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Visa.com Now Also Down Under DDoS

242 points by thecoffman 16y ago

tc 16y ago
I'm reminded of the country song whose chorus goes: "I've got friends in low places." -- [1] I agree, as noted by Nathan below, that this isn't helping Wikileaks' reputation any (despite, of course, WL having nothing to do with this). That's the problem with (and sometimes, benefit of) friends in low places -- no one ever accused them of being sophisticated. [2] A related thought.... The system consisting of [ Person who leaks info + Wikileaks ] seems to be a modern instance of the Robin Hood archetype. Instead of "robbing from the rich to give to the poor," this system takes information from the powerful and gives it to the (relatively) powerless. Just as with Robin Hood, there's room for debate about the moral characteristics of this approach (particularly on the taking side). And just as with every Robin Hood reincarnation, this system is despised by modern aristocrats. As I believe pg noted in an essay, during the time-setting of Robin Hood, wealth was nearly a zero-sum game. Today, wealth is not zero-sum, but power still is -- making this archetype all the more fitting.
- NathanKP 16y ago
  Sadly those friends aren't helping the reputation of Wikileaks. I definitely support freedom and information and the press, but organizing a DDOS doesn't help Wikileaks, it just associates Wikileaks even more with illegal activity.
  - heed 16y ago
    I'm not under the impression 'Anonymous' helps anyone beside itself.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      Cats.
    - trotsky 16y ago
      cnn pageviews?
  - dsplittgerber 16y ago
    Personally, I thank whatever higher power there is for those people and their actions. Their actions raise the "censorship costs" those private enterprises (seem to have to) pay from now on upon deciding it is in their best business interest to discontinue customer relations with customers who engage in allegedly illegal activities without investigating the supposed illegality of their customers' actions themselves.
    - ars 16y ago
      No, what it does is make companies refuse to do business with such customers in the first place. You do anything not mainstream? Sorry, we won't accept your business.
      - dsplittgerber 16y ago
        For companies who provide basic functionalities (hosting, payments, etc.) it's just not feasible to check out a potential customer ex ante - they have far too many customers for up-front checks. "Censorship costs" refer to ex-post checks on customers on which businesses have received complaints or inquiries from Governmental entities.
        dhyasama 16y ago
        I work for a payment company and that simply isn't true. We do in-depth checks on every customer. Risk assessment is a major part of our business.
        steveklabnik 16y ago
        With payment companies, yes. I think ars is talking about Amazon and Paypal, which don't.
        sigzero 16y ago
        They don't now...but they could easily do it in the future. There is no gray area here. What they did was idiotic.
  - patrickaljord 16y ago
    It does help Wikileaks in that other companies not as powerful as Visa and Mastercard might think twice before screwing with Wikileaks. Who would want to be ddos like that and lose business?
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      Essentially what you're saying is that WikiLeaks should adopt or would even benefit from a policy of strong-arming people into compliance so that it can further the cause against evil governments that strong-arm people into compliance.
      - marcusbooster 16y ago
        These companies have already indicated their policy can be strong-armed (ie. "The Justice Department threatened us."). This does show, at the very least symbolically, that their willingest to cave will bring an arm coming the other way.
  - hendler 16y ago
    I feel the same way. WikiLeaks (truth and openness in general) has the potential to create trust. But breaking trust to protest doesn't help. Illegality is probably less important if the act of protest is "right". WikiLeaks denies engaging in civil disobedience - but there is a contrast between non-violent WikiLeaks and "violent" retaliation. WikiLeaks is the underdog, and they will not win by suppression or coercion. Even if these DDOS attacks are only meant as a protest, there has to be a better way to gain attention for the important issues. At best, it's a distraction, at worst it plays into being labeled as terrorists.
  - gasull 16y ago
    At what point is it OK to use a DDOS attack as a form of protest? I mean, do we have to wait until they grope us at checkpoints? Checked. Until they take websites down without trial? Checked. Until they start accusing journalist of espionage? Checked. Until they illegally tape the Internet? Checked. Is there a limit or DDOS is wrong no matter what?
    - CWuestefeld 16y ago
      do we have to wait until they... Who is the "they" that you refer to? I don't think that it's MasterCard nor Visa that did those things.
      - gasull 16y ago
        They is obviously the Government, but with the help of unethical companies: AT&T for taping the Internet, Amazon/Paypal/Visa/Mastercard for suppressing free press, etc.
        potatolicious 16y ago
        I have a hard time linking "getting out of the crossfire" with "unethical". Spineless? Perhaps. Failing to stand up for some principle? Probably. But unethical?
        gasull 16y ago
        Failing to stand up for some principle? Probably. But unethical? Do you doublethink so?
        potatolicious 16y ago
        This is the internal inconsistency that troubles me about this whole WikiLeaks thing. We've railed on companies constantly in the past for being political, and now we're railing on them for not being sufficiently political in our favor. So which will it be? This is Amazon, PayPal, VISA, MC, etc, saying "woah hey a dangerously hot potato, not touching that", which strikes me as a more or less neutral stance. To expect more than that would be expecting a company to make a political stand on one side or another - something we've consistently fought against in the past. So which is it? Do we want companies to remain politically neutral and leave the democratic process up to real people (as opposed to corporate persons)? Or do we want them to fight for our cause, and make open political stands? If so, we also have to accept that often they will not be fighting on our side, and each punch they throw will be worth a lot of real people's punches.
  - michaelchisari 16y ago
    I think you make the mistake of thinking that all protest activity should be about making friends or increasing your reputation and good standing. Often it's just as much about hitting back as hard as you can. Now you can argue the merits of that, but we have crossed a major threshold here: The internet has taken down the websites of two of the largest credit providers in the world, two weeks before Christmas. If that isn't an exertion of grassroots power in the internet age, I don't know what is. The implications are boundless. Visa, and Mastercard probably didn't think twice about canceling Wikileak's payments. I doubt their risk assessment would have been the same if they had known this would result.
    - tybris 16y ago
      Ironically, this will be a major boost to Amazon's Christmas sales, since they don't rely on securecode.
    - gwright 16y ago
      Internet? Grassroots? The Internet hasn't taken down anything. A small group of geeks have taken upon themselves to take down a few targeted websites. No due process, no rule book, no accountability, just naked use of force. If I'm following correctly, I'm supposed to believe that a staff member of an elected official asking about the activities of a private company is an abuse of power but a small group of unelected geeks representing no one but themselves are to be commended for actively disrupting the activities of a private business.
      - michaelchisari 16y ago
        I'm not aware of previous grassroots movements being democratically elected. Nobody elected the suffragists, for instance. That's not really how movements work.
        gwright 16y ago
        OK. But I didn't intend to conflate my questioning of the use of 'grassroots' with my point about accountability. I think the term 'grassroots' suggests a much more widespread and visible 'movement' than the tiny number of Anonymous members taking part in the DDOS attacks.
  - Raphael_Amiard 16y ago
    Do you or the gp have any information that is not into the article ? I didn't read the "friends" word, only "supporters" and "backers". In what world are supporters friends, and in what world are people responsible for their "supporters" actions ? It's indeed a dangerous implication, but the original article isn't doing it. You and op are. Why ? If people, supporters, were to riot about the imprisonment of somebody, would you say that he is responsible ? If no, in what is this case different ? If you have any information i don't about any direct links between wikileaks and the DDOS attack, it would be nice to share. Otherwise, i fear you are solely spreading your own preconceptions about the situation.
  - ohyes 16y ago
    I don't think mass declassification of government documents is a good idea, but... The government is going after Wikileaks in a similar way that they would go against a terrorist organization (cutting off funding and detaining them without due process). Are the government's actions legal? Are they ethical? Cutting off funding is an interesting move on the government's behalf, because it seems that any funding would have gone to Wikileaks' legal defense, once someone found something to charge them with (looks like it will be rape). As far as I know, distributing already leaked classified information is not illegal. (If it is, why aren't Robert Novak and other members of the media in jail?) How would detaining Assange make us any better than China detaining a dissident like Liu Xiaobo? As an aside: I know Assange is being detained for 'rape,' but the crime we know that he has actually committed, (and presumably the crime for which his funds have been frozen), bears a striking resemblance to "inciting subversion of state power;" which Xiaobo is charged with. It feels like the government's decision to exercise its power in this way is kind of a desperation move, trying to hold on to its rapidly evaporating secrecy. And the question is, is this really between the government and Wikileaks anymore, or is it between the government and its citizens?
