all these places. If they could get say an 80% reduction in customers of PayPal and Amazon for a month, that would seriously damage them. If they could get a global effort of people to not use their Visa or MC for 6 months, that would make everyone take notice. But sadly, like much of the current social spectrum, they'll have a kneejerk reaction, applaud themselves and then forget about it. But the gov't's and corporations will NOT. We will all pay for this type of behaviour.

I'm left to ask: Why Wikileaks? Why not fight for the stack of equally as good social causes and try to stop the mountain of injustice we have? Oh, yeah, cuz this is the hot topic du jour.

Re:This makes it worse

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it we say around here? The more you tighten your grip the more star systems will slip through your fingers? Or something like that.

Bring it. You're a shuddering fucking pansy who fears the government. The government should fear YOU.

Re:This makes it worse

[Antisyzygy]

I'm left to ask: Why Wikileaks? Why not fight for the stack of equally as good social causes and try to stop the mountain of injustice we have? Oh, yeah, cuz this is the hot topic du jour.

The US government is perpetrating quite a lot of the social injustices these days IMHO.

Re:This makes it worse

[JackieBrown]

The government should fear YOU.

This is no more true than my employer should fear me. Government and citizenship should be a positive relationship not a conflicting one.

I am aware that it does not usually work out this way, but I am really sick of the Vendetta quotes.

Is this really hacking?

[Dyinobal]

I honestly don't see how this can be considered 'hacking' to me it sounds like cyber vandalism. A petty crime for petty reasons. Amazon had valid reasons for dropping wikileaks, they aren't crusaders they are a business. This is pretty much tantamount to being the jackass that sits at the red light until it's yellow and then gunning it through the intersection, to make the rest of the people behind you wait for the next light.

Re:Is this really hacking?

[sockonafish]

If dropping Wikileaks ends up disrupting their sales, then maybe they'll think twice before dropping a customer that the State Department dislikes. The DDoS attacks are giving them a business reason NOT to drop Wikileaks.

This one could actually hurt

[MetalliQaZ]

If they were able to actually knock Amazon offline, which I think is mostly unlikely to happen, it would be the first to make a serious economic impact. Mastercard's website may have been unreachable, but their credit processing facilities were just fine, as I demonstrated with my own card several times over the past few days. Amazon, on the other hand, is in the middle of their holiday rush, which is crucially important to them. IIRC, it is the reason they had the cloud infrastructure in the first place: their immense holiday resources went unused during the rest of the year. The last thing they need is a DDoS attack right now. I wonder if they might try to appease the mob with some kind of nod to anon in the form of a daily book deal or similar...

DDOSing Amazon will be a challenge

[FlameWise]

Considering Wikileaks rehosted to Amazon to escape their original sites getting DDOSed exactly BECAUSE Amazon is damn hard to DDOS, I wonder whether Payback can actually do that.

Maybe they just consider it a challenge they can't resist.

DDOSing

[Dan East]

I think that those holding the reigns of the botnets doing the current DDOSing are making massive mistakes employing them at this time. Not only that, the targets they are choosing are not valuable. Take for example visa.com and mastercard.com. Have you ever been to those sites? For all intent and purposes they are superficial, and have nothing to do with the logistics of the financial services they provide. If you go to either site and try to view financial information you will be given a list of banks that issue that type of card, which provides links to the respective banks that actually issue cards.

Furthermore, the various governments of the world are watching this whole affair with intense scrutiny, and the powers that be will be alarmed over the power wielded by these botnets. It will serve as a wake-up call. By utilizing their resources, these people have shown their hand and provided the evidence and forensics needed to aid in the dissemination of those nets.

As far as Amazon goes, they are so distributed and have such massive resources that I doubt a DDOS attack would have much effect. I might be wrong, but there is a world of difference between Amazon and public relations sites like visa.com and mastercard.com.

Re:DDOSing

[stand]

DDoS attacks should be opposed regardless of the target. The Internet (for better or worse) operates on the "Play Nice" principle.

DDoS Attacks, or Rightful Protest?

[bradgoodman]

One could argue that people launching DDoS "attacks" are in-fact perusing a rightful protest.

Isn't having a script to continually request a page for one web site the technical equivilant of marching back and forth in front of a building holding a picket sign?

Why should people have the right to do both if they are unhappy with - and wish to protest a government, company or organization?

I am *not* saying it is right or legal for people to write trojan horses to set up botnets to con others' computers to unknowingly (or unwillingly) do ones bidding - but isn't it completely within an individuals right to do this themselves, from their own homes, with their own equipment?

P.S. I don't think the Wikileaks leaks did *any* damage whatsoever. It may have "undignified" a few "dignitaries" - but that's it. Period. In reality, I think it does the world a *lot* of good when everyone suddenly can see everyone elses cards - and know their thoughts and opinions.

Going Off Half-Cocked

[bill_mcgonigle]

What's more likely, that these tech companies received National Security Letters and can't talk about them under threat of theft, caging or worse, or that these tech companies all just fell over and made up legally and technically bogus excuses because they're idiots?

The only positive result that can come out of these attacks is that the next tech companies might push back against the government harder, but if there's a chance you're taking out innocent bystanders you're doing wrong - end of story.

Going from stupid to outright insane...

