Operation Payback

Operation Payback

Part of a series on Anonymous. [View Related Entries]

Updated Oct 27, 2019 at 05:26AM EDT by Y F.

Added Oct 20, 2010 at 11:44PM EDT by Chris.

PROTIP: Press 'i' to view the image gallery, 'v' to view the video gallery, or 'r' to view a random entry.

The Battle fas Begun


Overview

Operation Payback, also known as Operation: Payback Is A Bitch, is a series of DDoS attacks organized by users of 4chan’s /b/ (random) board that started on September 17th, 2010 against major entertainment industry websites such as the websites for the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. The attacks began September 19th, 2010, and have continued unabated for over one month.

Beginning on December 7th, 2010, a series of DDos assaults led by the Anonymous under Operation Avenge Assange successfully brought down Paypal, Visa and MasterCard's websites in retaliation against their decision to suspend all transactions with WikiLeaks, reportedly under political pressure from the U.S. State Department. Some of the other targeted sites included Amazon, Swiss Postal Finance as well as a number of U.S. government websites and various cybersecurity contractor firms.

Background

The plan for Operation Payback was initially made by the users of 4chan as a response to the DDoS attacks carried out by Indian company Aiplex Software, who were hired by major media companies to carry out the said DDoS attacks against music and movie torrent-sharing sites, most notably The Pirate Bay. After learning of the DDoS on the torrent communities, 4chan users began planning their own retaliatory attacks on media websites, with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Aiplex as their first targets.

Notable Developments

Initial Reaction

After releasing this poster on 4chan and spreading it around the boards, the instigators were able to assemble multiple users bent on taking down the sites and they delivered, bringing the website down for over an hour on the first day, with over 22 hours down-time on the MPAA website and over 24 hours for Aiplex.


Name of check: MPAA URL/IP: http://mpaa.org/ Check resolution: 1 minute Check type: HTTP Range: 1d Zd 1m 3m 6m YTD 1y Max 09/17/2010-09/17/2010 ! Timezone: GMT-8 Uptime Response time Detailed log Share this data Older Newer 09/17/2010 4:50:38PM Uptime 63.06% Downtime 1h 19m 41s The average downtime length is 1h 19m 41s Number of downtimes The longest downtime was 1h 19m 41s on 09/17/2010 5:08:02PM and the shortest was 1h 19m 41s on 09/17/2010 5:08:02PM Status From To | 09/17/2010 6:27:44PM 09/17/2010 5:08:02PM Time 1 h 19m 42s 2h 16m 09/17/2010 5:08:02PM 国 09/17/2010 2:52:02PM

With the creation of the website for Operation Payback (now defunct), Anonymous participants were able to concentrate their efforts on specific targets at specific times, with little need for collaboration over 4chan itself and the ability to strike a wider range of targets.

Subsequent Attacks

After the original attacks against Aiplex and the MPAA, the participants decided to continue the Operation, taking down any websites that they disagree with or that have had a hand in an attempt to take down The Pirate Bay website. Throughout over a month of attacks, several websites were brought down. Some like MPAA were brought down over 20 times in the span of less than 48 hours.

  • September 17th: MPAA was the first website to be attacked and had 22 hours of downtime. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the second site to be attacked, had over 14 hours of downtime.
  • September 18th: Aiplex, the third site to be attacked, was attacked on the 18th and continued through the 20th, with over 25 hours of downtime.
  • September 19th: The RIAA were attacked starting at midnight on September 19th, being interrupted over 35 times and having an hour and a half of downtime.
  • September 20th:: An attack was scheduled against the British Phonographic Industry but was unsuccessful. The Operation switches its target back to the MPAA, with much less success.
  • September 21st: ACS Law experiences a server shutdown across Europe, as a result of DDoS attacks.

Social Networking Advocacy

In light of the recent explosion of interest in counter DDoS attacks, many advocates of targeting companies and organizations that oppose WikiLeaks have created social networking pages for their cause. However, these pages were shut down by their respective hosts, including the Facebook page, though many other iterations of the page have spawned since its take down. Operation Payback's Twitter account was suspended, although there has yet to be any official comment on whether or not the suspension of service was enacted by Twitter itself.


Please Read This! Warning Your Page "Operation Payback has been removed for violating our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual. If your Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in the permanent loss of your account. If you need further assistance with this issue, please visit http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show.form =page, disabled I acknowledge I have read this information. Acknowledge

Following the attacks on numerous multinational music and film industry websites, Anonymous targeted and brought down the website of The United States Copyright Office as part of its ongoing aggression against any institution or company that defends the copyright regime. On November 3rd, 2010, the gorup managed to bring Copyright.gov offline for about half an hour before the site began to respond again slowly. Shortly after the news of the attacks, F.B.I launched an investigation to track down the infiltrators.