    - pyre 16y ago
      > (and presumably the crime for which his funds > have been frozen) Last I checked, they don't freeze your assets when you are accused of rape.
      - pigbucket 16y ago
        The stuff in parentheses that you cite refers to a crime like the crime of inciting subversion. Why ohyes says "we know he actually committed" such a crime, I don't know.
        ohyes 16y ago
        Should have been 'we know that he committed in the eyes of the government.' Sorry for being cryptic.
  - quag 16y ago
    Who is DOSing Wikileaks?
  - rhizome 16y ago
    Who besides you is saying that Wikileaks organized the ddos?
  - donaq 16y ago
    This is probably not representative, but my facebook feed is full of people posting links to news about this with comments that mostly semi-applaud those actions. The interesting thing is that my facebook acquaintances are mostly neither hackers nor Americans.
  - random42 16y ago
    Can we consider it as Civil disobedience of the modern age?
- mashmac2 16y ago
  Garth Brooks for those who were wondering... take a listen here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1063893612084739337# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1063893612084739337...
- alanh 16y ago
  Damn you! I avoid piano bars so that I can pretend that song doesn’t exist! ;)
  - cosmicray 16y ago
    That isn't a piano bar song ... Garth Brooks is more likely heard in some little country bar. The kind of place where it's hard to find a decent chardonnay.
- jackfoxy 16y ago
  I would not agree power is a zero sum game. Defining it is squishier than defining wealth, and even giving you broad latitude in the definition, I don't think you could come up with much of a proof of that assertion.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
geuis 16y ago
Is it wrong to think of this at a very high level, where basically the internet as an system that relies on information to function properly has turned on its immune system? I know this is a very meta idea, and its extremely easy to break this down to the component entities (Visa corporation, thousands of individuals, etc). But under the meta concept, wouldn't that be like individual t-cells talking to each other?
- ra 16y ago
  Interesting. And, like skynet, you can't switch it off.
  - sorbus 16y ago
    Until we're hit with a coronal mass ejection; that would do a pretty good job of killing pretty much all advanced technology.
- phlux 16y ago
  I guess you could equate it to a certain level of DID/Schizophrenia - but that concept is still too one-dimensional to truly apply, as we are talking about very critical layers of a civilization here. The analogy drawn with immune system/cognitive issues assumes that the internet is a homogeneous whole (all participating parties are interdependent upon each other) - which they aren't. I'd more liken it to a neighborhood gang war: all parties rely on underlying infrastructure (the streets==DNS/connections, power etc) but can attack eachother. Aside from blowing up the streets(DNS/physical layer) this akin to two (or more) of the neighborhood gangs in a fight. You just cant hold a conversation with CC while he's getting pummeled. Yelling at him only makes matters worse. --- Though to go back to your meta definition of the internet turning on itself - thats kind of what information does; lies are destroyed by facts. In this case - we have wikileaks releasing facts which destroy the lies upon which public perception has been built. This is a good thing, albeit painful. In much the same way a cheating partner in a previously happy relationship would be. It sucks to find out, and you have emotional strife - but in the long term it is good to dissolve the relationship which is not based on real trust. I like the thought, as another put it her, that this raises the cost of censorship greatly. Wikileaks may be the only recourse we have against corruption in entrenched systems which are far too slow to change. While there is information that is important to keep secret - I think we've seen that there is too much risk in giving government carte blanche as has been evidenced for many many many decades. Our archetypes of governing should evolve much more quickly in the modern era, we should take the evolutions of thought and innovation that we are experiencing in the technology and scientific areas of humanity and apply them to other aspects of our civilization and then we might see some real progress. It would be great to apply Moore's Law here such that we can get over all this petty bullshit, become self sustainable and begin to colonize outside this beautiful planet before we destroy it, and ourselves.
nod 16y ago
Is this really an attempt to support free speech with a DDOS? Or is there some sort of meta/irony motivation here?
- Vivtek 16y ago
  I think MasterCard/Visa is just a nail to 4chan's hammer, is all. DDoSing is all they know how to do (except exposure of personal details for public harrassment). That said, I'm sitting back with my popcorn here. I just imagine guys in some boardroom saying, "4 what now?" Heh.
  - jeromec 16y ago
    Damn, it's usually safe to read HN with something in your mouth... [gets napkin]
    - alphabeat 16y ago
      Okay, you know what you do? You buy yourself a tape recorder, you just record yourself for a whole day. I think you’re going to be surprised at some of your phrasing.
      - anigbrowl 16y ago
        He means the grandparent made him laugh so hard, he spit out the food he was eating. It's a compliment, not a criticism.
        throwaway8764 16y ago
        Whoosh... I've gotta say, I didn't even notice the double-serving hilarity of the phrasing before the parent pointed it out.
        jmtulloss 16y ago
        It's a quote from Arrested Development. You should check it out if you haven't seen it, it's on netflix and hulu.
chailatte 16y ago
Finally something has pissed off enough geeks. I thought the government's lack of respect towards due-process, the systematic breakdown of basic freedom or the massive wealth transfer to the rich via dollar printing/bailout would've done it. V for Vendetta.
- russellallen 16y ago
  V for Vendetta starred Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, and Steven Fry. It was a mainstream Hollywood movie which took over $132 million at the box office. It was a Warner Bros film, a subsidiary of Times Warner which is "the world's second largest entertainment conglomerate in terms of revenue (behind Disney and ahead of News Corporation and Viacom), as well as the world's largest media conglomerate". Your dreams of anarchism were manufactured in a bottle and sold to you on a silver screen. Grow up. (Edit: as acknowledged below, the final 'grow up' is a bit snarky. Sorry, that's withdrawn)
  - chailatte 16y ago
    V for vendetta is a ten-issue Graphic-Novel series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd. In writing V for Vendetta, Moore drew upon an idea for a strip titled The Doll, which he had submitted at the age of 22 to DC Thomson.
    - russellallen 16y ago
      Oh I knew everyone would say "But it was a graphic novel". Bar humbug. Anonymous all wear plastic masks from the movie at protests for a start.
      - pyre 16y ago
        Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the masks were in the graphic novel too.
  - kariatx 16y ago
    Not exactly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta
goldenthunder 16y ago
A co-worker Engineer just went down to get frozen yogurt. They couldn't process his card. Apparently they route transactions through their domain DNS? Suddenly corporate powers don't seem as strong. It's amazing how vulnerable something man made is.
- thecoffman 16y ago
  I'm assuming thats a coincidence. I cannot imagine Visa's payment processing infrastructure is coupled to its web infrastructure in any way. That would be monumentally bone headed.
  - goldenthunder 16y ago
    Indeed, as I remember setting some payment stuff up at my parents business a while back-- you can get a gateway setup that uses their web interface to process transactions. That was a while back, but maybe they have legacy systems. Either way, they are loosing money one way or another =/
- cosmicray 16y ago
  A Taco Bell I frequent uses a VPN back to the franchisee to aggregate the card payments. Wouldn't surprise me if that's getting messed with as well.
goldenthunder 16y ago
This is a weird subject because it is totally dual sided. 1) It promotes freedom of speech and taking action as a community to promote change. 2) It is completely illegal which goes against the laws and freedoms they are trying to promote. Right Idea - Wrong Method
- melpo 16y ago
  It's the same as with any uprising really. You can't expect people to follow laws when they are made by the "enemy". That so many people are willing to break the law when taking action shows how important the issue is to them. It also suggests that there is no other effective way to take action.
  - goldenthunder 16y ago
    Yep. I was raised in a religious school and the most fascinating topic we ever touched was when a law is morally and contextually 'ok' to break.
  - rimantas 16y ago
