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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,

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.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    Unfortunately the laws of physics prevent that world from ever existing; data is growing exponentially whereas time and attention are limited.
    - techiferous 16y ago
      But you can grab my attention in a way that doesn't involve an attack.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - Daishiman 16y ago
    Won't happen. Even if you don't like it when groups such as Anonymous force it on you, the State has mechanisms for you to care as well, many of them highly undemocratic. I'm thankful that there's a balancing agent on the other end of the spectrum. Even if I disagree with it, it helps to distribute power.
    - techiferous 16y ago
      > Won't happen. I don't assume a paradigm of force. Sure it exists, but I don't assume it has to be that way. I'm not naive but I also know that people and organizations often do have the capacity to interact on a higher level; but it takes a lot of insight to see how. I don't assume the low road is the only one available.
alnayyir 16y ago
This doesn't affect the payment gateways AFAIK, only their front-facing websites.
- ladon86 16y ago
  It has affected the payment gateways today, via their '3D-secure' schemes. http://www.americanbanker.com/news/mastercard-experiencing-outage-1029674-1.html http://www.americanbanker.com/news/mastercard-experiencing-o...
blake8086 16y ago
Gosh, you're right. How is something as theoretical as "free speech" important in the face of minor inconvenience?
- SpikeGronim 16y ago
  Gosh, how does attacking 3rd parties advance the cause of free speech? Will the payment processors suddenly see the error of their ways? Will the U.S. State Department accept WikiLeaks as a legitimate news organization? No, DDoS will not solve your problems. It will just piss people off and conflate WikiLeaks' questionable behavior with blatantly illegal behavior.
  - blake8086 16y ago
    As DanielBMarkham pointed out, it makes people notice. It raises the cost for payment processors to do what they did. They typically respond to economic incentives. (in other news, it looks like they did see the error of their ways: http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/09/caving-to-pressure-from-supporters-paypal-releases-wikileaks-funds/ http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/09/caving-to-pressure-fr... ) The U.S. State Department won't care as a result of these activities. DDoS doesn't solve problems, but it can achieve goals. It probably will piss people off and it's not the best way to do things.
  - wtallis 16y ago
    How are the credit card companies third parties after they have taken unusual action against Wikileaks before the Wikileaks people or organization have even been charged with a crime in the US, let alone convicted? Since they clearly cannot justify their actions as being in response to legal action against Wikileaks, it means that they are personally taking a stance against Wikileaks.
tzs 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. Actually, as an average merchant, you are interfacing to back end Visa systems, indirectly through the payment processing network via your POS terminal or through the software backing your online shopping cart. As far as I have been able to see, these attacks haven't done anything to the back end systems. Commerce continues as normal. Considering the volume the credit card processing system handles, especially during the holidays, could Anonymous get enough people to even make a noticeable bump in traffic if they were to go after the back end systems? They can successfully go after a front end web site like visa.com because it is not a high volume site. Alexa.com ranks visa.com at around #3000 in the US, #10000 in the world.
jbooth 16y ago
A) It raises publicity. Keeps the story going, this is a front-page story tomorrow, and that story will include the fact that Visa and MC cut off donations to wikileaks without so much as an official letter sent. B) If I'm some average merchant, I absolutely blame Visa. If they don't find a way to make me happy, I'll look at taking my business elsewhere. Might not be an option in that particular market but generally, yeah, they have to try to make it up to their customers.
shortlived 16y ago
> Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family. The same can be said about real world strikes which stop services or brick and mortar businesses.
reason 16y ago
Yes, absolutely. We've seen this sort of inconsideration time and time again. Think about all the families and businesses affected by the sudden lack of tea on December 16, 1773.
jasonlotito 16y ago
> Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family No. Not true. On top of this, as a merchant who is affected by this, I do blame Visa and MC for allowing their system to so easily be affected by something like this.
X-Istence 16y ago
Since payments were affected it is not WikiLeaks I blame but rather MasterCard and Visa. You know why? They set their systems up in a way that allowed them to be exposed to a massive DDoS which could have happened at any time. They did not follow the proper guidelines as some of the largest companies in the world to make sure their systems would be unaffected by various possible scenarios including DDoS attacks.