Sarah Palin Targeted

On December 8th, 2010, ABC News[8] reported that Sarah and Todd Palin's credit card account were attacked and "disrupted" by Operation Payback. In addition, Sarahpac.com[9] was also attacked by Operation Payback. Hints in the DDOS attack, including a screenshot of a server log file showing the wikileaks.org URL, led the authorities and Palin's associates to suspect the perpetrators' affiliation with WikiLeaks and Anonymous, though the hacktivist group never claimed the responsibility for targeting Palin with DDoS attacks.

Operation Avenge Assange

Following WikiLeak's unprecedented expose of sensitive documents containing US diplomatic cables in February 2010, the U.S. government criticized the WikLeaks founder Julian Assange, and began pressing on the affiliates of WikiLeaks to halt their transactions with the Swiss-based website. As a result, WikiLeaks' server host Amazon dropped their service, while Mastercard and PayPal ceased all transactions of funds donated by the supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

Beginning in December 2011, Amazon took down their hosting of the WikiLeaks servers less than a day after being contacted by the office of Senator Joe Lieberman and was then followed by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and most recently, MasterCard.[1][2] Official statements from these respective companies cite things like ToS violations and pending investigations but the government intervention in all this is somewhat suspect.[3][4]

There is a letter from the US State Department floating around that was sent to Assange on November 27th, which is now making it's rounds to the organizations still supporting WikiLeaks.[5]


Operation Avenge Assange The first serious infowar is now engaged The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops." John Perry Barlow Julian Assange deifies everything we hold dear. He despises and fights censorship constantly. is possibly the most successful international troll of all time, and doesn't afraid of f------ anything (not even the US government). Now. Julian is the prime focus of a global manhunt, in both the physical and virtual realms. Governments across the world are baying for his blood. policians are up in arms about his recent leak, and even his own country has abandoned him to the wolves. Online, WikiLeaks is a focus of mass DDoS attacks, legislation and downright pandering to the corrupt incumbents which would silence this man. Therefore. Anonymous has a chance to kick back for Julian. We have a chance to fight the oppressive future which looms ahead. We have a chance to fight in the first infowar ever fought 1. Paypa is the enemy. DDoS'es will be planned, but in the meantime, boycott everything. Encourage friends and family to do so as well. 2. Spread the current leaked cables as much as possible. Save them to hard drives, distribute them on CD's, mirror them to websites and seed them on torrents. The end goal is a human DNS-something that can only be stopped by shutting off the entire internet. 3. Upvote Julian on the Times 2010 Person of the Year While this might not aid his cause. it will get him much needed public exposure. (http://tinyurl.com/2wb7ju8) 4. Get vocal! Twitter, Myspace, Facebook and other social networking sites are critical hubs of information distribution. Make sure everyone you know is aware of what is happening. If you can convince just one person to tell one other person every day. the spread of info will be exponential. 5. If you're up for it, print out cables which are relevant to your area and distribute them. Post them on bus stops. train stations, street lamps. Be creative and catch people's attention. Using graffiti to spread the WikiLeaks website is also a great idea. 6. Complain to your local MP. mayor. or whichever political figure you can contact. Ask him for comments about the leaks. Record every word that is said 7. Protest! Organise community marches. send around petitions. get active. This cannot happen without numbers. TL:DR Protest. Inform Enquire Fight The future of the internet hangs in the balance We are Anonymous We do not forgive: we do not forget Expect Us

In retaliation against the US-led counter-measures and support of Assange, Anonymous contingent launched several waves of DDoS attacks against various companies whom they perceived as "enemies of Julian Assange," under the catchy-sounding codename Operation Avenge Assange.

The Next Web Media[22] reported that Paypal has released funds left over in their WikiLeaks account, which was terminated in by the company after an apparent "terms of usage violation" where WikiLeaks[6] was said to have been "used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity." The account, however, is still closed.

Timeline of Attacks in December 2010

  • December 6th, 2010: Swiss bank website PostFinance.ch was attacked.
  • December 7th, 2010: Swedish Prosecution Authority website and EveryDNS, one of the world's largest free DNS management services were attacked.
  • December 8th, 2010: Joseph Lieberman's official website, Sarah Palin's official website, MasterCard, Borgstrom & Bodstrom and Visa websites were attacked.
  • December 9th, 2010: PayPal and Amazon websites remained offline.
  • December 10th, 2010: Paypal, Moneybookers and Conservatives4Palin websites were attacked.

