Operation Payback is a coordinated group of attacks on kleptocratic websites by dissident bloggers. Operation Payback organizers have declared a world cyberwar on websites that opposed WikiLeaks following the United States diplomatic cables leak. The First World Cyberwar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. Dissident bloggers are the troops. The Second World Cyberwar might be against freakish governments that jail dissident bloggers.
Targets include MasterCard, Visa, and a Swiss bank. All blocked payments to Wikileaks on apparent U.S. pressure. Swedish prosecutors behind Assange's arrest in London for extradition and questioning over sex charges were also hit. Wikileaks supporters view the charges are politically motivated.
Some denial of service attacks use botnets to hijack other computers to overload websites. But most First World Cyberwar attacks are different. Attackers are using their own computers, downloading software from Anonymous. By midway through Thursday afternoon, that software had already been downloaded some 10,000 times.
When it comes to Wikileaks, there's a lot of fear out there on the Internet right now. Between the federal criminal investigation into Wikileaks, Senator Joe Lieberman's calls for companies to stop providing support for Wikileaks and his suggestion that the New York Times itself should be criminally investigated, Senator Dianne Feinstein's recent Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and even the suggestion by some that he should be assassinated, a lot of people are scared and confused.
The Second World Cyberwar might start in either Greece or Iran. Freakish Graecokleptocrats accuse dissident bloggers of treason, confiscate their computers, and lock them is jail! These prisoners of conscience follow the long tradition of Socrates, who was killed by the Athenian democracy.
The Ministry of Truth or Minitrue in Newspeak was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by the government of Dystopia to control information in his seminal novel of 1984. Now, governments have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. But there is no way Minitrue can gag the internet. Brutal Graecocybercops must be abolished now.
The last months have seen a mass exodus of Iran's bloggers and student leaders to safer lands, and many others languish in Iran's prisons. Expect to hear Iran's students reciting Yar-e Dabestani (My Soul/Classmate) the freedom poem written by Mansour Tehrani:
Ma Zendeh Be Aaneem Ke Aaraam Nageereem
We are alive by virtue of our restlessness
Mojeem Ke Asoodegi-y-e-Ma Adam-e-Maast
We are like waves that die through calm
Yar-e-Dabestani-y-e-man
My old school mate
Ba Man-o-Hamrah-e-Manee
You are with me and by my side
Choob-e-Alefe Barsar-e-Ma
When the cane is wielded over our heads
Boghz-e-Man-o-Aah-e-Manee
You share my pain and anguish
Hak Shodeh Esm'e Man-o-To
Engraved are the names of you and I
Rooy-e-Een Takhte Siyah
On this blackboard
Tark-e-y-e-Beedaad-e-Setam
Scars of the lashes of tyranny
Maandeh Hanooz Roo Tan-e-Ma
Have stayed on our bodies
Dasht-e-Bi-Farhang-e-Ma
Our culturally desolate wilderness
Harz-e Tamaam-e-Alafhaayash
All but weeds.
Khoob Age Khoob Bad Age Bad
Be it good or bad
Dast-e-Man-o To Baayad Een Pardeh Raa Paareh Konad
My hands and your hands have to tear down this curtain
Kee Be Joz Man-o-To Dard-e-Maaro Chaare Konad
Who other than you or I will find the cure to our ills
Yar-e-Dabestani-y-e-Man
My old school mate.
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