    I have a problem there with "so many people" and "no other effective way". Blocking my payments is very effective way to piss me off indeed, not sure what good it brings otherwise. I am still amused how quickly critical thinking switches off in many people. After initial categorization "wikileaks is good, government is bad" not much effort goes into actual considerations, how is it good, what good did it bring, etc. Governments suck, uh oh, what a news. Maybe it will be a news to some, but we do elect governments. I guess it is easier to enjoy some braindead DDoS than go to elections, put some more thought whom to elect and make sure those elected are responsible for their work as officials. Now it looks like governments were brought by some aliens and just forced on us. Demanding responsibility from the government is very good, how about taking some responsibility of the governments we have? And that's where I have a problem with wikileaks: at least I can imagine that I had some say in what people do rule my country, so I can claim a bit responsibility for the power they have. Wikileaks on the other hand is self-proclaimed savior, responsible to whom?
InclinedPlane 16y ago
I'm sure it's the US government! Or... not. Turns out that DDoS is a dime a dozen today, they don't necessarily mean anything.
cosgroveb 16y ago
The attack on MC supposedly took down SecureCode affecting those payments... Seems like Visa's equivalent, Verified by Visa is still up: https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partner=default&resize=yes https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partn...
- thecoffman 16y ago
  I just tried that link and it timed out. Perhaps its intermittent?
- cryptoz 16y ago
  That link is down for me, actually.
- cobralibre 16y ago
  Unless things have changed or my memory's not so good, Verified by Visa's servers are operated by multiple individual banks and payment processors (or entities acting on their behalf) -- there isn't a single point of attack. And -- again, IIRC -- VbV or SecureCode aren't necessary to the successful completion of an online transaction. Taking down these services would frankly be a favor to consumers, as 3D Secure is an extra step that they don't need.
joshfraser 16y ago
I wonder how much money Visa and Mastercard have to lose before they regret their decision. For the attackers, instead of positioning the DDOS attack as revenge, you should give them as an easy-out. Stop blocking wikileaks and we'll stop the DDOS. Since Visa/Mastercard are loosing millions of dollars for each hour they are down, it would turn the issue into a simple business decision and they could change their position without losing face.
- xentronium 16y ago
  There's another point of view on this story, which is, shortly put, "we don't negotiate with terrorists".
  - geuis 16y ago
    Who's the terrorist in this situation? Its wrong to immediately put Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and other related parties into the "right" side and to put the people behind the DDoS attacks into the "wrong" side. They are not victims, but instead are attacking Wikileaks by cutting off their ability to get funds. Who's right in this situation?
    - xentronium 16y ago
      I don't say that visa, paypal and mastercard are right, I say that's how they perceive the situation and what they will probably say to public in press releases. Showing weakness by negotiations with the Legion is inappropriate for them in given circumstances.
    - alex_c 16y ago
      That can be debated, but from the perspective of the decision makers at Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal - who would presumably be the ones saying "we don't negotiate with terrorists" - the terrorist is obviously Anonymous.
    - xenophanes 16y ago
      Visa is a private company. If they are wrong, it's wrong in the same way as Apple's app store policies -- you can object to them, compete with them, complain about them, even jailbreak your phone, but you'd definitely be wrong to DDoS the app store website b/c your app was rejected. Visa isn't attacking anyone when they reject customers for any reason, just like Apple isn't attacking anyone when they reject apps. Attacking is the wrong word. It's refusing to cooperate with, even "discriminating against" (but not the various illegal types like racism or sexism), being unfriendly to, maybe "being a jerk", whatever, but there is no attacking when a business makes legal business decisions, especially one that they think lots of their customers would prefer (Why else would they do it? I'm guessing Visa is run by soulless bureaucrats just trying to make money and keep their jobs and they don't care about having a political agenda).
tkahnoski 16y ago
DDoS strikes me as a violent form of protest. Has anyone started a non-violent protest (offline or digitally) for WikiLeaks? EDIT: Rethinking my statement on DDoS as violent. I am still interested in knowing if there are other non-DDoS protests surrounding WikiLeaks.
- lallysingh 16y ago
  What sort were you thinking? Perhaps a distributed candlelight vigil? I'm a Ghandhi-ist myself, so I'm fascinated.
  - AndyKelley 16y ago
    Sounds incredibly boring. Just saying.
- natnat 16y ago
  I don't think DDoS is violent at all. It doesn't physically hurt anyone, and it doesn't damage the property of people who aren't involved in censoring Wikileaks. Nonviolent protest doesn't need to just be complaining. Everyone does that, and it doesn't get anything done unless you're a millionaire. Passive resistance is generally economically disruptive to whoever it's targeted at. DDoS attacks are not all that different, conceptually, from sit-ins. You're not destroying their server or deleting their code. You are simply putting yourself in the way so that no one else can use their website. It's not a nice thing to do, it interferes with their ability to do business, and it's illegal, but it's not violent.
  - tkahnoski 16y ago
    The comparison to sit-ins is an interesting case I hadn't considered until reading further comments. On a technical level DDoS certainly seems equivalent to a sit-in. I will have to think on this a bit more.
- alextgordon 16y ago
  Illegal? Certainly. Immoral? Debatable. Violent? No.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
araneae 16y ago
I should point out that Visa itself hasn't actually decided to stop payments to WikiLeak- only Visa Europe, its subsidiary. The people that run Visa.com are only responsible for selling Visa Europe the rights to use the name.
keiferski 16y ago
Looks like they're redirecting it to USA.visa.com
sukuriant 16y ago
There are so many active topics on the DDoS's happening today. I now wonder. What happens if Anonymous wins? If, under the pressure, Visa gives and succumbs to their wishes? What happens then?
- AndyKelley 16y ago
  Then we can use visa.com to donate to wikileaks, and it establishes a precedent that it is okay for private companies to never censor their customers, even if the government thinks the customer is dubious.
jonknee 16y ago
Rumor has it the next target is Authorize.net (I assume not because anything they did but because that's how you actually take down the ability for Visa and MC to function). That would be quite dramatic to say the least.
- storborg 16y ago
  Can you substantiate that rumor? Taking down Visa.com isn't really a huge deal, but taking down Authorize.net would actually affect a lot of merchants.
  - vukk 16y ago
    I wonder why they don't get payment gateway IP's from shops, surely some of them work in them, and DDOS those. Maybe too much heat because Visa and MasterCard would lose millions per day and people would lose the ability to pay with their cards?
- kurokikaze 16y ago
  Seems like right now target is Amazon. See http://twitter.com/Op_Payback http://twitter.com/Op_Payback
binaryfinery 16y ago
Akamai's stock should be going up.
toephu 16y ago
its up now
- goldenthunder 16y ago
  no it's not.
  - toephu 16y ago
    oh its down again hah
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
So I'm some average merchant, anywhere in the world. Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family. Aside from your personal feelings, what are the odds I blame Visa, and what are the odds I blame Wikileaks? All of a sudden Visa doesn't work, MasterCard doesn't work, some sites can't be accessed, sometimes the net is slower than it should, etc. Maybe I'm smoking crack, but from where I sit, the more hackers thrash out over WL, the more ticked millions of people are going to become at both Wikileaks and the hackers involved. This is a very sad development. People of all opinions need to take an active hand in trying to settle this down as quickly as possible. This is no good for anybody. No good can come from this. EDIT: If you want to support the idea of leaking to fix governments (and not the massive attack of government nodes through information overload), which I do, then WL needs a standard of conduct: what it will and will not publish. It needs a standard of acceptable behavior: what cyber protests are in line with it's mission and what protests are not. Without these things, I can't support WL, they're going to lose track of their message and the larger media narrative, and they are going spectacularly shoot themselves and the rest of us in the foot. This is becoming dangerously nihilistic.
- kbatten 16y ago
  As an average merchant you wouldn't have any reason to care about the ethical actions of large companies like VISA unless you were affected. These types of actions (right or wrong) force you to care. In fact, this is one of the core principles that America was founded on through the symbolic Boston Tea Party and beyond. I think the real point of these things, though its likely that the intentions of many participants differ, is to simply bring these issues to light to the common person.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    I am talking about the effect of these things. You are talking about the point of these things. They are not the same.
  - techiferous 16y ago
    > force you to care I prefer to live in a world where people don't force me to care about things but persuade me through reasoned discourse.
chailatte 16y ago
There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
12341sa 16y ago
I find outrageous that compagnies like VISA or MASTERCARD take the right to forbid people to do what _THEY_ want with _THEIR OWN_ money. Please continue the DDOS until they bankrupt.
- brass_cannon 16y ago