Zimbabwean Government Websites

In early January 2011, Operation Payback brought down several Zimbabwean government websites after the Zimbabwean President's wife sued a newspaper for US $15 million for publishing a WikiLeaks cable that linked her with the alleged trade in illicit diamonds.

U.S. and U.K. Arrests in January 2011

As reported by RawStory[7], one Dutch teenager was arrested with alleged connections to Operation Payback in December 2010. The teen could face up to six years in prison for the cyber attacks, according to the Netherlands' prosecutor's office spokesperson. In apparent retaliation of the teenager's arrest, the Dutch Police Office's website was consequently attacked and were offline for several hours on the morning of December 10th, 2010.

On January 27th, 2011 the FBI executed more than 40 search warrants across the United States in investigating the retaliatory DDoS attacks against companies that cut off services to WikiLeaks, including Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Amazon. No arrests have been announced in conjunction with the searches. Meanwhile in the UK, the British police arrested five men on the same day on suspicion of participating in the Anonymous operation.

Protect IP Act


04 FREEDOM NOT IOUND THE PLAN Greetings Reddit Do this now The Internet you have come to take for granted has once again come under attack. Many interest groups have come together, and are currently rallying for the right to remove any websites they deem "inappropriate". Step 1) Download LOIC http://tinyurl.com/downloadloic optional - spreading the word is more important) This new initiative is called the PROTECT IP Act: http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-to-introduce-draconian-anti-piracy-censorship-bill-110511/ Step 2) Upvote if you approve This bill would allow the US Government to force ISPs and search engines to censor websites they do not like under the guise of "copyright protection". Instead of reducing piracy, this bill endangers the free flow of information. Through domain seizures, ISF blockades, search engine censorship, and the restriction of funding to accused websites, this bill takes Internet censorship to the next level. Step 3) Post this poster on another website other than the website you found it on, for our strength is in numbers. Step 4) Spread the word of this bill. Everywhere. The Internet is a place where anyone and everyone can come together freely to share information and opinions. The freedom the Internet provides has served us well, and driven our intellectual progress, sparked revolutions and changed lives, all of which has been Step 5) Join the IRC to coordinate our Attack! http://tinyurl.com/protectinternet ccomplished without interference from corporations, nstitutions until now s, or any other global Step 6) ????? Answer the We must unite/and stand up to those who wish to censor t We must protect what is rightfully ours. We must atteek in defence of our homeland. Step 7) Profit! You are Anonymous You are Legion You can not forgive this. You can not forget this. Expect eRevol 23 MAY 8PM EST: United States Chamber of Commerce (www.uschamber.com) irc.anonops.in #operationpayback The Revolution has begun

On May 23rd, 2011, an image was posted to Reddit detailing instructions on how to DDoS the United States Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying group that represents businesses and trade associations and has supported the proposed Protect IP bill.[10] A CNET article[11] from May 12th, 2011 outlined specific sections of the bill that were controversial:

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today introduced a revised version of a controversial bill that would give the Department of Justice and individuals new powers to enforce copyright and trademark law against "rogue" and "pirate" Web sites that offer unlicensed copies of protected content or which sell illegal knock-offs of brand-name goods.[11]

A PDF document link to the full proposed bill can be found on Senator Patrick Leahy's website.[12]

Arrests & Raids in July 2011



On July 19th, 2011, CNN[13] reported at least 14 people were arrested in New York, New Jersey, Florida and San Francisco Bay Area as part of an ongoing FBI investigation of the notorious “Anonymous” collective, citing a senior federal law enforcement official. In New York City alone, federal agents executed the search warrants in a half dozen locations in Long Island, Brooklyn and the Bronx, where they seized computers and other digital records.


APPLICABLE STATUTES 8. Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030(a)(2)(C) states: (a) Whoever - (a)(2)(C) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains- (C) information from any protected computer.. . shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this subsection. 9. Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030(a)(5)(A) states: (a)Whoever - (5)(A) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authórization, to a protected computer.. . shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this subsection. 10. Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030(b) states that: Whoever conspires to commit or attempt to commit an offense under subsection (a) of this section shall be punishable as provided in subsection (c) of this section.

The federal authorities initially didn't announce the specific charges of the arrested individuals, but all are believed to have been involved in carrying out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on numerous high-profile corporate and government websites. It was later reported by Wired[14[ that the first 14 arrestees were charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.


