http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704720804576009723632691988.html
Dutch authorities said they arrested a 16-year-old boy suspected of being involved in attacks on the websites of MasterCard and Visa that were allegedly mounted by sympathizers of document-leaking website WikiLeaks.
Police arrested the suspect at his home in The Hague late Wednesday night and said he had acknowledged being involved in the attacks on the websites of the two credit-card companies, according to Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch prosecution office.
Police also seized computers and data-storage devices.
The boy, whom authorities didn't name but confirmed is Dutch, remains in custody and is due to appear before a judge on Friday. A lawyer for the boy couldn't be reached.
Dutch police believe he is part of a larger group of WikiLeaks sympathizers behind the so-called denial-of-service attacks, in which computers flood a server to prevent it from displaying a Web page, Mr. de Bruin said. Dutch authorities say the group conducting the attacks are doing so under an effort called Operation Payback. The police are continuing their investigation, including exploring the potential involvement of others in the Netherlands.
MasterCard Inc. and Visa Europe, which both recently suspended payments to WikiLeaks, are among a growing list of organizations and individuals that have suffered online attacks in recent days, in what appears to be an effort by hackers bent on exacting revenge for the document-leaking website.
The computer attacks have increased in intensity in recent days following the arrest Tuesday in London of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in connection with sexual-misconduct allegations in Sweden. Mr. Assange was denied bail and remains in custody pending a hearing in the U.K. next week. He has denied the allegations and hasn't been formally charged.
WikiLeaks itself has been under pressure from the U.S. following its release of thousands of State Department cables and other documents. Over the past week, a number of companies that provide WikiLeaks with various services have terminated their relationships with the organization, including Amazon.com Inc., eBay Inc.'s PayPal and Swiss bank PostFinance, a unit of Swiss Post.
In addition, attacks have been launched at organizations and individuals connected with Mr. Assange's personal legal troubles. The Swedish prosecutor's office and a lawyer representing the two women making allegations against Mr. Assange reported difficulties with their websites.
The group behind the attacks appears to be a loose-knit collection of people identifying themselves as "Anonymous." It isn't clear who is in charge of or speaks for that group.
On Thursday a 22-year-old man claiming to be a spokesman for the hackers vowed on British Broadcasting Corp. radio that the attacks would continue. "I see this as becoming a war, but not your conventional war—this is a war of data," said the man, identifying himself only as "ColdBlood." "We're trying to keep the Internet open and free for everyone."
Speaking with an English accent, he said he hasn't been in contact with WikiLeaks regarding the campaign, saying that it's "very hard to get hold of anyone from WikiLeaks."
Later in the day, however, a post on a Twitter page claiming to represent Operation Payback dismissed the idea that "ColdBlood" was a spokesman for the effort.
Comments
Protip: If you try and DDOS behind a proxy you will actually just DDOS the proxy :facepalm:
And ddos'ing is illegal in most countries, the teenies and anurkists need to get caught. It isn't that hard to use a program like LOIC or Net tools. Or solstice for you linux people out there. A kid with downs syndrome could pull off a ddos.
Why am I not surprised.
By proxy, I was referring to some kind of literal proxy such as a different internet connection other than your own.
DDoSing through a proxy, or doing any kind of high bandwidth shit is really not cool, especially on something like TOR. It just shits it up for the rest of the people trying to use the already slow service.
lulz omg my friend HACKED mastercard and visa! loluLO!Lol!!111
I've been noticing that the news seems to place an emphasis on the idea that he was doing some sort of dangerous computer tampering, when it was just a DDoS. Fox is trying to get people scared about Anonymous again.
It's also why the fear they try to create about "anonymous" is fucking retarded. It's the internet. The worst that they can do is ddoss sites and prank call 11 year old girls until they cry. What a truly fearsome force:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
They were making out that anonymous is some major threat on the news here the other night, and making out that people using LOIC were some kind of dangerous "cyber terrorist" :facepalm:
Scare tactics and preying on those not in tune with the intarwebz. Great tool for furthering government agendas.
I don't think they're retards at all.
EDIT: disregard the rest of that, they're just shitting on wikileaks because it freely shares information.