Operation Payback is a coordinated group of attacks on opponents of internet piracy by internet activists. It was created by users of 4chan, an online community which also gave rise to the Project Chanology attacks by Anonymous against the Church of Scientology as well as other internet memes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Payback
Operation Payback started as retaliation to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on torrent sites; piracy proponents then decided to launch DDoS attacks on piracy opponents. The initial reaction snowballed into a wave of attacks on major pro-copyright and anti-piracy organizations, law firms, and individuals. In December 2010, following the United States diplomatic cables leak, the organizers commenced DDoS attacks on websites of banks who had withdrawn banking facilities from WikiLeaks.
Operation Avenge Assange
In December 2010, WikiLeaks came under intense pressure to stop publishing secret United States diplomatic cables. Corporations such as Amazon, PayPal, PostFinance, MasterCard and Visa either stopped working with or froze donations to WikiLeaks, some due to political pressures. In response, those behind Operation Payback directed their activities against these companies for dropping support to WikiLeaks. Operation Payback launched DDoS attacks against PayPal, the Swiss bank PostFinance and the Swedish Prosecution Authority. On 8 December 2010, a coordinated DDoS attack by Operation Payback brought down both the MasterCard and Visa websites.On the 9th December 2010, prior to a sustained DDoS attack on the Paypal website that caused a minor slowdown to their service, Paypal announced on its blog that they would release all remaining funds in the account of the Wau Holland Foundation that was raising funds for WikiLeaks, but would not reactivate the account. Regarding the attacks, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson denied any relation to the group and said: “We neither condemn nor applaud these attacks. We believe they are a reflection of public opinion on the actions of the targets. On the same day, a 16-year-old boy was arrested in The Hague, Netherlands, in connection with the distributed denial-of-service attacks against MasterCard and PayPal. On 10 December 2010, The Daily Telegraph reported Anonymous as having threatened British government websites if Assenge is extradited to Sweden. Anonymous issued a press release in an attempt to clarify the issue
and finally. great points given from TheYoungTurks.
Take what you want from it.