  But you're missing a huge point here. Visa and MasterCard don't have a responsibility to allow you access to their networks. This is akin to arguing that your free speech rights are infringed upon when a moderator removes your comment on their board.
  - scotus69 16y ago
    Wrong comparison. If a moderator removes your comment you can do many things: pm him/her to relent, post your comment with a new id, go post on another forum -- none of which are possible when dealing with a worldwide financial processing goliath(s) running a superpower supported duopoly.
  - pessimizer 16y ago
    If the government was making calls to message boards, asking them to remove my comments, I might be suspicious that my free speech rights are being infringed upon. I might suspect this even before I hear that the government is lobbying for those specific bulletin boards being excluded from pending Russian regulation.
    - brass_cannon 16y ago
      AFAIK (and I may be off here), the government has not officially requested that any entity take negative action against Wikileaks. The implied threat that action may be taken against them is there, and individual representatives have spoken out against Wikileaks, but I do not believe the government has officially asked / demanded for third parties to cut ties with Wikileaks.
  - trevelyan 16y ago
    I think your analogy is flawed in this case. Government-enforced monopolies have an implicit social responsibility to abide by social norms when conducting business. This is more akin to a subway refusing to carry a newspaper publisher because of something they published. To the extent that a refusal of service violates social norms this creates a legitimate grievance in the absence of reasonable alternatives because of public policy.
pointillistic 16y ago
Considering that the Jesus was the original revolutionary and one of his major acts was throwing the money changers out of the Temple, I am stunned about the internalized commercialization of Christmas and the comments that put into question the current protest. And I am saying this even though I hate DDos viscerally, my business was a victim of such an attack. But I have to say, as long as no one gets killed or injured this is a legitimate form of protest.
- astine 16y ago
  DDOS attempts that utillize illegal botnets are, well, illegal. As such, they are by definition not a legitimate form of protest.
  - gasull 16y ago
    Most of the people at Anonymous run the DOS attacks on their own computers, not through botnets. I'm sure there are some script kiddies with botnets there, but I don't think the average Anonymous/4Chan member has one.
  - siculars 16y ago
    That may be true, but is THIS an illegal botnet? What makes LOIC illegal? What makes a determined, coordinated request from thousands of volunteer computers illegal? I liken this to a civil disobedience sit in.
    - seabee 16y ago
      LOIC itself isn't illegal but causing a DDoS is, however you achieve it.
    - qeorge 16y ago
      A DDoS is nothing like a sit in. Its more like forming a human chain around the restaurant. The crux of civil disobedience is that moral men have a duty to break unjust laws. This is not civil disobedience.
    - 16y ago
sdizdar 16y ago
Both Visa and MasterCard are down. This just shows how fragile the internet is and how 'easy' is to shut down the entire economy and system. The point is that coordinated attack by terrorists or plain old criminals can cripple the entire world's economy and there is no easy and effective way to prevent it. We do need to think about how internet can be re-organized to be 100% distributed system to prevent this of happening again.
- pyre 16y ago
  The internet is distributed. How else could you post to this site while VISA and MasterCard are pounded into the ground?
- varjag 16y ago
  Have you tried to pay for groceries with your Visa or MC today? They work just fine. Good luck to anyone with shutting down economy.
- utoku 16y ago
  You almost identified the problem correctly. Internet is already distributed. The attacks against Visa and MC are also distributed. But Visa and MC are not. They are single points of trust for our financial transactions. A more distributed system, where a web of trust and transaction system exists, could be used. But such a thing hasn't been invented yet. I thought about it some last year, but such a system is hard to design. I did design several prototypes, but they had lots of problems. It also involved changing the structures of presumed governmental financial structures ("central" bank for example, is also a single point of trust). So I think, the rephrasing of the problem should be: We do need to think about how our financial systems can be reorganized to be 100% distributed systems to prevent future abuses by anyone, including governments.
b1tr0t 16y ago
And I haven't even seen any comments on the possibility of this being a smear campaign to tarnish Wikileaks further in the media? I'm just saying, if you wanted to completely discredit an organization what's the fastest way to go about doing so? Step 1: Manufacture accusations against it's founder for which there is no defence, where the individual is guilty before a trial even begins. Oh, I don't know, how about accusing a man of a sex crime? (Especially a funny looking foreign one!) Step 2: Manufacture scary "hackers" who do scary "hacker" things. Hide your children! Step 3: Let CNN and Fox do what they're paid to do. Spin and spin and spin.
- socksy 16y ago
  A smear campaign seeding 4chan with fake posts, and orchestrating a LOIC attack?
faragon 16y ago
Better attack: reduce the credit card usage, and try to pay more with cash. Spread the word.
llimllib 16y ago
They had all day to prepare for this and they failed? edit: up for me, at least.
tocomment 16y ago
Does this actually hurt visa? Wouldn't visa.com just Be a showcase type website eg "hey here's what visa is, here are some ringtones you candownload" I'd imagine all their transaction processing happens elsewhere.
- cryptoz 16y ago
  > I'd imagine all their transaction processing happens elsewhere. Yes, a good portion happens through https://verified.visa.com https://verified.visa.com Which, you'll note, is also down. This is real.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Really though? Wouldn't that be the Verified by Visa program, which not all online commerce sites use? Or do they process all transactions through that site?
hammock 16y ago
It's not surprising to me why the shutdown of Wikileaks donation channels, as opposed to TSA or any of the other civil liberties breaches, triggered such rage. The answer is simple: People get fucking pissed when they can't spend their money where they want to. And it holds throughout history.
- wtallis 16y ago
  Retaliation over the internet is easier and safer, and the credit card companies were one of the few targets that is vulnerable to attack over the web. (Here's to hoping somebody develops a virus to brick backscatter x-ray machines.)
netcan 16y ago
What this whole wikileaks payment processing issue has made me aware of is how bottle-necked this whole area is. A client of mine a couple of years ago selling personal protection equipment (smoke & hazmat masks, mostly). They were based out of Australia and selling globally. Apparently they breached some US advertising restriction with one of their products (disposable hygienic suit) by having the words bird flu in the description. Simultaneously to contacting (apparently they tried to contact earlier during US work hours), they contacted paypal and had the account shut down entirely. The US was never a major market so they put a big red sign on the product page: "Not for Sale in the USA." Getting paypal back online took weeks. Whatever department shut them down was not concerned with reversing the damage and paypal seemed like they knew which side to stay on. Basically, paypal (and apparently visa & mastercard) is the on/off switch that various players within the US government can use. It does not take a high level one off phone call. This is an issue.
balac 16y ago
You have to think that paypal is also being attacked, in that case I am pretty impressed that they are managing to stay up while mastercard and visa get sunk.
frisco 16y ago
CapitalOne account center is down for me; I was trying to log in to access a Visa card. Coincidence? I have no idea why they'd be synchronously connected, but odd timing.
FirstHopSystems 16y ago
Looks like Paypal is down too. Well only the server that redirects you to the secure page. Just use the full path "http://www.paypal.com http://www.paypal.com or "https://www.paypal.com https://www.paypal.com We took down Chevron by spray painting over one of the signs at a gas Station. CHEVRON IS DOWN!!!!!
- cosmicray 16y ago
  About the same time you posted, I was using PayPal. It was working, but I did notice signs of slow response. I was able to do everything I needed. My impression is that the PayPal engineers are dealing with the issue.
futuremint 16y ago
I pity the poor sys-admins whose pagers are interrupting their late-night hacking. Visa & MC probably don't care at all (they're swimming in plastic money!), its the front-line guys that are feeling this the most!
morganpyne 16y ago
Does anybody have any details on the the technical side of these attacks and what happens when anon decides to fire all phasers at a target? My impression is of a loose group of individuals herding a diverse range of botnets and attacks which they bring to force on command from an agreed upon leadership (or a target consensus is reached)? Are they using the latest bunch of 'best-practices' to take down a site? (e.g. slowloris, UDP flooding, DNS or TCP amplification, TCP SYN attacks, whatever is flavour of the month) With all the fluff and the bluster being written about them I haven't seen a good technical analysis so I'd love to hear any info you might have.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
itsnotvalid 16y ago
Unless someone reputable stands out and make a statement, no one could be sure if this act is associated with WikiLeaks. Period.

