Cyber group says WikiLeaks attacks to grow

LONDON,  (Reuters) – More cyber attacks in retaliation  for attempts to block the WikiLeaks website are likely in a  “data war” to protect Internet freedom, a representative of one  of the groups involved said today.
Though no major websites appeared to be under attack early  on Thursday, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet said the Swedish  government’s website was down for a short time during the night.  Sweden had issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks’ founder.
“Anonymous has targeted mainly companies which have decided  for whatever reason not to deal with WikiLeaks. Some of the main  targets involve Amazon, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal,” a  spokesman calling himself “Coldblood” told BBC Radio 4.
“The campaign is not over from what I’ve seen, it’s still  going strong. More people are joining, more and more people are  downloading the voluntary botnet tool which allows people to  command dos (distributed denial of service) attacks,” he added.
The speaker, who had an English accent, said he was aged 22  and was a software engineer.
Credit card giants MasterCard and Visa came under intense  cyber attack on Wednesday as supporters of WikiLeaks retaliated  for moves against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after the  release of U.S. diplomatic cables that angered and embarrassed  the Obama administration.
“I see this as becoming a war, but not your conventional  war. This is a war of data. We are trying to keep the Internet  free and open for everyone, just the way the Internet always has  been,” “Coldblood” added.
Assange is in a London jail after he was arrested over  allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. His supporters say the  accusations against him are politically motivated.
“It’s very hard to get hold of anyone from WikiLeaks. The  only (person) you could really get hold of was Julian, but  unfortunately he’s not available at the moment,” said  “Coldblood”.