Nobel noble?
‘Operation Payback' hacktivists have vowed to bring down the British government's many websites if Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden, where he is wanted on sexual assault allegations.
The group has so far bombarded MasterCard, PayPal and the Swedish government's websites, because of their opposition or decision not to do business with the WikiLeaks founder and his website.
The group of hackers called Anonymous has threatened to target British government websites if Assange is extradited, The Daily Telegraph reported.
It is thought they will stick to tactics they have so far used against PayPal and MasterCard, using DDoS attacks to force government websites to crash. Apparently hundreds of people downloaded a botnet to help attack Anonymous' targets, although acting in such a way can earn hactivists a 2 year prison sentence in Britain.
An American activist who has previously worked with Anonymous, called Gregg Housh, told the newspaper: "They will go after the weakest links, because they want to see results. They will probably test a few sites and then decide."
Assange is due to appear in court on Tuesday, where his lawyers will work to secure his bail. While the court case is of course separate from Assange's WikiLeaks antics which have irked the US, many people feel his extradition is a way of getting WikiLeaks' leader out of the picture for a while.
One hacker told The Telegraph: "It is definitely an information war. The core principle behind it is [that] information is free, governments keep information to themselves, WikiLeaks releases it to the general public and the war occurs."
