WikiLeaks versus Bank of America. The battle is joined.
Alcuin Bramerton
On Friday 17th December 2010, Bank of America said that it would no longer process payments intended for WikiLeaks. "Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for WikiLeaks. This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments."
Meanwhile, waiting in the wings and ready to run is Anonymous. Very powerful in the twilight world of multinode cyberactivism, Anonymous is not affiliated with WikiLeaks, Bank of America or any visible organisation. However, Anonymous is by no means the chaotic, anarchic group depicted by the cyber-illiterate carthorses of the Western mainstream media. Behind the smoke and mirrors, Anonymous has a well-defined and well-managed hierarchy. There is a command and control structure and a carefully-monitored nexus of internet relay chat channels.
With the Christmas holidays starting in the West, millions of freedom-committed, computer-savvy school and university students have online time to surf and play. If they haven't done so already, many of them will be downloading the Anonymous-favoured low orbit ion cannon software. Properly configured, this enables multiple, untraceable distributed denial of service protest attacks against target organisations. The students know that the enemies of WikiLeaks are the enemies of Anonymous. Bank of America may be dead meat already. More
here (16.12.10) and here (17.12.10).Dec. 18, 2010