WikiLeaks sidetracked for days by “Anti-Leaks”

From somewhere in Cyberspace – WikiLeaks is experiencing an extended Distributed Denial of Service (DdoS) at the hands of an upstart group called “Anti-Leaks.”

The group has been able to knock out most WikiLeaks mirror sites in a hacktivist scheme many knowledgeable hackers and security experts suspect may be a government operation.

According to one of WikiLeaks' chief allies, Anonymous, “We are now witnessing cyber wars, with most Wikileaks sites under sustained DDoS attack over several days. One one side are Wikileaks itself and it's (sic) hactivist (sic) supporters, such as Anonymous. On the other side are US Govt supporters.”

Some access to WikiLeaks sites is still available through certain mirror sites belonging to Anonymous, but not yet attacked by Anti-Leaks, and by using a software called “Tor.”

WikiLeaks, led by fugitive Julian Assange, an Australian geek and hacker, has liberated many sensitive and classified government documents belonging to the State Department, the CIA, and the Army. Their allied group, Anonymous, is equally successful, having attacked banking operations such as VISA and MasterCard for their refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks.

Mr. Assange, who is wanted for a sexual assault of a woman in Sweden, is holed up in the Embassy of Ecuador in London, awaiting a decision by that government as to whether it will offer him political asylum. He faces extradition to Sweden for the alleged sex crime, and then to the U.S. for receiving and then distributing the purloined documents.

For the third time in 10 days, Anonymous has hacked websites belonging to various chapters of the Fraternal Order of Police in Arizona in retaliation for their support of SB 1070, a tough new anti-illegal immigration state law that will allow police officers to detain undocumented aliens for ICE investigators when they are under investigation for other crimes.

E-mails from police officers and other sensitive information has been made available, just as WikiLeaks made available to the world wide web the classified cables from diplomats and military commanders during the Iraq War. Many of the Anonymous sites are believed to be affiliated with Lulzsec, a hackers group opposed to SB 1070.

According to a pronunciamiento posted on Paste Bin, Anonymous stated “We're defacing eight (Arizona) Fraternal Order of Police websites and releasing a master list of over 1,200 officer's usernames, passwords and email addresses. Additionally we are leaking hundreds of private (Fraternal Order of Police) documents and several more mail spools belonging to FOP...We're doing this not only because we are opposed to SB 1070 and the racist Arizona police state, but because we want a world free from police, prisons and politicians altogether."

John Ortolano, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told The New York Times that Anonymous' racist label was “very disturbing.”

“You will no longer be able to operate your campaign of terror against immigrants and working people in secrecy: we will find you, expose you, and knock you off the internet. Many lulz [laughs] have been had while we purposefully strung you along slowly and painfully for the past two weeks. We know exactly what we're doing, so think twice before considering crossing us,.” Anonymous posted.