{"id":31866,"date":"2010-12-09T14:55:40","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T19:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=31866"},"modified":"2010-12-09T18:13:16","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T23:13:16","slug":"the-mastercard-and-visa-takedown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/the-mastercard-and-visa-takedown\/","title":{"rendered":"The MasterCard and VISA takedown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Curious about how hackers actually manage to do something like crash Mastercard’s website in retaliation over the company’s refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Logo for the WikiLeaks avengers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier today I noticed this post by a friend on Facebook: The Story Behind the Mastercard and VISA DDoS Attacks<\/strong><\/a>. I’m not fluent in geek-speak, so some of the acronyms go over my head. But from what I understand, hackers have altered some open-source software to enable anyone to join in the attack. Basically you voluntarily become part of a botnet (or rather, enable your computer to do so).<\/p>\n

Barrett Lyon, the author of the post writes: <\/p>\n

What is amazing is that these people are having success, they are operating a full PR campaign that has created logos, Wikipedia pages, web sites, operations infastructure, and attack software. Now, they are getting angry people all over the world to join in on their cause and start attacking whatever they choose. It\u2019s hacktivism at its best.<\/p>\n

Their botnet is also rather unusual. Unlike botnets in the past (which take advantage of holes in operating systems to install the bot software) this botnet is made up of volunteers. It\u2019s opt-in and if you follow their instructions, once it is up and running, you are to, ‘Sit back and watch the show’. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sound like a simple and exciting way to get involved? Well, there are points to be considered. I found the comments to be informative on the pros and cons of the system. One person posting as Stiennon says, “While crowdsourced attacks are temporarily successful most people get tired of clogging their own computers and uplinks with attack traffic. They are also participating in illegal activity and know it. Mastercard has all their IP addresses. Not good for them if legal reprisals are in order.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Okay, yes — the ability for the authorities to track IP addresses and prosecute is not very attractive. Then again, as Alberto Pereira comments, “It\u2019s irrelevant if the IP is trackable or not. It will not be possible for any police or court differentiate between the users who volunteered to the task and the ones who had their computer hijacked (with a virus). So everybody can join with almost certainty of no prosecution.”<\/p>\n

There does seem to be a certain safety in numbers when it comes to this kind of thing, though I guess the question remains whether one is willing to test the theory — as well as whether actions like these have any real impact on the decisions of Mastercard and the other targets of this activity (which include Swiss Postal Finance and PayPal).<\/p>\n

And I suppose there is still the question of whether this kind of action constitutes positive, productive action or simply chaos and waste of resources? As a commenter going by techn0scho0lbus writes,
\n“It\u2019s the Internet\u2019s version of an angry mob. It\u2019s not democratic, it\u2019s too sensational and it\u2019s vapid. Their vandalism is closer to a lynching than it is to a referendum call. The power of Internet crowds should be taken seriously but kids dressed up claiming to be card-carrying members of a hacker organization should not be taken seriously, just punished for whatever damage they personally conduct.”<\/p>\n

In a sense, that also leads to the question, punished by whom? And how? Is the Internet becoming a sort of wild west frontier (or has it always been?), living by its own code and breeding outlaw-heroes by the server-ful? I wonder if there enough frenzied tech activity out there — cloaked by code — to keep authorities at bay while hacker vigilantes try to keep some form of order. More importantly, I want to know if the ‘powers that be’ are getting the message about freedom of information, consumer power, transparency and the strength of what looks like some genuine revolution at hand. The question of whether it’s possible to change the system from within the system keeps surfacing in the debate of the leaked diplomatic cables. The actions of WikiLeaks suggests that perhaps it is not, or that it is not fast enough to be ‘real change’. At the same time, it may be worth considering the angry mob\/lynching analogy. It’s a loaded one, full of cultural baggage. But I’m not entirely sure equating a corporation like Mastercard with a lynching victim is a valid comparison.<\/p>\n

Regrding the hackers’ actions, Lyon states early in the article, “The general concept is simple, there are people that want to send a message that the Internet is a sovereign territory.” Perhaps it is — or maybe that’s a fantasy, albeit one worth holding as an ideal as many fight for net neutrality in the midst of the corporate government tightening its grip. But “sovereign” implies a ruler, some body with authority. I’m curious to see who that turns out to be. The dust is far from settled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Curious about how hackers actually manage to do something like crash Mastercard’s website in retaliation over the company’s refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks? Earlier today I noticed this post by a friend on Facebook: The Story Behind the Mastercard and VISA DDoS Attacks. I’m not fluent in geek-speak, so some of the acronyms go … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}