Protection? A big finale? his conscience? God knows but what does he gain from all this if his motives are less then noble? So far he has had a bit of fame (both good n bad) and lots of police interest. Maybe hes plain fed up of politicians lying to us about everything, i know i am.
it's not distraction it's legitimate.. if you have a man who controls what you see.. who's to say he's not trashing what he doesn't want you to see- think you see my point.. his bad hairstyle only makes it worse
They're all over pastebin. edit: http://pastebin.com/aiqm1003 - one of many, just goto pastebin.com and search for mastercard and you'll find all sorts of details. I've seen names, addresses, and a massive list of thousands of numbers and expiry dates. Mastercard is really screwed on this one. I suspect VISA will be following shortly. As soon as Anon realised they need to go for the payment services and not the corporate websites things got messy for the big two. If no-one can use their VISA or Mastercard for the next 12-24 hours, customers are gonna be pissed, and the big two are going to have to question whether stopping payments to wikileaks was really worth 10-20 million dollars.
You must also see it from his (and perhaps the media outlets') point of view - there's no sense in releasing it all at once. 1. we wouldn't be able to handle a quarter of a million documents. brain = asplode and all that. 2. There is no evidence that he is controlling what we see, only when we get to see it. See #1 for why. 3. He's already handed out the 1.4GB torrent with all the cables. If there are any discrepancies between what's in them (when they're unlocked) and what we've seen so far, we'll know for sure whether he was hiding anything. 4. Given how events have progressed thus far, I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to off him or spirit him away, in which case all cables would be instantly released (<3 interwebz), making your fears that he is controlling what we get to see completely irrelevant. Nexxo is absolutely right - do not take your eyes off the ball, that's exactly what The Man wants you to do with talk of unprotected sex (gasp!) and dodgy hairstyles. Next they'll be charging all the fathers in the world with rape.
lol ok point taken stone.. I'll wait it out and see what happens before I comment on him any more spec you think they have visa accounts? mastercard has always been dodgy
In other news, a sh*t-ton of people have basically told the Aussie PM to grow a pair and get her sh*t together. This includes a number of fairly famous and important folks - Noam Chomsky, Oz Sen. Bob Brown, Oz Sen. Scott Ludlam and Oz MP Adam Bandt. Meanwhile, Daniel Ellsberg has gone on records as saying "EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time."
Only time will tell. The major news networks, try as they might, are ridiculously slow to update on this kind of news. And with the twitter account taken offline by best form of keeping up to date is Something Awful. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't get any VISA details, but I wouldn't be surprised if they leak a few thousand of VISA's customer details either. Either way, they've taken visa's payment portal down, and there are anecdotal reports all over the web of people having serious problems using both visa and mastercard's for the last 12-16 hours or so.
Wow. All I can say is, wow. Piss off the internet, and the internet goes absolutely feral on your ass. Actually, I shouldn't really say 'feral' because that implies wild and untamed behavior. Taking down all these high profile targets seems more coordinated and akin to vigilante justice. Although it seems like Visa and Mastercard are getting their just desserts, I do have to question whether it was really wise to make such a bold retaliatory move. In the end, all it's going to do is strengthen the convictions of Palin, et al that Assange and Wikileaks are an evil organization. It doesn't matter that Assange isn't responsible for Anon's actions. He'll be held guilty by association. "Look, see! They're a bunch of evil hackers who stole your credit card information! Quick, put them all on the Do Not Fly list so they get extra-super-mega pat downs!"
nothing wrong with bold, but you're right, a retaliatory, reactionary move like this is risky, if understandable. not entirely in how it's perceived by palin et al, but more importantly by those who would ultimately help the cause. who here wants their personal info compromised to bring down visa and mastercard? and might we be convinced to give up a little more freedom to prevent it happening again? many have been swayed by this argument before...
I think the DDoS attacks carried out by Anon were silly and also very irresponsible. That's before we consider that they were also illegal. They aren't just affecting the companies they were targetting with their antics, they affect every company (and individual) who relies on these companies services. It could have the adverse effect of alienating Wikileaks even more, especially with the people who the DDoS attacks have affected. If someone wants to make a public statement and show support for a cause, then fine go ahead and do so. But if it starts to affect in an adverse manner those who have nothing to do with the cause, either pro or anti, then it's overstepping the mark. People have lost trade and income from the shenanigans of this Anon, and in these times of economic uncertainty, this is just plain wrong. I'm not talking about just the big corporates either, the repurcussions will be felt right down to grass roots level. Even just a couple of hours lost trade can impact small companies massively.
Anonymous forgot the golden rule: The price of being the Good Guy is that you have to be the Good Guy. You don't get to play dirty, even if the bad guys do. A better strategy in cases like this is always to shame the company into doing the right thing. Public image matters. Instead of taking down Visa and Master, they could hack their websites with nice, new graphic commercials: "We will support the Ku Klux Klan, but we won't support the truth" Visa. Who is handling your money? Or: "We will support arms deals, but we won't support freedom of speech" MasterCard. What does your money support?
My thoughts exactly. But, if this group really does spawn from 4chan as I have heard, then sadly, their mob mentality won't lean the way of the good guy. Hacking Visa and Mastercard's website is one thing. Exposing (I have read the numbers are fake but not sure) personal information like this isn't fighting for Wikileak's cause. I hope Julian, or Wikileaks supportors speak out against the actions of Anonymous because it in no way contributes, nor changes any minds on the matter.
It pretty much is the right way though, because now Visa and Mastercard are going to suffer the consequences legally and they surely aren't going to act d*cks towards that again are they? Sure a few thousand details for these companies are leaked, bad move. They should do it assange style and go "oh and by the way, here's a copy of the data we have, we'll publish it if you don't do x,y and z" that'd work wonders! Well it would for them, it wouldn't for us lot eh? Who said anything about being the good guy? Clearly the entire situation has no "good" or "bad" because of the diverse opinions that are thrown out with this? I for one am just happy to see the American's go "oh...." at the prospect of the internet turning on them and weilding it's mighty ban-hammer against what it feels is right (This is connected to the net neutrality stuff aswell)
"accidental"? Hmm, yep. I believe that one... A new day, new attacks/targets it seems. I'm wondering whether the next target will be PayPal? Guess we'll find out soon. It's difficult to know how things will turn out. People are right that it might start turning people against Wikileaks and Anon_ops if more sensitive personal info starts getting hacked and published online, but it difficult to know since it's not like public opinions of Wikileaks is regularly taken (now that would be an interesting poll!)
@ BRAWL: Wikileaks says something about being the good guy. The whole point of its activities is to reveal corruption and lies. Their leaks are a moral indictment of government practices. This is a moral argument: what (and who) is good, and what (and who) is bad. Having drawn this moral line in the sand you have to decide where you stand. It's not good enough to have morals; they have to be internally coherent and consistent morals. You cannot choose to be moral only when it suits you. Again, that's kind of the point Wikileaks is making. So it, and its supporters have to act accordingly themselves. And blackmail does not work anyway. You can't blackmail bullies --it is not how they work.