[mseeger]

When someone who says "X is violating the freedom of speech rights" and tries to shut him/her/it up as punishment, than that person has not yet grasped the principle of "freedom of speech".

On the tactical level: Disrupting Amazon such a short time before christmas? Fox will have a field day.... At best it will convince the average man/woman on the street, that Wikileaks is evil (since they won't distinguish between Wikileaks and their anonymous supporters). It's like saying "We are facing a supperior enemy, let's make more of them". To mee it looks like some kind of Anti-Sun-Tzu or Clausewitz-in-reverse. Is there goal beyond "venting frustration"?

CU, Martin

Self-defeating

[hessian]

The powers that be: You need strong government and law enforcement because most people are unruly vandals.

Anonymous: We believe in a more anarchistic world, and so we're going to vandalize things until disorder comes about.

Silent Majority: Guess the powers that be called that one right.

Counterproductive

[davev2.0]

If some company does something involving Wikileaks that this group does not like, this group will punish that company with DDoS and other actions, right?

So, if I own a company, why should I provide any kind of service to Wikileaks? If I decided I don't want to provide my services to Wikileaks because someone is attacking them or I don't like what they are doing, which is my right, I am going to be pilloried by an anonymous group who are hell bent on hurting me and my business for doing something they do not like.

These attacks are showing companies that they should not do business with Wikileaks and any site like Wikileaks.

These attacks are hypocritical as well. The attackers are saying to these companies "You must do as we wish. You must associate with Wikileaks even if you don't want to or find their behavior objectionable." They are attempting to impose their will upon others from a position of secrecy.

Stop using the word 'Attack'

[miro2]

These are not attacks. This is not a war. A politically motivated DDOS is exactly analogous in form and function to a lunch counter sit-in. These should be called 'protests' or 'online sit-ins.' Use of the words like 'war' and 'attack' only fuels a belief that there is no justified ethical motivation for these protests.

Double standards much?

[SmallFurryCreature]

So Amazon doesn't agree with Wikileaks cause and blocked their business. But that is fair in your eyes, but the same can not be done in reverse?

My my, how you grovel at your masters feed as the perfect sheep unwilling to question anything.

Basically you claim that you are free, just as long as you don't upset anyone in power.

Re:Double standards much?

[hsmith]

You aren't comparing like things. Denying Amazon servers the right to serve up their own content is not the same as Amazon not hosting Wikileaks. They aren't even in the same ballpark. The right to refuse to do business with someone, for whatever reason is no where near the same as denying OTHERS the right to do business with someone.

Re:Double standards much?

[MachDelta]

Not authorized to publish? Wikileaks does not need the U.S. government's permission to publish anything. They have no official presence in the US. And even if they were an American company, there is a little thing called freedom of speech and the freedom of the presses which would protect them. Also, they have not yet been designated a terrorist group (or similar), so the only thing here that is illegal (aside from the private who initially leaked the cables - but he's in jail) is the US State Department trying to intimidate American businesses into not interacting with Wikileaks. THAT is illegal. The response from Anonymous is probably also (technically) illegal, but when the government misbehaves, law goes out the window.

Re:Double standards much?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess if you value the right to do business more than the right to live in a free society then I guess you have a point. If you can't see how censorship has become privatized, making the corps the de facto government then you probably never will at this point. It is a protest because private business wanted all the powers of government. We institutionalized bribery allowing our corporate overloads to make the rules and be the law. Well now they are getting treated like the government they so wanted to be like. Consequences, not just for the little people.

Re:Double standards much?

[cmorriss]

You're just not getting it. Here's another analogy that will hopefully clarify why they are two completely different things.

Suppose Julian wanted to print out a thousand page book containing the classified material and sell it in Barnes and Noble. Barnes and Noble doesn't really want to have something like that on their shelves so they decide not to sell it. Then some protesters proceed to block the entrance to the stores, not allowing anyone in or out just because they wouldn't sell Julian's book of CLASSIFIED government documents.

And this sounds right to you? Really? Because at this point you're denying the business the right to choose how they run their business. Julian can sell his book at other places just fine, but just because this one doesn't do it, it's time to raise the pitch forks and light the fires.

Let me put it simply and bluntly :

[unity100]

If the only option you leave for people is DDOS, they will ddos.

people talk 10+ hours for minimum wage. people tend their kids. people are studying in colleges by paying to them, in order to have a chance at future. those who have established some career, are busy paying bills.

they dont have the time or resources or the means to mount and run nation-spanning political campaigns, engage in social activity for prolonged periods. they have lives that they are forced to attend to.

and, in the end, because of all these necessities our current dog-eat-dog capitalist system enforces upon people (its always good to cut benefits, social security, and wages for profit after all, aint it ..), what's left to people ?

hitting 'like' button on facebook, doing comments under online news stories, discussing in forums, instant messengers, online blabber. maybe donating a few bucks to a ngo. and the most extreme of what they can do online, ends up being DDOS. they cant even do serious hacks, they dont time or the means to learn and further any knowledge in that area.

and they do this. ddos. because, this is the travesty of a situation our current society manufactures, and then pays for. the ironic thing is, the very perpetrators, creators of this situation, the big corporations, end up on the receiving end of this. hunter hunted.

no, ddos may not be ethically so justifiable. but, as said, if you leave the only option for people to DDOS, they will DDOS.