London: WikiLeaks supporters struck back on Wednesday at perceived enemies of founder Julian Assange, attacking the websites of Swedish prosecutors, the Swedish lawyer whose clients have accused Assange of sexual crimes and the Swiss authority that froze Assange's bank account.
MasterCard, which pulled the plug on its relationship with WikiLeaks on Tuesday, also seemed to be having severe technological problems.
The online vengeance campaign appeared to be taking the form of denial of service attacks in which computers across the internet are harnessed —sometimes surreptitiously — to jam target sites with mountains of requests for data, knocking them out of commission.
Wave of support
The online attacks are part of a wave of online support for WikiLeaks that is sweeping the internet.
Twitter was choked with messages of solidarity yesterday, while the site's Facebook page hit one million fans. Offline, the organisation is under pressure on many fronts.
Assange, its founder, is in a UK prison fighting extradition to Sweden over the sex crimes case, while moves by Swiss Postfinance, MasterCard, PayPal and others have impaired the secret-spilling group's ability to raise money.
The US government is also investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted for espionage or other offences.
Per Hellqvist, a security specialist with the firm Symantec, said a loose network of web activists called "Anonymous" appeared to be behind the attacks.
