hackers take down mastercard for a second time

from raw story: The website of credit card provider MasterCard was taken offline Tuesday morning, apparently due to hacker activists trying to make a statement about the financial blockade of anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

MasterCard, along with Visa, PayPal, Bank of America and Western Union, have all decided to withhold funds from WikiLeaks, and the site placed their resulting losses at nearly $15 million. They took the drastic action after the site began releasing U.S. diplomatic cables allegedly turned over to them by a lone U.S. Army private.

When MasterCard first announced it was cutting off WikiLeaks back in December, hackers with the protest group Anonymous took their site offline and stopped MasterCard transactions for at least several hours. Visa, PayPal and Bank of America were also targeted by similar attacks and saw their website services interrupted, but did not lose the ability to process transactions.

MasterCard's site outage Tuesday morning comes just one week after WikiLeaks released a promotional video in the style of MasterCard's "Priceless" advertising campaign. It urges viewers to learn more about the site's ongoing battle with the financial world, and to support their work.

Tuesday's hack was announced from a Twitter account that did not appear to be directly related to Anonymous or the now infamous "LulzSec" group, and almost immediately repeated by the official WikiLeaks account. MasterCard's site had returned at time of this story's publication.

brazen hacker group lulzsec says it's disbanding

final cache includes at&t internal data & 750k user accounts

from ap: A publicity-seeking hacker group that has left a trail of sabotaged websites over the last two months, including attacks on law enforcement and releases of private data, said unexpectedly on Saturday it is dissolving itself. Lulz Security made its announcement through its Twitter account. It gave no reason for the disbandment, but it could be a sign of nerves in the face of law enforcement investigations. Rival hackers have also joined in the hunt, releasing information they say could point to the identities of the six-member group. One of the group's members was interviewed by The Associated Press on Friday, and gave no indication that its work was ending. LulzSec claimed hacks on major entertainment companies, FBI partner organizations, the CIA, the U.S. Senate and a pornography website.

related updates: lulzsec releases arizona police documents*
lulzsec says goodbye, dumps at&t data trove*
fbi raids iowa woman's home in lulzsec hacker investigation*

are lulzsec hacks work of military intelligence?

Kurt Nimmo poses crucial question in recent article, "Are LulzSec Hacker Attacks the Work of Military Intelligence?". There are concerted "cyber terrorism" propaganda campaigns on mainstream media here and here. Russian and China are names dropped as a matter of course during discussions. Nimmo cuts to the chase, however, with simple observation, "Is it merely a coincidence so-called 'hackitvists' – who release the passwords of common folk in addition to attacking the CIA and the FBI’s InfraGard – are engaged in this behavior just as the Senate debates weighty cyber security legislation?" Revolutionary hacker groups are, most likely, newer more sophisticated forms of sixties-style COINTELPRO operations, engaged in false flag attacks. It is the Hegelian dialectic: problem, reaction and solution! The most recent act's curtain lowers on tragedy playing out before us: shutting down the internet as we know it!

related updates:
mission accomplished: thanks to lulzsec, draconian cybersecurity gains support*
lulzsec member nakomis allegedly military counter-intel?*
uk cops swoop in on possible lulzsec suspect*

lulzsec laughing at your security since 2011

Computer hackers Lulz Security, a loosely knit group, announced Monday their successful hack of Senate computers. Lulz is internet slang for 'laughing out loud'. A Reuters article presents the government response. "Despite the breach, the Sergeant at Arms Office, which provides security for the Senate, said that the breach had not compromised any individual senator's information." You've got to admire the group's audacity from the following brash comments also from Reuters. "'We don't like the U.S. government very much,' Lulz Security said at the top of their release. 'This is a small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data from Senate.gov - is this an act of war, gentlemen? Problem?' The comment refers to reports that the military had decided that it could respond to cyber attacks from foreign countries with traditional military force." John Bumgarner from a think tank, Cyber Consequences Unit, believes it's an especially embarrassing incident for the Senate since it reveals hackers had administrator level access to the system. LulzSec seems to be sending message we are capable of doing more! The present writer would only ask, how can you compromise the already compromised? The late comedian George Carlin would've had a field day with this material!