242 points by thecoffman 16y ago

tc 16y ago

I'm reminded of the country song whose chorus goes: "I've got friends in low places." -- [1] I agree, as noted by Nathan below, that this isn't helping Wikileaks' reputation any (despite, of course, WL having nothing to do with this). That's the problem with (and sometimes, benefit of) friends in low places -- no one ever accused them of being sophisticated. [2] A related thought.... The system consisting of [ Person who leaks info + Wikileaks ] seems to be a modern instance of the Robin Hood archetype. Instead of "robbing from the rich to give to the poor," this system takes information from the powerful and gives it to the (relatively) powerless. Just as with Robin Hood, there's room for debate about the moral characteristics of this approach (particularly on the taking side). And just as with every Robin Hood reincarnation, this system is despised by modern aristocrats. As I believe pg noted in an essay, during the time-setting of Robin Hood, wealth was nearly a zero-sum game. Today, wealth is not zero-sum, but power still is -- making this archetype all the more fitting.

NathanKP 16y ago
Sadly those friends aren't helping the reputation of Wikileaks. I definitely support freedom and information and the press, but organizing a DDOS doesn't help Wikileaks, it just associates Wikileaks even more with illegal activity.
- heed 16y ago
  I'm not under the impression 'Anonymous' helps anyone beside itself.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    Cats.
  - trotsky 16y ago
    cnn pageviews?
- dsplittgerber 16y ago
  Personally, I thank whatever higher power there is for those people and their actions. Their actions raise the "censorship costs" those private enterprises (seem to have to) pay from now on upon deciding it is in their best business interest to discontinue customer relations with customers who engage in allegedly illegal activities without investigating the supposed illegality of their customers' actions themselves.
  - ars 16y ago
    No, what it does is make companies refuse to do business with such customers in the first place. You do anything not mainstream? Sorry, we won't accept your business.
    - dsplittgerber 16y ago
      For companies who provide basic functionalities (hosting, payments, etc.) it's just not feasible to check out a potential customer ex ante - they have far too many customers for up-front checks. "Censorship costs" refer to ex-post checks on customers on which businesses have received complaints or inquiries from Governmental entities.
      - dhyasama 16y ago
        I work for a payment company and that simply isn't true. We do in-depth checks on every customer. Risk assessment is a major part of our business.
        steveklabnik 16y ago
        With payment companies, yes. I think ars is talking about Amazon and Paypal, which don't.
        sigzero 16y ago
        They don't now...but they could easily do it in the future. There is no gray area here. What they did was idiotic.
- patrickaljord 16y ago
  It does help Wikileaks in that other companies not as powerful as Visa and Mastercard might think twice before screwing with Wikileaks. Who would want to be ddos like that and lose business?
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Essentially what you're saying is that WikiLeaks should adopt or would even benefit from a policy of strong-arming people into compliance so that it can further the cause against evil governments that strong-arm people into compliance.
    - marcusbooster 16y ago
      These companies have already indicated their policy can be strong-armed (ie. "The Justice Department threatened us."). This does show, at the very least symbolically, that their willingest to cave will bring an arm coming the other way.
- hendler 16y ago
  I feel the same way. WikiLeaks (truth and openness in general) has the potential to create trust. But breaking trust to protest doesn't help. Illegality is probably less important if the act of protest is "right". WikiLeaks denies engaging in civil disobedience - but there is a contrast between non-violent WikiLeaks and "violent" retaliation. WikiLeaks is the underdog, and they will not win by suppression or coercion. Even if these DDOS attacks are only meant as a protest, there has to be a better way to gain attention for the important issues. At best, it's a distraction, at worst it plays into being labeled as terrorists.
- gasull 16y ago
  At what point is it OK to use a DDOS attack as a form of protest? I mean, do we have to wait until they grope us at checkpoints? Checked. Until they take websites down without trial? Checked. Until they start accusing journalist of espionage? Checked. Until they illegally tape the Internet? Checked. Is there a limit or DDOS is wrong no matter what?
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    do we have to wait until they... Who is the "they" that you refer to? I don't think that it's MasterCard nor Visa that did those things.
    - gasull 16y ago
      They is obviously the Government, but with the help of unethical companies: AT&T for taping the Internet, Amazon/Paypal/Visa/Mastercard for suppressing free press, etc.
      - potatolicious 16y ago
        I have a hard time linking "getting out of the crossfire" with "unethical". Spineless? Perhaps. Failing to stand up for some principle? Probably. But unethical?
        gasull 16y ago
        Failing to stand up for some principle? Probably. But unethical? Do you doublethink so?
        potatolicious 16y ago
        This is the internal inconsistency that troubles me about this whole WikiLeaks thing. We've railed on companies constantly in the past for being political, and now we're railing on them for not being sufficiently political in our favor. So which will it be? This is Amazon, PayPal, VISA, MC, etc, saying "woah hey a dangerously hot potato, not touching that", which strikes me as a more or less neutral stance. To expect more than that would be expecting a company to make a political stand on one side or another - something we've consistently fought against in the past. So which is it? Do we want companies to remain politically neutral and leave the democratic process up to real people (as opposed to corporate persons)? Or do we want them to fight for our cause, and make open political stands? If so, we also have to accept that often they will not be fighting on our side, and each punch they throw will be worth a lot of real people's punches.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  I think you make the mistake of thinking that all protest activity should be about making friends or increasing your reputation and good standing. Often it's just as much about hitting back as hard as you can. Now you can argue the merits of that, but we have crossed a major threshold here: The internet has taken down the websites of two of the largest credit providers in the world, two weeks before Christmas. If that isn't an exertion of grassroots power in the internet age, I don't know what is. The implications are boundless. Visa, and Mastercard probably didn't think twice about canceling Wikileak's payments. I doubt their risk assessment would have been the same if they had known this would result.
  - tybris 16y ago
    Ironically, this will be a major boost to Amazon's Christmas sales, since they don't rely on securecode.
  - gwright 16y ago
    Internet? Grassroots? The Internet hasn't taken down anything. A small group of geeks have taken upon themselves to take down a few targeted websites. No due process, no rule book, no accountability, just naked use of force. If I'm following correctly, I'm supposed to believe that a staff member of an elected official asking about the activities of a private company is an abuse of power but a small group of unelected geeks representing no one but themselves are to be commended for actively disrupting the activities of a private business.
    - michaelchisari 16y ago
      I'm not aware of previous grassroots movements being democratically elected. Nobody elected the suffragists, for instance. That's not really how movements work.
      - gwright 16y ago
        OK. But I didn't intend to conflate my questioning of the use of 'grassroots' with my point about accountability. I think the term 'grassroots' suggests a much more widespread and visible 'movement' than the tiny number of Anonymous members taking part in the DDOS attacks.
- Raphael_Amiard 16y ago
  Do you or the gp have any information that is not into the article ? I didn't read the "friends" word, only "supporters" and "backers". In what world are supporters friends, and in what world are people responsible for their "supporters" actions ? It's indeed a dangerous implication, but the original article isn't doing it. You and op are. Why ? If people, supporters, were to riot about the imprisonment of somebody, would you say that he is responsible ? If no, in what is this case different ? If you have any information i don't about any direct links between wikileaks and the DDOS attack, it would be nice to share. Otherwise, i fear you are solely spreading your own preconceptions about the situation.
- ohyes 16y ago
  I don't think mass declassification of government documents is a good idea, but... The government is going after Wikileaks in a similar way that they would go against a terrorist organization (cutting off funding and detaining them without due process). Are the government's actions legal? Are they ethical? Cutting off funding is an interesting move on the government's behalf, because it seems that any funding would have gone to Wikileaks' legal defense, once someone found something to charge them with (looks like it will be rape). As far as I know, distributing already leaked classified information is not illegal. (If it is, why aren't Robert Novak and other members of the media in jail?) How would detaining Assange make us any better than China detaining a dissident like Liu Xiaobo? As an aside: I know Assange is being detained for 'rape,' but the crime we know that he has actually committed, (and presumably the crime for which his funds have been frozen), bears a striking resemblance to "inciting subversion of state power;" which Xiaobo is charged with. It feels like the government's decision to exercise its power in this way is kind of a desperation move, trying to hold on to its rapidly evaporating secrecy. And the question is, is this really between the government and Wikileaks anymore, or is it between the government and its citizens?
  - pyre 16y ago
    > (and presumably the crime for which his funds > have been frozen) Last I checked, they don't freeze your assets when you are accused of rape.
    - pigbucket 16y ago
      The stuff in parentheses that you cite refers to a crime like the crime of inciting subversion. Why ohyes says "we know he actually committed" such a crime, I don't know.
      - ohyes 16y ago
        Should have been 'we know that he committed in the eyes of the government.' Sorry for being cryptic.
- quag 16y ago
  Who is DOSing Wikileaks?
- rhizome 16y ago
  Who besides you is saying that Wikileaks organized the ddos?
- donaq 16y ago
  This is probably not representative, but my facebook feed is full of people posting links to news about this with comments that mostly semi-applaud those actions. The interesting thing is that my facebook acquaintances are mostly neither hackers nor Americans.
- random42 16y ago
  Can we consider it as Civil disobedience of the modern age?
mashmac2 16y ago
Garth Brooks for those who were wondering... take a listen here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1063893612084739337# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1063893612084739337...
alanh 16y ago
Damn you! I avoid piano bars so that I can pretend that song doesn’t exist! ;)
- cosmicray 16y ago
  That isn't a piano bar song ... Garth Brooks is more likely heard in some little country bar. The kind of place where it's hard to find a decent chardonnay.
jackfoxy 16y ago
I would not agree power is a zero sum game. Defining it is squishier than defining wealth, and even giving you broad latitude in the definition, I don't think you could come up with much of a proof of that assertion.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

