We are living in fascinating times: MasterCard site partially frozen by hackers in WikiLeaks 'revenge'

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Mastercard was partially frozen by hackers in WikiLeaks 'revenge'. Photograph: Mastercard
The website of MasterCard, the international credit card, has been hacked and partially paralysed by hackers, in apparent revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks.

In an attack it is calling "Operation: Payback", a group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous appear to have orchestrated a DDOS ("distributed denial of service") attack on the site, bringing its service to a halt for many users. Attempts to load www.mastercard.com are currently unsuccessful.

Its latest salvo in the increasingly febrile technological war over WikiLeaks, after Mastercard announced on Monday that it would no longer process donations to the whistleblowing site, claiming it was engaged in illegal activity.

The group, which has been linked to the influential internet messageboard 4Chan, has been targeting commercial sites which have cut their ties with WikiLeaks. The Swiss bank PostFinance has already been targeted by Anonymous after it froze payments to WikiLeaks, and the group has vowed to target Paypal, which has also ceased processing payments to the site. EveryDNS.net, which suspended dealings on 3 December, Amazon, which removed WikiLeaks content from its EC2 cloud on 1 December, and Visa, which suspended its own dealings yesterday, may also be possible targets.

The action was confirmed on Twitter at 9.39am by user @Anon_Operation, who later tweeted: "WE ARE GLAD TO TELL YOU THAT http://www.mastercard.com/ is DOWN AND IT'S CONFIRMED! #ddos #wikileaks Operation:Payback(is a bitch!) #PAYBACK"

No one from Mastercard could be reached for immediate comment, but spokesman Chris Monteiro has said the site suspended dealings with WikiLeaks because: "Mastercard rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal."

DDOS attacks, which often involve flooding the target with requests so that it cannot cope with legitimate communication, are illegal.

What interesting times we live in: 4chan rushes to WikiLeaks' defense, forces Swiss banking site offline

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Excerpt:

"....The forces of Anonymous have taken aim at several companies who are refusing to do business with WikiLeaks. 4chan's hordes have launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against PayPal, Swiss bank PostFinance, and other sites that have hindered the whistleblowing site's operations.

A self-styled spokesman for the group calling himself "Coldblood" has said that any website that's "bowing down to government pressure" is a target. PayPal ceased processing donations to the site, and PostFinance froze WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's account. The attacks are being performed under the Operation: Payback banner; Operation: Payback is the name the group is using in its long-running attacks on the RIAA, MPAA, and other organizations involved with anti-piracy lawsuits.

The initial attacks against PayPal were substantially ineffective; the PayPal blog was taken offline, but the main PayPal site wasn't harmed. The attacks against PostFinance, however, have resulted in the bank's website being unavailable for more than 16 hours. It remains unavailable at the time of writing. The latest target is the site of the Swedish prosecutors in Assange's sexual misconduct trial. This too appears to be offline. Twitter has also been named as a future attack target, due to its claimed censorship of the #wikileaks hashtag.

The companies being attacked deny that their behavior is a result of government influence. Rather, they are claiming that WikiLeaks and Assange have failed to adhere to the terms of use of various services. Amazon, which for a time hosted the site, said that WikiLeaks was failing to ensure that it "wasn't putting innocent people in jeopardy." PostFinance said that Assange lied on an application form.

In a case of tit-for-tat, unknown forces have since launched a denial of service attack against Anonymous' own site (one that took it offline shortly after publication), though the IRC channel used for coordination is still operational, and its denial-of-service software, LOIC, is still functioning properly...."

Read full post:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/4chan-rushes-to-wikileaks-def...

yes. - Nigeria files bribery charges against Dick Cheneyws

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Excerpt:

"Nigeria has filed charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a scandal involving a former subsidiary of Halliburton energy firm.

The case, brought by the country's anti-corruption agency, centres on engineering firm KBR, which admitted bribing officials.

Mr Cheney's lawyer has called the allegations "entirely baseless".

Mr Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive before becoming vice-president to George W Bush in 2001.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it had filed 16 charges against Mr Cheney, Halliburton Chief Executive David Lesar, and two other executives.

It also filed charges against Halliburton as a company and four associated businesses.

KBR last year pleaded guilty to paying $180m (£115m) in bribes to Nigerian officials prior to 2007, when it was a subsidiary of Halliburton. The firm agreed to pay $579m (£372m) in fines related to the case in the US...."

Pixies claim the web!!!! & continue to innovate online with gigography download site – Telegraph Blogs

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The Pixies, the influential American rock band, have begun building an online gigography and uploading recordings of their shows that fans can download for $3.99 each. More than that, however, they’re asking fans to upload photos and video of the shows to create a real archive....

Figment.com Aims for Young Readers and Writers - NYTimes.com

Figment with Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at The New Yorker, Mr. Lewis envisioned it as a sort of literary Facebook for the teenage set.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Jacob Lewis, one of the founders of Figment.com.

“I really went into it and thought, ‘We’ll be the social network for young-adult fiction,’ ” said Mr. Lewis, a former managing editor of The New Yorker. “But it became clear early on that people didn’t want a new Facebook.”

The young people on the site weren’t much interested in “friending” one another. What they did want, he said, “was to read and write and discover new content, but around the content itself.”

Figment.com will be unveiled on Monday as an experiment in online literature, a free platform for young people to read and write fiction, both on their computers and on their cellphones. Users are invited to write novels, short stories and poems, collaborate with other writers and give and receive feedback on the work posted on the site.

The idea for Figment emerged from a very 21st-century invention, the cellphone novel, which arrived in the United States around 2008. That December, Ms. Goodyear wrote a 6,000-word article for The New Yorker about young Japanese women who had been busy composing fiction on their mobile phones. In the article she declared it “the first literary genre to emerge from the cellular age.”

Excerpt - read the full article by Julie Bosman

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/books/06figment.html?_r=1&ref=arts#

Angry Birds Day Meetups Everywhere - Meetup December 11

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11 is ANGRY BIRDS DAY!

Organize or join an Angry Birds Flash Mob Meetup in your town. We recommend choosing a public spot, and using your group's comments to choose a place to meet up AFTER the Flash Mob to celebrate your success.

Wondering what your Flash Mob will be doing? Watch the Rovio blog at www.rovio.com for ideas! Trust us - it will be fun, easy, and enjoyable for Angry Birds fans of all ages. Get at least FIVE people to your Meetup for maximum effect!

Great Video & a Lot of Passion here: BBC News - Tech Know Cosplay: designing game character costumes

Dressing as a video game character is one way fans turn an often solitary pastime into a social occasion.

Many cosplayers, as they are known, have gathered outside stores for the latest release of World of Warcraft, one of the most popular games on the market.

Donning dwarf, elf and troll costumes, gamers braved sub-zero temperatures to get their hands on the Cataclysm expansion.

As Ellie Gibson found out, there can also be a serious element to the hobby, with some people treating the art as a way to build a living.