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Hackers Take Down Visa.com

Moments after Wikileaks supporters gave an attack order, credit card network Visa just saw its website taken offline. Mastercard.com, meanwhile, also remains down.

This means the two biggest credit card networks in America were successfully attacked by angry 4-Chan-ers using automated software distributed via Twitter. It's a matter of dispute how far the attacks can spread beyond the credit card networks' websites, but the subtext of how easily Visa and MasterCard got spanked by hackers is at least as big a message here as the overt one about punishing financial companies who cut off Wikileaks.

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Comment of the Day: Crying Rape in a Talk Show Theater

Today we raged about something called "Khloe Kardashian" using public rape as an analogy for TSA pat-downs. Some agreed with our anger! Others disagreed. And one commenter... sort of did both.

From plmyshkin:

These exaggerations are just like what Hitler did.

Exactly

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PayPal Busted for Bogus Wikileaks Excuse

Facing a booing crowd in Europe, a PayPal executive tried to explain why his company blocked donations to Wikileaks. He cited a letter from the State Department calling the secrets-sharing site illegal. Sadly for him, no such letter exists.

Speaking at the LeWeb conference in Paris, PayPal VP Osama Bedier faced "boos from the mostly European audience" when he was asked why PayPal froze Wikileaks' account. He responded:

"On Nov. 27, the State Department - the U.S. government, basically - wrote a letter saying the Wikileaks activities were deemed illegal in the United States."

As the New York Times has now pointed out, that's simply not true. The State Department "did not argue that publication of the documents by WikiLeaks, or any media organization, would be illegal." Instad, the State Department letter said the documents were leaked illegally, writing the documents were "were provided in violation of U.S. law... As long as Wikileaks holds such material, the violation of the law is ongoing."

This letter, further, was not sent to PayPal at all, but to Wikileaks.

So PayPal cut off WikiLeaks' access to its own money due to a State Department lawyer's letter it was not a party to, and due specifically to an accusation of illegality within that letter that wasn't even directed at Wikileaks. Having formulated this bizarre position, it specifically asked, according to the conference moderator in the video below, that it be asked about this very topic on stage at a tech conference. Amazing!

Given the level of integrity and due diligence the financial services industry has shown over the past two years, it's fair to assume all those other Wikileaks accounts have been frozen due to legal and ethical consideration that's about as solid as PayPal's.

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Noose Closes Around Pro-Wikileaks Vigilantes

Operation Payback is facing a little payback of its own. First Twitter closed the pro-Wikileaks hacker movement's account. And now we hear the Feds are shutting down some online discussion of Operation Payback attacks.

Some sites have received federal court orders to cease any further online documentation of the attacks, which targeted Visa, Mastercard and other financial companies who froze Wikileaks accounts, a source close to the situation tells us. Among the sites where content is coming down is Encyclopedia Dramatica, which we're told received one of the orders. The 4chan-affiliated reference wiki within the past hour had the number three Google hit for a search on "Operation Payback." It has since deleted its article, though the entry remains accessible via Google cache (NSFW). Here's what it looks like now (click to enlarge):

The message board 4chan has also reportedly deleted threads documenting Operation Payback, but the anarchic image-sharing site is notorious for its churn and heavy moderation even in the absence of federal orders, so it's hard to tell exactly what's going on. (If you know of other sites affected, or have documentation on this reported court order, we'd love to hear from you.)

On Twitter, meanwhile, some people writing about the hacker raids have switched from using the hashtag #payback to using #payitforward, since, some believe, Twitter has been monitoring the original #payback tag and moderating some of those tweets.

Whatever its stance on discussion of the raids, Twitter is clearly done being used as the rallying point from which to organize them. The company shut down the @Anon_Operations account, which was being used to synchronize successful denial of service attacks on companies like Visa and Mastercard. (The account name has since been claimed by an apparent parody version, while a kindred site has sprung up at @AnonOps.)

Operation Payback was meant to punish companies like PayPal, Visa and Mastercard for freezing Wikileaks' assets. The effort, believed to be affiliated with the anti-Scientology 4chan spinoff Anonymous, was successful in the case of Visa and Mastercard, taking down both companies' websites. Whether the victory extends beyond those brief symbolic wins remains to be seen; both credit card firms claim their processing networks were not affected by the attacks.