geuis 16y ago

Is it wrong to think of this at a very high level, where basically the internet as an system that relies on information to function properly has turned on its immune system? I know this is a very meta idea, and its extremely easy to break this down to the component entities (Visa corporation, thousands of individuals, etc). But under the meta concept, wouldn't that be like individual t-cells talking to each other?

ra 16y ago
Interesting. And, like skynet, you can't switch it off.
- sorbus 16y ago
  Until we're hit with a coronal mass ejection; that would do a pretty good job of killing pretty much all advanced technology.
phlux 16y ago
I guess you could equate it to a certain level of DID/Schizophrenia - but that concept is still too one-dimensional to truly apply, as we are talking about very critical layers of a civilization here. The analogy drawn with immune system/cognitive issues assumes that the internet is a homogeneous whole (all participating parties are interdependent upon each other) - which they aren't. I'd more liken it to a neighborhood gang war: all parties rely on underlying infrastructure (the streets==DNS/connections, power etc) but can attack eachother. Aside from blowing up the streets(DNS/physical layer) this akin to two (or more) of the neighborhood gangs in a fight. You just cant hold a conversation with CC while he's getting pummeled. Yelling at him only makes matters worse. --- Though to go back to your meta definition of the internet turning on itself - thats kind of what information does; lies are destroyed by facts. In this case - we have wikileaks releasing facts which destroy the lies upon which public perception has been built. This is a good thing, albeit painful. In much the same way a cheating partner in a previously happy relationship would be. It sucks to find out, and you have emotional strife - but in the long term it is good to dissolve the relationship which is not based on real trust. I like the thought, as another put it her, that this raises the cost of censorship greatly. Wikileaks may be the only recourse we have against corruption in entrenched systems which are far too slow to change. While there is information that is important to keep secret - I think we've seen that there is too much risk in giving government carte blanche as has been evidenced for many many many decades. Our archetypes of governing should evolve much more quickly in the modern era, we should take the evolutions of thought and innovation that we are experiencing in the technology and scientific areas of humanity and apply them to other aspects of our civilization and then we might see some real progress. It would be great to apply Moore's Law here such that we can get over all this petty bullshit, become self sustainable and begin to colonize outside this beautiful planet before we destroy it, and ourselves.

nod 16y ago

Is this really an attempt to support free speech with a DDOS? Or is there some sort of meta/irony motivation here?

Vivtek 16y ago
I think MasterCard/Visa is just a nail to 4chan's hammer, is all. DDoSing is all they know how to do (except exposure of personal details for public harrassment). That said, I'm sitting back with my popcorn here. I just imagine guys in some boardroom saying, "4 what now?" Heh.
- jeromec 16y ago
  Damn, it's usually safe to read HN with something in your mouth... [gets napkin]
  - alphabeat 16y ago
    Okay, you know what you do? You buy yourself a tape recorder, you just record yourself for a whole day. I think you’re going to be surprised at some of your phrasing.
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      He means the grandparent made him laugh so hard, he spit out the food he was eating. It's a compliment, not a criticism.
      - throwaway8764 16y ago
        Whoosh... I've gotta say, I didn't even notice the double-serving hilarity of the phrasing before the parent pointed it out.
      - jmtulloss 16y ago
        It's a quote from Arrested Development. You should check it out if you haven't seen it, it's on netflix and hulu.

chailatte 16y ago

Finally something has pissed off enough geeks. I thought the government's lack of respect towards due-process, the systematic breakdown of basic freedom or the massive wealth transfer to the rich via dollar printing/bailout would've done it. V for Vendetta.

russellallen 16y ago
V for Vendetta starred Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, and Steven Fry. It was a mainstream Hollywood movie which took over $132 million at the box office. It was a Warner Bros film, a subsidiary of Times Warner which is "the world's second largest entertainment conglomerate in terms of revenue (behind Disney and ahead of News Corporation and Viacom), as well as the world's largest media conglomerate". Your dreams of anarchism were manufactured in a bottle and sold to you on a silver screen. Grow up. (Edit: as acknowledged below, the final 'grow up' is a bit snarky. Sorry, that's withdrawn)
- chailatte 16y ago
  V for vendetta is a ten-issue Graphic-Novel series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd. In writing V for Vendetta, Moore drew upon an idea for a strip titled The Doll, which he had submitted at the age of 22 to DC Thomson.
  - russellallen 16y ago
    Oh I knew everyone would say "But it was a graphic novel". Bar humbug. Anonymous all wear plastic masks from the movie at protests for a start.
    - pyre 16y ago
      Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the masks were in the graphic novel too.
- kariatx 16y ago
  Not exactly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta

goldenthunder 16y ago

A co-worker Engineer just went down to get frozen yogurt. They couldn't process his card. Apparently they route transactions through their domain DNS? Suddenly corporate powers don't seem as strong. It's amazing how vulnerable something man made is.

thecoffman 16y ago
I'm assuming thats a coincidence. I cannot imagine Visa's payment processing infrastructure is coupled to its web infrastructure in any way. That would be monumentally bone headed.
- goldenthunder 16y ago
  Indeed, as I remember setting some payment stuff up at my parents business a while back-- you can get a gateway setup that uses their web interface to process transactions. That was a while back, but maybe they have legacy systems. Either way, they are loosing money one way or another =/
cosmicray 16y ago
A Taco Bell I frequent uses a VPN back to the franchisee to aggregate the card payments. Wouldn't surprise me if that's getting messed with as well.

goldenthunder 16y ago

This is a weird subject because it is totally dual sided. 1) It promotes freedom of speech and taking action as a community to promote change. 2) It is completely illegal which goes against the laws and freedoms they are trying to promote. Right Idea - Wrong Method

melpo 16y ago
It's the same as with any uprising really. You can't expect people to follow laws when they are made by the "enemy". That so many people are willing to break the law when taking action shows how important the issue is to them. It also suggests that there is no other effective way to take action.
- goldenthunder 16y ago
  Yep. I was raised in a religious school and the most fascinating topic we ever touched was when a law is morally and contextually 'ok' to break.
- rimantas 16y ago
  I have a problem there with "so many people" and "no other effective way". Blocking my payments is very effective way to piss me off indeed, not sure what good it brings otherwise. I am still amused how quickly critical thinking switches off in many people. After initial categorization "wikileaks is good, government is bad" not much effort goes into actual considerations, how is it good, what good did it bring, etc. Governments suck, uh oh, what a news. Maybe it will be a news to some, but we do elect governments. I guess it is easier to enjoy some braindead DDoS than go to elections, put some more thought whom to elect and make sure those elected are responsible for their work as officials. Now it looks like governments were brought by some aliens and just forced on us. Demanding responsibility from the government is very good, how about taking some responsibility of the governments we have? And that's where I have a problem with wikileaks: at least I can imagine that I had some say in what people do rule my country, so I can claim a bit responsibility for the power they have. Wikileaks on the other hand is self-proclaimed savior, responsible to whom?

