Cyberattacks Q&A: 'World of pain' for those who don't support WikiLeaks
Gregg Housh, an unofficial spokesman for Anonymous, explains how the hactivist collective's voluntary botnet was powerful enough to bring down Visa and MasterCard websites.
Boston
This is the second installment in a two-part interview. Read the first part.
Gregg Housh is an unofficial spokesman for Anonymous, a loosely knit collective of hackers who have come to the defense of WikiLeaks and its embattled founder Julian Assange.
Mr. Housh, 34, says he has stepped forward as a media contact in part because his name is already well-known to authorities due to past work with Anonymous and his three months in federal prison, as a teenager, for software piracy. He is intimately aware of, but claims no participation in, an Anonymous offensive dubbed "Operation Payback," which managed this week to take down the websites of MasterCard, Visa, and the Swedish government – all organizations that have refused support for WikiLeaks or Mr. Assange.
Housh sat with the Monitor on Dec. 10 – in what he called his 37th interview of the day – and described his role within Anonymous and the goals of the unnamed hactivists who call themselves "Anons."
CSM: Who funds Anonymous? Do any 'Anons' have deep pockets?
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