'Hactivists' for Wikileaks wage Operation Payback
W ikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's supporters are putting the 'B' back in 'backlash'. As news of his arrest hit websites and networking sites, a cyberwar was declared.
They're calling it Operation Payback. A group of activist hackers (hactivists) went to work on PostFinance, the Swiss Bank that froze donations made to the whistleblower site, and brought it down for some time. Next, they promised to target PayPal, the online payment company that cancelled WikiLeaks account; Anon_Operation posted on Twitter, target: www.paypal.com is YOYOing.
Other posts lead supporters to a file mysteriously titled insurance.aes256. Apparently, insurance.aes256 contains all the secret files released by WikiLeaks, the cables and then some. But this 1.39GB file is encrypted. Assange's lawyer has hinted that the key will be made available if anything happens to Assange. Blackmail? Perhaps. But it has worked. Thousands have downloaded the file and are generously seeding making it available for others to download while waiting for the key to be disclosed.