InclinedPlane 16y ago

I'm sure it's the US government! Or... not. Turns out that DDoS is a dime a dozen today, they don't necessarily mean anything.

cosgroveb 16y ago

The attack on MC supposedly took down SecureCode affecting those payments... Seems like Visa's equivalent, Verified by Visa is still up: https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partner=default&resize=yes https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partn...

thecoffman 16y ago
I just tried that link and it timed out. Perhaps its intermittent?
cryptoz 16y ago
That link is down for me, actually.
cobralibre 16y ago
Unless things have changed or my memory's not so good, Verified by Visa's servers are operated by multiple individual banks and payment processors (or entities acting on their behalf) -- there isn't a single point of attack. And -- again, IIRC -- VbV or SecureCode aren't necessary to the successful completion of an online transaction. Taking down these services would frankly be a favor to consumers, as 3D Secure is an extra step that they don't need.

joshfraser 16y ago

I wonder how much money Visa and Mastercard have to lose before they regret their decision. For the attackers, instead of positioning the DDOS attack as revenge, you should give them as an easy-out. Stop blocking wikileaks and we'll stop the DDOS. Since Visa/Mastercard are loosing millions of dollars for each hour they are down, it would turn the issue into a simple business decision and they could change their position without losing face.

xentronium 16y ago
There's another point of view on this story, which is, shortly put, "we don't negotiate with terrorists".
- geuis 16y ago
  Who's the terrorist in this situation? Its wrong to immediately put Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and other related parties into the "right" side and to put the people behind the DDoS attacks into the "wrong" side. They are not victims, but instead are attacking Wikileaks by cutting off their ability to get funds. Who's right in this situation?
  - xentronium 16y ago
    I don't say that visa, paypal and mastercard are right, I say that's how they perceive the situation and what they will probably say to public in press releases. Showing weakness by negotiations with the Legion is inappropriate for them in given circumstances.
  - alex_c 16y ago
    That can be debated, but from the perspective of the decision makers at Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal - who would presumably be the ones saying "we don't negotiate with terrorists" - the terrorist is obviously Anonymous.
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    Visa is a private company. If they are wrong, it's wrong in the same way as Apple's app store policies -- you can object to them, compete with them, complain about them, even jailbreak your phone, but you'd definitely be wrong to DDoS the app store website b/c your app was rejected. Visa isn't attacking anyone when they reject customers for any reason, just like Apple isn't attacking anyone when they reject apps. Attacking is the wrong word. It's refusing to cooperate with, even "discriminating against" (but not the various illegal types like racism or sexism), being unfriendly to, maybe "being a jerk", whatever, but there is no attacking when a business makes legal business decisions, especially one that they think lots of their customers would prefer (Why else would they do it? I'm guessing Visa is run by soulless bureaucrats just trying to make money and keep their jobs and they don't care about having a political agenda).

tkahnoski 16y ago

DDoS strikes me as a violent form of protest. Has anyone started a non-violent protest (offline or digitally) for WikiLeaks? EDIT: Rethinking my statement on DDoS as violent. I am still interested in knowing if there are other non-DDoS protests surrounding WikiLeaks.

lallysingh 16y ago
What sort were you thinking? Perhaps a distributed candlelight vigil? I'm a Ghandhi-ist myself, so I'm fascinated.
- AndyKelley 16y ago
  Sounds incredibly boring. Just saying.
natnat 16y ago
I don't think DDoS is violent at all. It doesn't physically hurt anyone, and it doesn't damage the property of people who aren't involved in censoring Wikileaks. Nonviolent protest doesn't need to just be complaining. Everyone does that, and it doesn't get anything done unless you're a millionaire. Passive resistance is generally economically disruptive to whoever it's targeted at. DDoS attacks are not all that different, conceptually, from sit-ins. You're not destroying their server or deleting their code. You are simply putting yourself in the way so that no one else can use their website. It's not a nice thing to do, it interferes with their ability to do business, and it's illegal, but it's not violent.
- tkahnoski 16y ago
  The comparison to sit-ins is an interesting case I hadn't considered until reading further comments. On a technical level DDoS certainly seems equivalent to a sit-in. I will have to think on this a bit more.
alextgordon 16y ago
Illegal? Certainly. Immoral? Debatable. Violent? No.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

araneae 16y ago

I should point out that Visa itself hasn't actually decided to stop payments to WikiLeak- only Visa Europe, its subsidiary. The people that run Visa.com are only responsible for selling Visa Europe the rights to use the name.

keiferski 16y ago

Looks like they're redirecting it to USA.visa.com

sukuriant 16y ago

There are so many active topics on the DDoS's happening today. I now wonder. What happens if Anonymous wins? If, under the pressure, Visa gives and succumbs to their wishes? What happens then?

AndyKelley 16y ago
Then we can use visa.com to donate to wikileaks, and it establishes a precedent that it is okay for private companies to never censor their customers, even if the government thinks the customer is dubious.

jonknee 16y ago

Rumor has it the next target is Authorize.net (I assume not because anything they did but because that's how you actually take down the ability for Visa and MC to function). That would be quite dramatic to say the least.

storborg 16y ago
Can you substantiate that rumor? Taking down Visa.com isn't really a huge deal, but taking down Authorize.net would actually affect a lot of merchants.
- vukk 16y ago
  I wonder why they don't get payment gateway IP's from shops, surely some of them work in them, and DDOS those. Maybe too much heat because Visa and MasterCard would lose millions per day and people would lose the ability to pay with their cards?
kurokikaze 16y ago
Seems like right now target is Amazon. See http://twitter.com/Op_Payback http://twitter.com/Op_Payback

binaryfinery 16y ago

Akamai's stock should be going up.

toephu 16y ago

its up now

goldenthunder 16y ago
no it's not.
- toephu 16y ago
  oh its down again hah

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

So I'm some average merchant, anywhere in the world. Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family. Aside from your personal feelings, what are the odds I blame Visa, and what are the odds I blame Wikileaks? All of a sudden Visa doesn't work, MasterCard doesn't work, some sites can't be accessed, sometimes the net is slower than it should, etc. Maybe I'm smoking crack, but from where I sit, the more hackers thrash out over WL, the more ticked millions of people are going to become at both Wikileaks and the hackers involved. This is a very sad development. People of all opinions need to take an active hand in trying to settle this down as quickly as possible. This is no good for anybody. No good can come from this. EDIT: If you want to support the idea of leaking to fix governments (and not the massive attack of government nodes through information overload), which I do, then WL needs a standard of conduct: what it will and will not publish. It needs a standard of acceptable behavior: what cyber protests are in line with it's mission and what protests are not. Without these things, I can't support WL, they're going to lose track of their message and the larger media narrative, and they are going spectacularly shoot themselves and the rest of us in the foot. This is becoming dangerously nihilistic.

kbatten 16y ago
As an average merchant you wouldn't have any reason to care about the ethical actions of large companies like VISA unless you were affected. These types of actions (right or wrong) force you to care. In fact, this is one of the core principles that America was founded on through the symbolic Boston Tea Party and beyond. I think the real point of these things, though its likely that the intentions of many participants differ, is to simply bring these issues to light to the common person.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  I am talking about the effect of these things. You are talking about the point of these things. They are not the same.
- techiferous 16y ago
  > force you to care I prefer to live in a world where people don't force me to care about things but persuade me through reasoned discourse.

chailatte 16y ago

There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

12341sa 16y ago

I find outrageous that compagnies like VISA or MASTERCARD take the right to forbid people to do what _THEY_ want with _THEIR OWN_ money. Please continue the DDOS until they bankrupt.

