Pro-WikiLeaks Group May Attack U.S. Senate Website Next

[Joanne98]

Source: The Atlantic

After hitting Paypal, Mastercard, and Visa, pro-WikiLeaks forces may hit the United States Senate website with a denial-of-service attack next.

According to a poll set up by the ad-hoc group, Operation Payback, the Senate could be their next target. It leads voting ahead of Re-attacking Mastercard, Re-attacking Visa, Sarah Palin's website, and Authorize.net. Out of a total of 1179 votes cast (as of 5:22 pm), 445 of them went to attacking the Senate website.

Operation Payback formed in response to companies like PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard cutting off WikiLeaks from their services. It is composed of members associated through the loose network of people known as Anonymous, which specializes in denial-of-service attacks, among other general mischief. For more on how the group organizes itself, The Economist has a great piece called, "The 24-Hour Athenian Democracy."

It's important to remember that these denial-of-service swarms are not attacks or "hacks" in the sense that they break or break into the computers running a website. Rather, they clog up the pipes leading to the website so that others can't access it. In that sense, they are non-destructive attack. Perhaps the best off-line analog is picketing, although obviously it's hard to do a one-to-one mapping of the digital onto the real.



Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/pro-wikileaks-group-may-attack-us-senate-website-next/67808/

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Let's see the Republicans filibuster this! LOL

[karynnj]

1. Not the Senate Website!

Whatever will we do. I suspect that many Senators would not notice for months - as they seem to do a poor job updating theirs.

[Fearless]

2. The tubes do get all clogged up because of that porn stuff!

:rofl:

[goforit]

4. lol!!!

[goforit]

3. LOL!!!....I don't even think they know what a computer is.

[molly77]

5. Priceless

[karynnj]

10. There really is a huge range of differences on the web sites

I really really love the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's web site. It has gotten better and better since Kerry's people started redesigning it. It now has an excellent search feature on the hearings page that let's you find the hearings on any topic or country. Really good for finding a hearing I remembered that I want to have a link for.

Also, really easy to find the reports and press statements that have been put out.

http://foreign.senate.gov/

[Catherina]

6. Excellent. n/t

[toddaa]

7. The Senate has a website?

:shrug:

[Recursion]

23. Yes, a good one

All the people who post threads demanding to know who voted for or against the issue du jour, or asking how the Senate's rules work, could save time by looking at it...

[EFerrari]

8. Will any member even notice?

[jtuck004]

9. +1 (or anyone else) n/t

[pam4water]

11. Wasted effort they're ready death locked.

[libmom74]

12. my wish list for the next hits

I know this is impossible but wouldn't it be incredibly awesome to see all of the most vile vampiristic, bloodsucking Wall Street CEO's bank accounts frozen and all of the big banks (especially Goldman Sachs) taken down for 24 hours. Even better would be a cyber Robin Hood operation to transfer all of the funds from the CEO's bank accounts into the accounts of the 99ers, now that would be justice. A girl can dream, right?

[Crowman1979]

13. You forgot FAUX News, FAUX Business and CNBC!

The biggest corporate propaganda arms in all of the media.

[FailureToCommunicate]

16. Sounds good! I'll dream with you, if I may.

[bluedigger]

14. Their first victimless crime!

:rofl:

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Will anybody notice?

They don't listen to us, anyway.

[Chemical Bill]

17. Tell them to skip the middle men...

and go for the Koch brothers.

Bill

[inwiththenew]

18. This reminds me of the scene from Dumb and Dumber

Where the one hitman says to the hitwomen "Maybe we should trash the place, send them a little message." and she responds "I don't think he's gonna get that message Joe, I mean, the guy's got worms in his living room."

[robinlynne]

19. BBC just reported that they need help (anonymous) any computer people here?

Does anyone know what this actually entails. BBC said they are looking for people, but that they use your computer. So it means allowing a hacker access to your computer?
Or do I have that all wrong?
Anyone know legal ramifications? Looks from your post as if it is legal and kosher.

[ExTheUnknown]

20. Stupid idea

It just makes it harder for us little people to stay up to date on the Senate.

[TheWatcher]

22. Since the Senate doesn't exactly represent any of We The People's Interests these days, don't worry

You Won't miss much. :)

[ProudDad]

21. How will anyone know?

They must get what? -- 50 hits a day?

[Bragi]

24. Why not the White House site?

It is pretty clear that the White House is enabling, if not directing, the attack by U.S agencies and internet companies on Wikileaks and Assange, so I wonder why the White House web site isn't targeted by the hacksters.

[Freddie Stubbs]

25. Big deal. Websites go down for a few hours and are back up again. The world won't end