Anonymous Shifts On WikiLeaks Strategy, Announces It With A Press Release

The Internet vigilante group Anonymous has been thrust into the spotlight this week as the WikiLeaks story continues to erupt like a media volcano. So like any group at center of a story would do, Anonymous has put out (yes) a press release outlining the motivations behind the attacks on PayPal, Mastercard and Visa and implying a change in strategy after attacks on Amazon never materialized.

“We do not want to steal your personal information or credit card numbers. We also do not seek to attack critical infrastructure of companies such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal or Amazon. Our current goal is to raise awareness about WikiLeaks and the underhanded methods employed by the above companies to impair WikiLeaks’ ability to function.”

Thus far Operation Payback has orchestrated DDoS attacks on the corporate sites of companies deemed enemies of WikiLeaks after it started releasing thousands of diplomatic cables over Thanksgiving weekend.
The Anonymous hacktivist group behind Operation Payback had its main Twitter account and Facebook pages taken away on Wednesday and has since the been decentralized in its social media efforts. This however didn’t stop one of the splinter accounts from tweeting out the below release, stating that the group essentially did not want to injure the companies targeted, but in fact wanted to “raise awareness.”

“While it is indeed possible that Anonymous may not have been able to take Amazon.com down in aDDoS attack, this is not the only reason the attack never occured. After the attack was so advertised in the media,  we felt that it would affect people such as consumers in a negative way and make them feel threatened by Anonymous. Simply put, attacking a major online retailer when people are buying presents for their loved ones, would be in bad taste.
The continuing attacks on PayPal are already tested and preferable: while not damaging their ability to process payments, they are successful in slowing their network down just enough for people tonotice and thus, we achieve our goal of raising awareness.”

While the logic here is inconsistent (don’t people also use Paypal and Mastercard to buy presents for their loved ones?) the release hints at a kinder gentler Anonymous afraid of (yes) bad press. If so that would explain this further evidence of a more positive pivot, a mission statement asking group members to cull the most interesting parts of the WikiLeaks cables and republish — An action which, granted, does spread more awareness than the firing of a LOIC cannon.

Source: Tech Crunch

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ANON OPS: A Press Release

Who is Anonymous?

In their most recent public statement, WikiLeaks is the only group of people to identify Anonymous

correctly. Anonymous is not a group, but rather an Internet gathering.

Both Anonymous and the media that is covering it are aware of the percieved dissent between

individuals in the gathering. This does not, however, mean that the command structure of

Anonymous is failing for a simple reason: Anonymous has a very loose and decentralized command

structure that operates on ideas rather than directives.

We do not believe that a similar movement exists in the world today and as such we have to learn

by trial and error. We are now in the process of better communicating some core values to the

individual atoms that comprise Anonymous - we also want to take this opportunity to communicate

a message to the media, so that the average Internet Citizen can get to know who we are and what

we represent.

Anonymous is not a group of hackers. We are average Interent Citizens ourselves and our

motivation is a collective sense of being fed up with all the minor and major injustices we witness

every day.

We do not want to steal your personal information or credit card numbers. We also do not seek to

attack critical infrastructure of companies such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal or Amazon. Our current

goal is to raise awareness about WikiLeaks and the underhanded methods employed by the above

companies to impair WikiLeaks' ability to function.

What is Operation: Payback

As stated above, the point of Operation: Payback was never to target critical infrastructure of any of

the companies or organizations affected. Rather than doing that, we focused on their corporate

websites, which is to say, their online "public face". It is a symbolic action - as blogger and

academic Evgeny Morozov put it, a legitimate expression of dissent.

The background to the attacks on PayPal and the calls to attack Amazon.com

Amazon, which was until recently WikiLeaks' DNS provider, was one of the first companies to drop

support for WikiLeaks. On December 9th, BusinessInsider.com reported that Amazon.co.uk were

hosting the recently leaked diplomatic cables in e-book form. (Amazon.co.uk has since ceased

selling the bundle of the diplomatic cables.)