brass_cannon 16y ago
But you're missing a huge point here. Visa and MasterCard don't have a responsibility to allow you access to their networks. This is akin to arguing that your free speech rights are infringed upon when a moderator removes your comment on their board.
- scotus69 16y ago
  Wrong comparison. If a moderator removes your comment you can do many things: pm him/her to relent, post your comment with a new id, go post on another forum -- none of which are possible when dealing with a worldwide financial processing goliath(s) running a superpower supported duopoly.
- pessimizer 16y ago
  If the government was making calls to message boards, asking them to remove my comments, I might be suspicious that my free speech rights are being infringed upon. I might suspect this even before I hear that the government is lobbying for those specific bulletin boards being excluded from pending Russian regulation.
  - brass_cannon 16y ago
    AFAIK (and I may be off here), the government has not officially requested that any entity take negative action against Wikileaks. The implied threat that action may be taken against them is there, and individual representatives have spoken out against Wikileaks, but I do not believe the government has officially asked / demanded for third parties to cut ties with Wikileaks.
- trevelyan 16y ago
  I think your analogy is flawed in this case. Government-enforced monopolies have an implicit social responsibility to abide by social norms when conducting business. This is more akin to a subway refusing to carry a newspaper publisher because of something they published. To the extent that a refusal of service violates social norms this creates a legitimate grievance in the absence of reasonable alternatives because of public policy.

pointillistic 16y ago

Considering that the Jesus was the original revolutionary and one of his major acts was throwing the money changers out of the Temple, I am stunned about the internalized commercialization of Christmas and the comments that put into question the current protest. And I am saying this even though I hate DDos viscerally, my business was a victim of such an attack. But I have to say, as long as no one gets killed or injured this is a legitimate form of protest.

astine 16y ago
DDOS attempts that utillize illegal botnets are, well, illegal. As such, they are by definition not a legitimate form of protest.
- gasull 16y ago
  Most of the people at Anonymous run the DOS attacks on their own computers, not through botnets. I'm sure there are some script kiddies with botnets there, but I don't think the average Anonymous/4Chan member has one.
- siculars 16y ago
  That may be true, but is THIS an illegal botnet? What makes LOIC illegal? What makes a determined, coordinated request from thousands of volunteer computers illegal? I liken this to a civil disobedience sit in.
  - seabee 16y ago
    LOIC itself isn't illegal but causing a DDoS is, however you achieve it.
  - qeorge 16y ago
    A DDoS is nothing like a sit in. Its more like forming a human chain around the restaurant. The crux of civil disobedience is that moral men have a duty to break unjust laws. This is not civil disobedience.
  - 16y ago

sdizdar 16y ago

Both Visa and MasterCard are down. This just shows how fragile the internet is and how 'easy' is to shut down the entire economy and system. The point is that coordinated attack by terrorists or plain old criminals can cripple the entire world's economy and there is no easy and effective way to prevent it. We do need to think about how internet can be re-organized to be 100% distributed system to prevent this of happening again.

pyre 16y ago
The internet is distributed. How else could you post to this site while VISA and MasterCard are pounded into the ground?
varjag 16y ago
Have you tried to pay for groceries with your Visa or MC today? They work just fine. Good luck to anyone with shutting down economy.
utoku 16y ago
You almost identified the problem correctly. Internet is already distributed. The attacks against Visa and MC are also distributed. But Visa and MC are not. They are single points of trust for our financial transactions. A more distributed system, where a web of trust and transaction system exists, could be used. But such a thing hasn't been invented yet. I thought about it some last year, but such a system is hard to design. I did design several prototypes, but they had lots of problems. It also involved changing the structures of presumed governmental financial structures ("central" bank for example, is also a single point of trust). So I think, the rephrasing of the problem should be: We do need to think about how our financial systems can be reorganized to be 100% distributed systems to prevent future abuses by anyone, including governments.

b1tr0t 16y ago

And I haven't even seen any comments on the possibility of this being a smear campaign to tarnish Wikileaks further in the media? I'm just saying, if you wanted to completely discredit an organization what's the fastest way to go about doing so? Step 1: Manufacture accusations against it's founder for which there is no defence, where the individual is guilty before a trial even begins. Oh, I don't know, how about accusing a man of a sex crime? (Especially a funny looking foreign one!) Step 2: Manufacture scary "hackers" who do scary "hacker" things. Hide your children! Step 3: Let CNN and Fox do what they're paid to do. Spin and spin and spin.

socksy 16y ago
A smear campaign seeding 4chan with fake posts, and orchestrating a LOIC attack?

faragon 16y ago

Better attack: reduce the credit card usage, and try to pay more with cash. Spread the word.

llimllib 16y ago

They had all day to prepare for this and they failed? edit: up for me, at least.

tocomment 16y ago

Does this actually hurt visa? Wouldn't visa.com just Be a showcase type website eg "hey here's what visa is, here are some ringtones you candownload" I'd imagine all their transaction processing happens elsewhere.

cryptoz 16y ago
> I'd imagine all their transaction processing happens elsewhere. Yes, a good portion happens through https://verified.visa.com https://verified.visa.com Which, you'll note, is also down. This is real.
- pyre 16y ago
  Really though? Wouldn't that be the Verified by Visa program, which not all online commerce sites use? Or do they process all transactions through that site?

hammock 16y ago

It's not surprising to me why the shutdown of Wikileaks donation channels, as opposed to TSA or any of the other civil liberties breaches, triggered such rage. The answer is simple: People get fucking pissed when they can't spend their money where they want to. And it holds throughout history.

wtallis 16y ago
Retaliation over the internet is easier and safer, and the credit card companies were one of the few targets that is vulnerable to attack over the web. (Here's to hoping somebody develops a virus to brick backscatter x-ray machines.)

netcan 16y ago

What this whole wikileaks payment processing issue has made me aware of is how bottle-necked this whole area is. A client of mine a couple of years ago selling personal protection equipment (smoke & hazmat masks, mostly). They were based out of Australia and selling globally. Apparently they breached some US advertising restriction with one of their products (disposable hygienic suit) by having the words bird flu in the description. Simultaneously to contacting (apparently they tried to contact earlier during US work hours), they contacted paypal and had the account shut down entirely. The US was never a major market so they put a big red sign on the product page: "Not for Sale in the USA." Getting paypal back online took weeks. Whatever department shut them down was not concerned with reversing the damage and paypal seemed like they knew which side to stay on. Basically, paypal (and apparently visa & mastercard) is the on/off switch that various players within the US government can use. It does not take a high level one off phone call. This is an issue.

balac 16y ago

You have to think that paypal is also being attacked, in that case I am pretty impressed that they are managing to stay up while mastercard and visa get sunk.

frisco 16y ago

CapitalOne account center is down for me; I was trying to log in to access a Visa card. Coincidence? I have no idea why they'd be synchronously connected, but odd timing.

FirstHopSystems 16y ago

Looks like Paypal is down too. Well only the server that redirects you to the secure page. Just use the full path "http://www.paypal.com http://www.paypal.com or "https://www.paypal.com https://www.paypal.com We took down Chevron by spray painting over one of the signs at a gas Station. CHEVRON IS DOWN!!!!!

cosmicray 16y ago
About the same time you posted, I was using PayPal. It was working, but I did notice signs of slow response. I was able to do everything I needed. My impression is that the PayPal engineers are dealing with the issue.

futuremint 16y ago

I pity the poor sys-admins whose pagers are interrupting their late-night hacking. Visa & MC probably don't care at all (they're swimming in plastic money!), its the front-line guys that are feeling this the most!

morganpyne 16y ago

Does anybody have any details on the the technical side of these attacks and what happens when anon decides to fire all phasers at a target? My impression is of a loose group of individuals herding a diverse range of botnets and attacks which they bring to force on command from an agreed upon leadership (or a target consensus is reached)? Are they using the latest bunch of 'best-practices' to take down a site? (e.g. slowloris, UDP flooding, DNS or TCP amplification, TCP SYN attacks, whatever is flavour of the month) With all the fluff and the bluster being written about them I haven't seen a good technical analysis so I'd love to hear any info you might have.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

itsnotvalid 16y ago

Unless someone reputable stands out and make a statement, no one could be sure if this act is associated with WikiLeaks. Period.