Operation Payback suffers its first casualty

OPERATION PAYBACK appears to have got some in return with the arrest of someone accused of being one of its volunteers.

A Dutch sixteen year old has been arrested by the Netherlands' Dutch High Tech Crime Unit and he has already admitted to his role, according to the coppers. The police said that the teenager confessed to attacking Mastercard and Visa. His motivation is of course unknown, but perhaps he just couldn't get a card, rather than attacking the firms out of any love of Wikileaks.

The police do not think the lad is the big brains behind the international Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, but rather a foot soldier, "The boy is probably part of a larger group of hackers, to which the investigation continues," they said.

And there is plenty to investigate, as the decision to jail Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and companies cutting off services for spurious reasons has sparked a worldwide backlash. But it has not been a cyberwar without its odd moments.

The hacker collective known as Anonymous is reported to have stated that it decided not to attack Amazon as it would be in bad taste. It could also equally be because the Anonymous hackers' mummies and daddies have ordered their presents from Amazon and a DDoS attack might jeopardise deliveries. µ

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