WikiLeaks vigilante war spills onto web

Multiple companies have been attacked by supporters of WikiLeaks's actions following the arrest of its founder Julian Aasange. A banking company called PostFinance's website was knocked down for most of the day, as well as MasterCard's site. Paypal, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook have also been victims. The attacks stem from an online hacker group that loosely congregate on a site known as 4Chan. They are going by the name of Anonymous, which, as a group, has also led charges against the Motion Pictures Association and the Recording Industry (of America). The "online mob" does not affiliate itself with any political party; in fact there is disagreement in the group over which side to pick. According to Dean Turner, a Symantec Corp. security researcher, the attacks work very simply: volunteers log onto a computer program and enter in the company's name, and the number of requests sent to the server, which is eventually overwhelmed by all the information. There is no convienient way to distinguish these attack requests from real requests, so it's a difficult problem to block. Another security researcher, Jeff Bardin, says these attacks are no surprise to him. "I bet this was premeditated by Aasange," he says. "...[his] hacking past is leveraging his ties to the hacking community."

I am also not surprised at the attacks that have stemmed from the WikiLeaks supporters. While I doubt that Aasange told his fellow WikiLeaks people to go and take down big corporations in the event of his arrest, it makes sense that his sympathizers would want to 'avenge Aasange' for being detained by any government. What I find amusing is that they cannot agree on any sort of political agenda; it seems to be sporadic and erratic. It's not as if they are attacking REPUBLICAN websites, or INDEPENDENT websites, it's almost like they're just hitting anybody that they suspect needs hitting. So while they can stand united against the unreasonable, unfair, irrational imprisonment of the founder of such a brave website, they can't agree on anything else.