Hackers rushed to defend WikiLeaks on Wednesday, launching attacks on MasterCard, Visa, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank, and others who acted against the site and its jailed founder, Julian Assange.
Internet "hacktivists" under the banner "Operation Payback" claimed responsibility in a Twitter message for causing severe technological problems on MasterCard's website. MasterCard had recently severed ties with WikiLeaks. Although MasterCard acknowledged a disruption in its Secure Code system for verifying online payments, spokesman James Issokson assured that consumers could still use their credit cards securely. Later on Wednesday, Visa's website also became inaccessible.
These online attacks are part of a broader wave of support for WikiLeaks sweeping the Internet. Twitter was flooded with messages of solidarity for the group, while its Facebook page reached 1 million fans. However, late Wednesday, Operation Payback itself faced difficulties as many of its sites went down, and the source of the counterattack remained unclear.
MasterCard is the latest in a series of U.S.-based Internet companies — including Visa, Amazon.com, PayPal Inc., and EveryDNS — to cut ties with WikiLeaks under intense U.S. government pressure. Although PayPal did not face issues on Wednesday, it reported experiencing a "dedicated denial-of-service attack" on Monday.
WikiLeaks' extensive release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables has embarrassed U.S. allies, angered rivals, and reopened old wounds worldwide. U.S. officials in Washington report that other countries have curtailed dealings with the U.S. government due to WikiLeaks' actions.
PayPal Vice President Osama Bedier stated that the company froze WikiLeaks' account after seeing a letter from the U.S. State Department indicating that the group's activities "were deemed illegal in the United States."
Offline, WikiLeaks faces pressure on multiple fronts. Assange is in a British prison fighting extradition to Sweden over a sex crimes case. Recent moves by Swiss Postfinance, MasterCard, PayPal, and others to cut the flow of donations have impaired WikiLeaks' ability to raise money.
While neither WikiLeaks nor Assange has been charged with any offense in the U.S., the U.S. government is investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted for espionage or other crimes. Although Assange has not been charged in Sweden, authorities there want to question him about the sex crimes allegations.
Undeterred, WikiLeaks released more confidential U.S. cables on Wednesday. The latest batch revealed that the British government feared a severe Libyan reaction if the convicted Lockerbie bomber wasn't released and expressed relief when he was freed in 2009 on compassionate grounds. Another U.S. memo described German leader Angela Merkel as the "Teflon" chancellor, which she dismissed as mere chatter. American officials were also shown lobbying the Russian government to amend a financial bill they felt would disadvantage U.S. companies Visa and MasterCard.
The most surprising cable of the day came from a U.S. diplomat in Saudi Arabia after a night out. "The underground nightlife of Jiddah's elite youth is thriving and throbbing," the memo said. "The full range of worldly temptations and vices are available — alcohol, drugs, sex — but all behind closed doors."
The pro-WikiLeaks vengeance campaign on Wednesday appeared to take the form of denial-of-service attacks, in which computers are harnessed — sometimes surreptitiously — to flood target sites with data requests, knocking them offline.
Per Hellqvist, a security specialist with Symantec, said a network of web activists called Anonymous — affiliated with Operation Payback — appeared to be behind many of the attacks. The group, which has previously targeted the Church of Scientology and the music industry, is now disrupting websites seen as hostile to WikiLeaks.
"While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons," the group said in a statement. "We want transparency and we counter censorship ... we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against, and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."
The website for Swedish lawyer Claes Borgstrom, who represents the two women at the center of Assange's sex crimes case, was unreachable on Wednesday. The Swiss postal system's financial arm, Postfinance, which shut down Assange's bank account on Monday, was also experiencing trouble. Spokesman Alex Josty said the website buckled under a barrage of traffic on Tuesday. "Yesterday it was very, very difficult, then things improved overnight," he told the AP. "But it's still not entirely back to normal."
Ironically, Twitter, a platform of much WikiLeaks support, could be the next target. Operation Payback posted a statement claiming, "Twitter you're next for censoring Wikileaks discussion."
Some WikiLeaks supporters accuse Twitter of preventing the term "WikiLeaks" from appearing as one of its popular "trending topics." Twitter denies censorship, explaining that the topics are determined by an algorithm. Twitter's top trending topics are not the most discussed overall but those experiencing a sudden spike in discussion.
WikiLeaks angered the U.S. government earlier this year by posting a video showing U.S. troops gunning down two Reuters journalists in Iraq from a helicopter. Since then, the organization has leaked about 400,000 classified U.S. war files from Iraq and 76,000 from Afghanistan, which U.S. military officials say could put lives at risk. Recently, the group began leaking a massive trove of secret U.S. diplomatic cables.
U.S. officials have directed their anger at Assange, but others question whether Washington shares the blame for the diplomatic uproar. "The core of all this lies with the failure of the government of the United States to properly protect its own diplomatic communications," Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday, criticizing the fact that tens of thousands of U.S. government employees had access to the cables.
Assange, meanwhile, faces a new extradition hearing in London next week, where his lawyers plan to reapply for bail. The 39-year-old Australian denies the allegations of rape, molestation, and unlawful coercion by two women in Sweden and is fighting his extradition.
In a Twitter message Wednesday, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson shrugged off the challenges. "We will not be gagged, either by judicial action or corporate censorship ... WikiLeaks is still online," Hrafnsson said.
