Anonymous Hitting Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has turned into a world of espionage with more twists and turns than a James Bond film. By now we all may have heard of a group called Anonymous, who has been hitting web 2.0 sites that have refused to do business with the controversial Wikileaks. Since last week their targets have been the Swiss bank that froze Julian Assange's assets and PayPal which stopped processing donations to Wikileaks. Anonymous is a loose-knit group of hacktivists. Coldblood, a member of Anonymous has stated, "Multiple things are being done. Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets. As an organisation we have always taken a strong stance on censorship and freedom of expression on the internet and come out against those who seek to destroy it by any means. We feel that Wikileaks has become more than just about leaking of documents; it has become a war ground, the people vs. the government. The idea is to give the companies a wake-up call. Companies will notice the increase in traffic and an increase in traffic means increase in costs associated with running a website."

This tactic that Coldblood mentions is called denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) and swamps a web 2.0 site with so many requests that it becomes overwhelmed. DDoS attacks are illegal in many countries, including the UK. Anonymous is also helping to create hundreds of mirror sites for Wikileaks, after its US domain name provider withdrew its services and at the last count there were 507 mirrors of Wikileaks. Wikileaks has been hit by a series of denial-of-service attacks, following the release of a quarter of a million US embassy cables. It is unclear who is behind the attacks but it seems that Wikileaks is getting too hot to handle as many of the businesses that work with the site have distanced themselves from it.

Amazon is one company that ended its agreement to host Wikileaks, saying Wikileaks failed to adhere to its terms of service and that it was unable to ensure that it "wasn't putting innocent people in jeopardy" by leaking classified documents. Whiel, as mentioned, online payment company, PayPal has permanently restricted Wikileaks' account, making it harder for supporters to make donations, while MasterCard Worldwide is also stopping payments to the site. The Swiss bank, PostFinance has closed the account of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. In all cases, the web 2.0 companies have insisted their decisions are not politically motivated.

However, there are some who have taken a different view and in France, the French web 2.0 internet service provider OVH said it had no plans to end the service it provides to Wikileaks. Though, the French industry minister Eric Besson had called for the site to be shut down, saying France could not host internet sites that "violate the confidentiality of diplomatic relations and put in danger people protected by diplomatic secrecy". Yet, with another twist, a French judge declined to force OVH to shut Wikileaks down. Again this story shows nothing is safe, nothing is sacred and technology can be used against itself...we are all witnessing a historic moment of change of how the web is changing freedom of speech and international relations.

Photo Credit: mlpoulter