Payback: Bank That Froze WikiLeaks Funds Hacked

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Posted to Youtube October 29, 2010 by user opPayback

Hackers take down website of bank that froze WikiLeaks funds

By Daniel Tencer, RawStory

Monday, December 6th, 2010

A group of Internet activists calling themselves Operation Payback have taken credit for shutting down the website of a bank that earlier Monday froze funds belonging to WikiLeaks.

Announcing its successful hack on a Twitter account, the group declared, “We will fire at anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks.”

Earlier in the day, Swiss bank PostFinance issued a statement announcing that it had frozen 31,000 euro ($41,000 US) in an account set up as a legal defense fund for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The bank said it had frozen the account because, in opening it, Assange had claimed residency in Geneva.

“Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance,” the bank said.

As of Monday evening, the PostFinance website was unavailable.

Operation Payback also promised a hack attack on PayPal, the online payment service that last week cut off WikiLeaks, denying the group a major tool for collecting donations from supporters.

With the financial noose tightening around WikiLeaks even as a legal one tightens around its founder’s neck, Operation Payback has effectively declared war on the organizations working to hobble WikiLeaks.

“In these modern times, Internet access is fast becoming a basic human right,” the group says in a video posted to YouTube. “Just like any other basic human right, we believe it is wrong to infringe upon it.”

Posted to Youtube October 30, 2010 by user opPayback

Operation Payback (is a bitch), this is the Internet, we run this. An open message from Anonymous to the governments of the world and their legal leeches regarding the motivation of the cyber protests.

Corrupt governments of the world, we are anonymous. For some time now, voices have been crying out in unison against the new ACTA laws. The gross inadequacies of the new laws being passed internationally have been pointed out repeatedly. Our chief complaint is that such measures would restrict people’s access to the internet.

In these modern times access to the internet is fast becoming a basic human right. Just like any other basic human right, we believe that it is wrong to infringe upon it. To threaten to cut people off from the global consciousness as you have is criminal and abhorrent. To move to censor content on the internet based on your own prejudice is at best laughably impossible, at worst, morally reprehensible.

The unjust restrictions you impose on us will meet with disaster and only strengthen our resolve to disobey and rebel against your tyranny. Such actions taken against you, and those you out source your malignant litigation too, are inevitable, unavoidable and unstoppable.

We Are Anonymous,

We Are Legion And Divided By Zero.

We Do Not Forgive Internet Censorship

And We Do Not Forget Free Speech.

We Are Over 9000,

Expect Us!

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    • Edger on December 7, 2010 at 19:35
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    • Edger on December 7, 2010 at 20:28
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    From TheTechHerald.com today…

    13:20 EST:

    Senator sets sights on U.S. Press – Speaking to Fox News, Senator Lieberman said that the DOJ should indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and extradite him from the UK.

    In addition, he said that, “To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the justice department…”

    Other news organisations using the WikiLeaks cables may also be investigated for breaking the US’s espionage laws. We’ve reached out to his staff for confirmation.

    Attack! – Anonymous responded to Assange’s arrest by taking down Swedish government site http://www.aklagare.se, the hive at 13:15 EST has hit more than 600 users. This is more than enough to cripple a given domain, considering that aklagare.se has minimal infrastructure support.

    There are calls in the IRC channel to target MasterCard, Visa, as well as PayPal. However, most of those in the room who are active in the attacks are sticking with a single target.

  1. who are working for freedom of information are heroes. What a long strange trip this is. You never know where the story will go and the only inevitability is people’s unlimited capacity to progress and use the tools at hand. Each instance in history people of good spirit find a way to crack the codes and let light in. The web of deception they weave cannot block out the tracks of their false creations.  

    • banger on December 7, 2010 at 22:48

    We are entering on the phase where there are two choice. Surrender to the oligarchs who will institute their own neo-feudal nightmare on us or fight and resist. Whatever way we can we must take a little power back by monkey-wrenching, boycotting. and other measures to make life a little tougher for the criminal elites.

    I actually have nothing against elites, in theory–one way or another we  need them. But this group is criminal and has clearly gone rogue and must be all resisted.

    I’ve been around and I’ve never seen anything like this situation–reminds me a little of ’68. I think we are going to move into a period of serious conflict as the left gradually realizes it has been had and it’s been asleep.

    • RUKind on December 8, 2010 at 00:09

    Let her rip. Let the oligarchs stand naked with their government lackeys.

  2. information being CHALLENGED! Imagine their narrative being MOCKED. How dare the masses pry open the secrets of the inner kingdom! Who will build the pyramids and mine the gold? This is an outrage against the natural order!

  3. …to take my mind off the stupidity of BO’s deal with the mush-mouth-McConnells and the orange-orangutang-soon-to be-speaker freaks…

    …and wallow in the sweet pleasure of PayBack!

    Go get ’em cyber-techies!!!  

  4. I feel like Rich Lowry getting starbursts in his pants over Palin:

    The sequestration of human knowledge for the benefit of extremist capitalism is treason against the whole of humanity.  All should have the right to listen to a melody, experience a plot, and learn from the aggregate of human knowledge available online.

    That’s downright heart-warming.

  5. Big deal! But still…

    I cancelled my Paypal account, and sent their executive bean-counters a little note about the pathetic insignicance of their lives, compared to a heroic freedom-fighter like Julian Assange.

    They have blogs and Facebook pages!

    https://www.thepaypalblog.com/

  6. But I’m betting that the NSA has rather precise information on every hacker engaging in this action.  The hour of the globally “disappeared” will soon be upon us.

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