Operation: Payback's Facebook and Twitter accounts shut down [Updated]

Operation: Payback, after claiming to have shut down Visa and MasterCard's websites, has been shut down itself -- on Facebook and Twitter, anyway.
The hacker group Anonymous, which was behind the Operation: Payback campaign against the two credit card companies, used Twitter and Facebook to claim responsibility for users being temporarily unable to access visa.com or mastercard.com at midday Wednesday.
On both social media websites, Anonymous promoted Operation: Payback, stating that it was going to crash both credit card websites because they stopped accepting donations for WikiLeaks. The credit card companies stopped doing business with WikiLeaks after that site began releasing thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic documents.
The group said on both Facebook and Twitter that it was using a distributed denial of service attack, also known as a DDOS attack, to bring the two credit card sites down.
DDOS attacks overload a website's servers by sending an inordinate amount of requests for information that results in a site being unable to operate.
By Wednesday afternoon, Anonymous said on its Twitter account that its Operation: Payback Facebook page had been suspended.
Shortly thereafter, the Operation: Payback Twitter page was suspended, too. But, by about 4:30, Anonymous had launched a new Twitter account.
Twitter officials could not be reached for comment, but Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes e-mailed this statement:
"We take our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities seriously and react quickly to reports of inappropriate or illegal content and behavior. In this case, we removed a page because it was promoting a DDOS attack.
"Additional point: The WikiLeaks page on Facebook does not violate our policies and remains up. We haven't received any official requests to disable it, nor any notification that the articles posted on the page contain unlawful content."

Operation Payback fails to take down Amazon in WikiLeaks revenge attack

'Hacktivist' group Anonymous, linked to message board 4chan, follows online assaults against MasterCard and PayPal websites

Operation payback activists Anonymous attacked Amazon.com in retaliation for its stance on WikiLeaks. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

The transient group of online activists crippling websites in "revenge" for cutting off ties with WikiLeaks today attempted its most audacious attack yet – and failed.
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, was the prime target for a takedown effort coordinated by Anonymous, the increasingly fractious and vitriolic group behind this week's attacks on sites including PayPal and Mastercard.
But infighting and arguments drove the group into a dramatic switch of targets just moments before Amazon was due to be hit by a "denial of service" attack early this evening. Instead the cabal of hackers, mostly teenagers, directed their ire at the US online payment firm Paypal.
Their aim was to freeze payment system for third parties – but signs were it failed except briefly in different countries.
By initially targeting Amazon, Anonymous made its greatest show of defiance in its days-old campaign in support of WikiLeaks – which does not endorse or direct its actions. Hours earlier, Facebook and Twitter had separately suspended accounts representing it. Facebook cited its encouragement of the attack, which would be illegal in many countries, including the UK. Twitter is believed to have closed an account that posted a stolen list of Mastercard credit cards with owner details.
A member of Anonymous, who wishes only to be know by his online pseudonym Coldblood, told the Guardian that the group's campaign would go on "for a while, mainly just because of how successful the attacks have been."
The websites of Mastercard, Visa, the Swedish government and the Swedish prosecution authority have all been brought crashing offline in recent days.
But the unwieldy and confrontational group of activists today showed the first signs of splintering further into dissident groups fighting on different fronts. Even attacks against Anonymous's own organising tools – and WikiLeaks itself – are being dictated and co-ordinated by splinter groups, protesting at the support shown to the whistleblowing site and its founder, Julian Assange.
In a statement claiming to represent the group, Anonymous said its activists were neither "vigilantes" nor terrorists. "The goal is simple: Win the right to keep the internet free of any control from any entity, corporation, or government." But with the group's strategy rapidly becoming as unclear as its membership, that may prove elusive.

Operation Payback Targets Amazon

UPDATE 16:53 GMT A post on the AnonOpsNet Twitter account has confirmed that Anonymous cannot attack Amazon due to a lack of "forces", but that the online retail giant is still a future target.
"Though our final intention is to DDoS Amazon.com, we currently CAN NOT. The target is api.paypal.com, port 443 as shown on the main channel," the post reads.
UPDATE 16:44 GMT Following some confusion as to who the target for Operation Payback should be, AnonOpsNet has tweeted: "Okay, we have changed our target -- the Hive isn't big enough to attack Amazon. NEW TARGET: api.paypal.com. Port: 443. SPREAD THE WORD"

“Online Living Consciousness” Anonymous has directed its Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) towards Amazon’s website and looks set to fire.

In what is certainly the group’s most ambitious attack to date, and buoyed by earlier successes against PayPal, Mastercard and Visa, Operation Payback is gearing up to attack the website of the world’s largest online retailer.

Confrimed in a post on the Op_Payback twitter account, the group said: “TARGET: WWW.AMAZON.COM !!!”

The move marks a significant step up in operations for Anonymous, who, until recently, have not targeted such companies as they tend to be much harder to bring down. But Anonymous appear to be approaching the challenge with no shortage of optimism.

“If we don't take down Amazon, at least they will have an interesting bandwith bill,” AnonOpsNet tweeted.

According to Anonymous, Operation Payback is the codename for a joint effort to “fight against those who seek to misuse the Internet”, typically using distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), and now directed towards “morally corrupt” organisations targeting WikiLeaks.

What is Operation: Payback?

You have the tools, You have the knowledge, and You have no excuse not to fight for your freedom, any way you personally deem appropriate.