Overview of DDos Attacks Against PayPal 32.. On December 6, 2010, FBI Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) William Ng, SA Melanie Adams and SA Christopher Calderon participated in a conference telephone call with Dave Weisman, Senior Manager, Electronic Crimes and Threat Intelligence Unit, PayPal. During the conversation and subsequent contacts, Weisman indicated the company posted a message about suspending the WikiLeaks' PayPal account on its blog site (www.paypalblog.com). 2 Weisman further advised that PayPal's blog had experienced a minor DDoS attack. This attack occurred on December 4, 2010. Weisman believed that an internet

According to an FBI affidavit[15] released on July 26th, the federal authorities have been working closely with PayPal security officials who provided a list of 1,000 IP addresses most accountable for the heavy traffic volume during the DDoS attack against their website. The document also revealed that FBI agents began monitoring Anonymous press releases and Twitter announcements about Operation Payback as early as on December 6th, 2010, the day when PayPal began receiving heavy traffic.

Indictment

On October 3rd, 2013, the U.S. federal authorities filed indictment[27] against 13 alleged members of Anonymous with organizing denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in connection to Operation Payback, which resulted in temporary outage of websites of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Visa, Mastercard and the Bank of America between September 2010 and January 2011.


At all times relevant to this Indictment: 1 Between on or about September 16, 2010 and at least January 2, 2011, defendants DENNIS OWEN COLLINS, JEREMY LEROY HELLER, ZHIWEI CHEN, JOSHUA S. PHY RYAN RUSSELL GUBELE, ROBERT AUDUBON WHITFIELD, ANTHONY TADROS, GEOFFREY KENNETH COMMANDER, PHILLIP GARRETT SIMPSON, AUSTENL STAMM, TIMOTHY ROBERT McCLAIN, WADE CARL WILLIAMS, and THOMAS J BELL, together with others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, participated in a worldwide conspiracy as part of the online group ANONYMOUS in a campaign dubbed "OPERATION PAYBACK" (or "OPERATION: PAYBACK IS A BITCH,") to engage in a coordinated series of cyber-attacks against victims.

Search Interest

External References

[1] The Guardian – Wikileaks website pulled by Amazon after US political pressure / 12/2/2010

[2] Rawstory – Targeted by ‘Anonymous,’ Bank of America website sees intermittent outages / 12/27/2010

[3] TechCrunch – Paypal Wikileaks

[4] BBC – Wikileaks' Visa payments suspended / 12/7/2010

[5] Public Intelligence – US State Department Letter to Wikileaks

[6] The Next Web – Caving To Pressure From Supports Paypal Releases Wikileks Funds

[7] The Raw Story – Dutch Teenager Arrested

[8] ABC News – Palin Under Cyber Attack From Wikileaks Supporters

[9] ABC News – Operation Payback Signature

[10] Reddit – Anonymous needs your help, reddit / 5/23/2011

[11] CNET – Leahy's Protect IP bill even worse than COICA / 5/12/2011

[12] Leahy.senate.gov – Protect IP Act

[13] CNN – Source: At least 14 arrested in operation targeting Anonymous

[14] Wired – In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

[15] NBC Bay Area – Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant

[16] Sophos – 4chan Takes on MPAA, RIAA and Aiplex and Wins

[17] Sydney Morning Herald – Film Industry Hires Cyber Hitmen to Take Down Internet Pirates

[18] Panda Labs – 4chan Users Organize DDoS against MPAA

[19] The Register – 4chan DDoS MPAA & RIAA

[20] Huffington Post – Anonymous Operation Payback

[21] The News Portal Online – Paypal Admits Government Pressure led to WikiLeaks Freez

[22] The Next Web – Caving to Pressure from Supporters, Paypal Relesases WikiLeaks funds

[23] ABC News – Exclusive Palin Under Cyber Attack from Wikileaks' Supporters in Operation Payback

[24] Blogspot – New hacking tools by Anonymous

[25] IT World – Anonymous to launch more effective site-attack tool Saturday, when it occupies Wall Street

[26] Geekosystem – Anonymous Has a New Weapon In Its Arsenal, Plans to Use It Tomorrow

[27] Scibd – Collins Indictment

Recent Videos 3 total

Recent Images 47 total


Top Comments

Chris Burket
Chris Burket

anonymous logic

“we will fight for rights to privacy by exposing people’s confidentiality”
“we will fight for property rights by attacking people’s property”
“we will fight against greed and corruption by stealing credit card information”
“we will fight for freedom of speech by hacking the sites of people who disagree with us”
“we will fight for the rights of customers by knocking down the online service, which they all use, for a month”

+12

+ Add a Comment

Comments (119)


Display Comments

Add a Comment


Hi! You must login or signup first!