The hacker group collectively known as “Anonymous” has no love for PayPal (News - Alert), and it is hoping that you don't either. The group is asking users of the money-transfer site to shut down their account and move their funds to a competing service.
Hactivists and PayPal have never really gotten along. The distaste that Anonymous has for the site began when PayPal agreed to shut down the donation account of controversial document-leaking organization WikiLeaks, which is held in high esteem among members of the hacker community.
In retribution, Anonymous allegedly launched the highly publicized distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against PayPal last year. The fallout from the attack resulted in the arrests of more than a dozen Anonymous members, who each face up to 15 years in prison.
“PayPal continues to withhold funds from WikiLeaks, a beacon of truth in these dark times,” the group wrote in a post to PasteBin. “Quite simply, we, the people, are disgusted with these injustices. We will not sit down and let ourselves be trampled upon by any corporation or government.”
“We are not scared of you, and that is something for you to be scared of,” the hackers told PayPal. “We are not the terrorists here: you are.”
Anonymous said that PayPal's willingness to fold under the pressure of government legislation signifies that they don't deserve their customers' respect or business, and the group is asking users to close their accounts and spread the word.
So far, the campaign seems to be working. Anonymous claimed in an early morning tweet that more than 450 users have already deleted their PayPal accounts. Many are tweeting back screen shots of their account closures and have transferred their funds to charity. The hackers suggest that PayPal could lose as many as 9,000 accounts by the end of the week.
The move is a major change in tactics for Anonymous, which usually attacks the network of organizations that it deems to be corrupt or greedy. Going after PayPal's business in such a legal fashion may turn out to be more damaging than any cyber attack could ever be.
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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