After this piece of news circulated, parts of Anonymous on Twitter asked for Amazon.com to be

targetted. The attack never occured.

While it is indeed possible that Anonymous may not have been able to take Amazon.com down in a

DDoS attack, this is not the only reason the attack never occured. After the attack was so advertised

in the media, we felt that it would affect people such as consumers in a negative way and make

them feel threatened by Anonymous. Simply put, attacking a major online retailer when people are

buying presents for their loved ones, would be in bad taste.

The continuing attacks on PayPal are already tested and preferable: while not damaging their ability

to process payments, they are successful in slowing their network down just enough for people to

notice and thus, we achieve our goal of raising awareness.

For The Original Copy, Download This PDF File

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A Letter from Anonymous, 9th of December 2010

DOWNLOAD IT

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Anonymous recruits Wikileaks 'data army'

The tool through which attacks are carried out against websites perceived to be anti-Wikileaks has now been downloaded more than 31,000 times.
Security experts warned people to avoid joining the voluntary botnet.
Targets of the loose-knit group Anonymous have so far included Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.
Amazon is expected to be among firms targeted next using the Anonymous attack tool known as LOIC. When a person installs the tool on their PC it enrols the machine into a voluntary botnet which then bombards target sites with data.
Motivation Anonymous member Coldblood told the BBC that he did not understand how firms such as Visa and Mastercard have decided that Wikileaks is illegal.
"We feel that they have bowed to government pressure. They say Wikileaks broke their terms and conditions but they accept payments from groups such as the Klu Klux Klan," he told the BBC.
He said that he has not personally taken part in the recent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks but explained the motives of those who have.
"Everyone is aware that they are illegal but they feel that it is a worthy cause and the possible outcome outweighs the risk," he said.
He said such attacks were only one tactic in its fight to keep the information being distributed by Wikileaks available.

In a twist to the story it has emerged that Amazon, which last week refused to host Wikileaks, is selling a Kindle version of the documents Wikileaks has leaked.

Anonymous have named the online retailer as its next target.
Earlier attacks against Visa and Mastercard knocked the official websites of the two offline for a while and resulted in problems for some credit card holders.
The attacks have been relatively small so far mustering less then 10 gigabits per second of traffic, said Paul Sop, chief technology officer at Prolexic which helps firms to defend themselves against the type of attack being employed by Anonymous.
"What's really wreaking havoc with these enterprises is how often the attackers can rotate the attack vectors," he said. "We see the attack complexity being more devastating as the mitigation technologies enterprises use can't filter out all these permutations."
Defending against an attack typically involves analysis to work out which ones are being employed. A tactic that may not work well in this case, he said.
"These Anonymous attacks are like riding a bull, they can change wildly and at a moment's notice," said Mr Sop.
Carole Thierault, a security researcher at Sophos, warned against getting involved with the Anonymous campaign.
"No-one, no matter how much you want to take part, should do this," she said. "It is very risky, and most probably illegal."
Ms Thierault said downloading and installing the LOIC attack tool was very risky.
"No-one should download unknown code on to their system," she said. "You're giving access to your computer to a complete stranger."

 Coinciding ideals


As well as releasing the attack tool, the Anonymous group has also been active in helping to create mirror sites. To date there are over one thousand sites offering exact copies of the content on Wikileaks.
It is also ensuring the information is available on dark nets, heavily encrypted layers of the internet via which information can be extracted while remaining untraceable.
The DDoS attacks are the latest battle in a wider fight known as Operation Payback, which targets firms Anonymous sees as "misusing the internet".
Past targets include the music industry and law firms associated with the attempt to bring music pirates to book.
The new-found attention on Anonymous has led the group to publish its manifesto.
In it, it denies that it is a group of hackers.
"Anonymous is not an organisation...and it most certainly is not a group of hackers," it said.
"Anonymous is an online living consciousness, comprised of different individuals with, at times, coinciding ideals and goals."
It also keen to distance itself from Coldblood, who it said is not a spokesperson for the group.

Source: BBC

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