The attempted punishment is also likely to produce a nasty PR backlash. Hacking Wikileaks' enemies might be cathartic, but it also reinforces the notion that there's something illicit about Wikileaks — and about the practice of publishing information the government would prefer, usually for its own selfish reasons, to keep secret.

[Photo of Assange via AP]

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Oprah Denies Lesbian Rumors | Western Journalism.com

URL:  http://www.westernjournalism.com/oprah-denies-lesbian-r...

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Video of the Day: Bachmann, Obama Flat Out Lied

Related posts: Read more at www.westernjournalism.com

Video: Obama Lied! White House refuses to answer about Obama/Blagojevich connection Read more at www.westernjournalism.com

BACHMANN DEFENDS COMMENTS ON OBAMA‘S ’ANTI-AMERICAN’ AGENDA Read more at www.westernjournalism.com

People Died, WaPo Lied Read more at www.westernjournalism.com

Michele Bachmann is cool to mainstream media, and an increasingly hot property Read more at www.westernjournalism.com

MEDIA FRAUD– More Proof That the Leftist Media Lied About Racist Attacks By Tea Partiers Read more at www.westernjournalism.com

 

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MLB Player Luke Scott: Obama wasn’t Born in America

Baltimore Orioles slugger Luke Scott stopped by baseball’s winter meetings Tuesday and, after some harmless chatter about his team’s offseason dealings, stated with conviction that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Oh, yes, he did. Scott’s opinion about the president’s birthplace — while certainly not unique — was a stunning climax to a friendly and frank 20-minute Answer Man session that spanned his enthusiasm for baseball, hunting, firearms, personal responsibility and smaller government.

“(Obama) was not born here,” Scott asserted to Answer Man in the session’s last segment. “That’s my belief. I was born here. If someone accuses me of not being born here, I can go — within 10 minutes — to my filing cabinet and I can pick up my real birth certificate and I can go, ‘See? Look! Here it is. Here it is.’ The man has dodged everything. He dodges questions, he doesn’t answer anything.”

Scott’s controversial comments are gaining steam in the online world (read the full text of them here), his Wikipedia page has already been updated with the comments and teammate Adam Jones(notes) has tweeted a preemptive show of support (“Luke Scott Luke Scott Luke Scott Luke Scott you still my boy”).

Scott used to come to the ballpark packing heat. Now sporting an offseason beard but no noticeable firearm, Scott came out guns blazing, figuratively, in Orlando.

Read More: By David Brown, Yahoo

Related posts: Election official: I’d testify Obama not born in Hawaii Kenyan official: Obama born here Did Obama’s grandmother say he was born in Kenya? Hawaii elections clerk: Obama not born here Lawmakers to candidates: Prove ‘natural born’ status Read more at www.westernjournalism.com

 

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Centralia: Pa.'s Infamous Ghost Town -- See Our Viewers' Pictures - u local News Story - WGAL The Susquehanna Valley

URL:  http://www.wgal.com/ulocal/21150179/detail.html

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John Perzel, Brett Feese Accused Of Misusing State Funds

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Hearing Begins In Case Involving 2 Former Lawmakers

John Perzel, Brett Feese Accused Of Misusing State Funds

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Two former Pennsylvania state lawmakers are in a Harrisburg courtroom as a hearing regarding pretrial motions in their case gets under way. The proceeding in the Dauphin County courtroom of Judge Richard Lewis that began Wednesday could last several days. Prosecutors describe the criminal charges as a scheme to use state-funded computer services to wage political campaigns, among others. The defendants include former House Speaker John Perzel, of Philadelphia, and former House Whip Brett Feese, of Lycoming County. All 10 defendants have ties to the state House Republican caucus. A trial date has been set for April, but that could be delayed. Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Read more at www.wgal.com

 

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Some Taxpayers Furious Over Penalty - Pennsylvania News Story - WGAL The Susquehanna Valley

URL:  http://www.wgal.com/news/26051916/detail.html

Letters Go Out To 51,000 Taxpayers

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