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.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  Unfortunately the laws of physics prevent that world from ever existing; data is growing exponentially whereas time and attention are limited.
  - techiferous 16y ago
    But you can grab my attention in a way that doesn't involve an attack.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
- Daishiman 16y ago
  Won't happen. Even if you don't like it when groups such as Anonymous force it on you, the State has mechanisms for you to care as well, many of them highly undemocratic. I'm thankful that there's a balancing agent on the other end of the spectrum. Even if I disagree with it, it helps to distribute power.
  - techiferous 16y ago
    > Won't happen. I don't assume a paradigm of force. Sure it exists, but I don't assume it has to be that way. I'm not naive but I also know that people and organizations often do have the capacity to interact on a higher level; but it takes a lot of insight to see how. I don't assume the low road is the only one available.

alnayyir 16y ago

This doesn't affect the payment gateways AFAIK, only their front-facing websites.

ladon86 16y ago
It has affected the payment gateways today, via their '3D-secure' schemes. http://www.americanbanker.com/news/mastercard-experiencing-outage-1029674-1.html http://www.americanbanker.com/news/mastercard-experiencing-o...

blake8086 16y ago

Gosh, you're right. How is something as theoretical as "free speech" important in the face of minor inconvenience?

SpikeGronim 16y ago
Gosh, how does attacking 3rd parties advance the cause of free speech? Will the payment processors suddenly see the error of their ways? Will the U.S. State Department accept WikiLeaks as a legitimate news organization? No, DDoS will not solve your problems. It will just piss people off and conflate WikiLeaks' questionable behavior with blatantly illegal behavior.
- blake8086 16y ago
  As DanielBMarkham pointed out, it makes people notice. It raises the cost for payment processors to do what they did. They typically respond to economic incentives. (in other news, it looks like they did see the error of their ways: http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/09/caving-to-pressure-from-supporters-paypal-releases-wikileaks-funds/ http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/09/caving-to-pressure-fr... ) The U.S. State Department won't care as a result of these activities. DDoS doesn't solve problems, but it can achieve goals. It probably will piss people off and it's not the best way to do things.
- wtallis 16y ago
  How are the credit card companies third parties after they have taken unusual action against Wikileaks before the Wikileaks people or organization have even been charged with a crime in the US, let alone convicted? Since they clearly cannot justify their actions as being in response to legal action against Wikileaks, it means that they are personally taking a stance against Wikileaks.

tzs 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. Actually, as an average merchant, you are interfacing to back end Visa systems, indirectly through the payment processing network via your POS terminal or through the software backing your online shopping cart. As far as I have been able to see, these attacks haven't done anything to the back end systems. Commerce continues as normal. Considering the volume the credit card processing system handles, especially during the holidays, could Anonymous get enough people to even make a noticeable bump in traffic if they were to go after the back end systems? They can successfully go after a front end web site like visa.com because it is not a high volume site. Alexa.com ranks visa.com at around #3000 in the US, #10000 in the world.

jbooth 16y ago

A) It raises publicity. Keeps the story going, this is a front-page story tomorrow, and that story will include the fact that Visa and MC cut off donations to wikileaks without so much as an official letter sent. B) If I'm some average merchant, I absolutely blame Visa. If they don't find a way to make me happy, I'll look at taking my business elsewhere. Might not be an option in that particular market but generally, yeah, they have to try to make it up to their customers.

shortlived 16y ago

> Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family. The same can be said about real world strikes which stop services or brick and mortar businesses.

reason 16y ago

Yes, absolutely. We've seen this sort of inconsideration time and time again. Think about all the families and businesses affected by the sudden lack of tea on December 16, 1773.

jasonlotito 16y ago

> Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family No. Not true. On top of this, as a merchant who is affected by this, I do blame Visa and MC for allowing their system to so easily be affected by something like this.

X-Istence 16y ago

Since payments were affected it is not WikiLeaks I blame but rather MasterCard and Visa. You know why? They set their systems up in a way that allowed them to be exposed to a massive DDoS which could have happened at any time. They did not follow the proper guidelines as some of the largest companies in the world to make sure their systems would be unaffected by various possible scenarios including DDoS attacks.