PayPal Takes Punches from Pro-WikiLeaks Hackers

Julian Assange, back to camera, is driven into a London court.

PayPal appears to be the one of the recent target of hackers who, in solidarity with WikiLeaks, have waged attacks against various websites that are denying service to the controversial organization.

PayPal's blog was disabled by hackers this morning (although at the time of this writing, the blog was back in service), but payment services apparently remained functional.

The online payment service froze its account with WikiLeaks on Dec. 3, citing a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which, according to a recent statement, "states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity."

Mashable reports that a spokesman for the group behind the attacks, the anonymously backed Operation Payback, said the network of hackers would take aim at websites they deemed as "bowing down to government pressure."

In a Wednesday panel at Paris's LeWeb 2010 conference, PayPal VP Osama Bedier defended the company's WikiLeaks shutdown, and said the decision was a response to governmental requests. "State Dept. told us these were illegal activities. It was straightforward," he said, according to the tech blog TechCrunch. "We first comply with regulations around the world ... making sure that we protect our brand."

Bedier later clarified that the State Department had not approached PayPal directly with the request, but that the company was responding to a letter sent by the State Department to WikiLeaks. The letter argued that any materials which had been "provided by any government officials, or any intermediary without proper authorization ... were provided in violation of U.S. law" and thus, "as long as WikiLeaks holds such material, the violation of the law is ongoing."

Some researchers have also reported that, despite a high volume of WikiLeaks-related Tweets and related hashtags, the topic was not trending on Twitter -- which initially caused speculation as to whether Twitter might be censoring the discussion.

"Is twitter censoring WikiLeaks trends?" read a Monday morning post on the WikiLeaks Twitter account, which then linked to the blog Safety First, which compiled some of the initial research leading to the accusations.

Twitter promptly denied the rumors in a statement, arguing that Twitter's "Trends list" is "is generated by an algorithm that identifies topics that are being talked about more right now than they were previously."

"Twitter is not censoring #wikileaks, #cablegate or other related terms from the Trends list of trending topics," the statement read.

Nevertheless, some speculate that Twitter could be the hackers' next target. 

So far, additional websites that have been targeted by the group of hackers includes MasterCard and the website of Swiss bank PostFinance, which recently closed the account of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

[curraghtemple]

The government is acting worse than children and we should all be concerned because they are sounding as bad as the Iranian or North Korean governments. Perhaps they think this strong reaction will confuse at least some people and it obviously has. The truth has to come out somehow and, personally, I'm really tired of lies from politicians. The lies are killing us. Its basic that people who are in power become drunk with it unless they are forced to be honest by the journalists and by us. And when the journalists can't be honest because of threats from government; and when we cant force the government to be honest because we are scared of them; when the newspapers can't be honest; when everyone has to succumb to political pressure - well, maybe we should all take a close look at North Korea and see how we'd like to be living there.

[uuugb]

I was a customer of Paypal for many years. Not any longer! Paypal is a company that acts unethically and pretends to be a Bank. What Paypal call "Acceptable Use" is just a cover up, and we all know that. Freedom of speech should not be a crime, not in the USA, or any other country.
If to be able to publish what our governments are doing is NOT consider "Acceptable Use", we should not do business with such a company. Bye bye Paypal I hope I'm not alone on this decision.
"states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity." Freedom of speech is illegal according to Paypal!

[vkmo]

JA along with ally Anonymous have hurt USA more than its enemies with his boatloads of stolen information about US govt operations, including names of US officers, friends, families, contacts, actions taken and methods used. JA is a thief, accused rapist and as threatening to the wellbeing of US as a nuke!! It would be mad if somebody releases account numbers and passwords of individuals bank accounts. What JA has done is something of a much greater magnitude. They are committing felonies which must be punished.

[oneflashoflight]

These supporters are basically amounting to gnats on an elephant's rear. I saw ZERO issues with Visa, Mastercard, or Paypal today (which I use all day every day for business). Show us something worth seeing kids otherwise go back to collecting trading cards!!

[iamandami]

After all what's the point of freedom and responsibility and opportunity if you are denied such things only to have the world figured out and sold to you in convenient episodes that so often serve to conveniently serve the indoctrinated/vested power bases and their infomercial packages?

After all is it really all about freedom as Mastercard so often boasts in its commercials? I wonder...

http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2010/12/media-transparency-mastercard-and-payback/

[tsigili]

Wikileaks overstepped their bounds. They will likely vanish, never to be seen again.

[allriledup]

Enough with the light jail sentences for cyber terrorist and anarchists. Write laws with very heavy penalties and enforce them. Now, these clowns get caught, and they do 3 to 6 months in lock-up. Put them away for 3 to 6 years. That will at least get most of the riff-raff out of the game, so that we can concentrate on the real bad actors.

[dogslysmile]

Enough with the insipid US leaders and embassy agents who do not take their own blame for talking trash about our allies in the first place. The only reason this information is so hot is because it reveals behind the back comments. The real traitors are the state officials who are telling Europeans one thing and then telling the Middle East and Asia another, risking our integrity and their trust. Assange didn't put state officials at risk, they put themselves at risk the moment they signed up for this ********. And yet you're spouting more rhetoric for a government that's throwing a temper tantrum and acting like a child in stubborn denial.

It's not cyber terrorists or Julian Assange who will bring this country down. It's people like you and our leaders who are unable to make rational contributions or conduct a civilized society.

[TheLastBrainLeft]

It's the idiots from 4chan's /b/. Right now it's only the use of the LOIC, which Paypal should be easily able to defend.