A group who refers to itself as Anonymous has as taken credit for a recent string of high-profile cyber attacks against the websites of businesses, banks and politicians that have either spoken out against or stopped doing business with WikiLeaks.
Cyber attacks, dubbed Operation Payback, targets those who have caved into US government pressure to shun the whistleblower website that recently released thousands of classified US diplomatic cables. The activist hackers have attacked MasterCard.com, PostFinace, Visa, Paypal.com, and others.For the first time, in an exclusive interview with RT’s Alyona Minkovski, an unidentified representative of the group explained they will always have technology on their side and be one step ahead to continue to fight challenges to free speech. The goals are to show these companies that people are willing to fight for the vindication of WikiLeaks. “We have been DDoS’ing sites,” he explained. “We have been flooding them with traffic so other people cannot use them and they have been taken down like this and they cannot operate like this anymore. We’ve been attacking them, we’ve been DDoS’ing them so people can’t buy things, people can’t make transactions.”He explained the relation is to send a message to these companies and individuals who are taking money from WikiLeaks and refusing service, specifically citing Paypal.com. “Anyone can do it. Anyone has a voice that can stand up and do it,” the representative said. “They can just load up a browser, type in the details; they can volunteer for this, and have a voice of their own.”However, to do so would be illegal in most countries. But, he pointed out the chances of getting caught are practically zero. His organization coordinates attacks, but the attacks themselves are carried out by a team of massive volunteers globally who are well aware of the risk.Since the attacks began, “Anonymous’” Facebook and Twitter accounts have been suspended, but the representative explained that action has had little impact on their efforts.The attacks and actions by the group are a protest, a revolution, he explained.Although the media had reported the group planned coordinated attacks on Amazon.com, the groups representative said they do not have any malicious plans to take on Amazon nor had they attempted to. He also said the group was not responsible for any coordinated attacks or hacks on Sarah Palin, although she claims to have been a target. “We don’t really care about Sarah Palin that much, to be honest. I don’t really know what she’s trying to accomplish or what attention she is trying to gain. We personally don’t care about Sarah Palin,” he added.