Did Anonymous Hack WikiLeaks or Were They Being Framed?

Sep 1, 2011
Jo Harrington

Image: AnonCMD's Twitter Profile - Jo Harrington

On August 31st, 2011, as WikiLeaks scrambled to secure their cables ahead of a massive leak, their website was attacked. AnonCMD claimed responsibility.

It is being called Cablegate. The entire, unredacted collection of WikiLeaks documents have been leaked into the public domain, on August 31st, 2011, in an apparent clash of egos and information negligence. The whistleblowing, anti-secrecy site knew that this situation was about to become common knowledge. In a last ditch attempt to secure their data, an encrypted file was made available for download amongst their supporters. The password, they were informed, would be released at a later date. It was understood. This was insurance.

Within fifteen minutes of the announcement, as thousands rushed to grab the file, the WikiLeaks site was attacked by hackers for the second time in two days. However, there was a claim and it came from a surprising source. Anonymous have traditionally supported WikiLeaks, but now one of their purported members, AnonCMD, was repeatedly Tweeting responsibility for it.

Why Would Anonymous Hack WikiLeaks?

Over the course of the next few hours, AnonCMD described their motivation variously as being a test for their Denial of Service (DOS) program RefRef; a personal vendetta between themselves and Julian Assange over money; and an action in-keeping with the spirit of AntiSec and the Hackers' Ethic, which deems that all information should be free. Every couple of hours, AnonCMD would delete his historical Tweets, refusing to answer questions as to why.

RefRef is believed to be a program that is being developed to help hacktivists disable websites. It is due for release on September 17th, 2011. AnonCMD claimed that it is based on Javascript and they were testing it. Some responded with speculation that these tests were actually part of a publicity machine, designed to let everyone know about RefRef.

During the course of the day, their Tweets also stated that Pastebin (a site popular with Anonymous members for posting code and press releases) and 4Chan (a forum from which the original Anonymous meme was derived) had been temporarily overwhelmed with RefRef DOS packets.

What was the Reaction from Other Members of Anonymous?

Anonymous and their supporters were amongst those condemning the actions of AnonCMD. On Twitter especially the comments have been coming thick and fast. For example, AnonSikko Tweeted, 'any #anonymous supporter who supports @anoncmd needs to take a good long look at what hes done'. Earlier, he had raged, '@AnonCMD i dont give a **** who you are there are #anons who are having trials this week 4 supporting #wikileaks and yet you attack them.' WisdomsGrave added, '@AnonCMD Learn to put your ego aside and do what is right regardless of your 'personal disagreements'. Rationality over emotions plz.'

They were just two amongst the stream of other largely antagonistic reactions. Some bordered upon the paranoid or the astute, accusing AnonCMD of being a fake account set up to sully the name of Anonymous. AnonPhlex was amongst them, saying, '@AnonCMD O HAI there CIA gai trying to stir up dissent within Anonymous!'

A recent interview noted that Anonymous is more of an idea, made physical as disparate cells of Hacktivists and protestors, than a single, top down entity. AnonCMD may claim responsibility as their branch of the meme, and have sympathisers elsewhere, but the response on Twitter indicated that the majority of Anonymous members seemed unsupportive of the repeated attacks upon WikiLeaks.