Exploring Anonymous: The PayPal Attack And Cyber Activism Impact

In December 2010 the heat-seeking internet pranksters known as Anonymous attacked PayPal, the online bill-paying business. PayPal had been a conduit for donations to WikiLeaks, the rogue whistle-blower site, until WikiLeaks released a huge cache of State Department internal messages. PayPal cut off donations to the WikiLeaks website. Then PayPal's own site was shut down, as Anonymous did what it did best: exaggerate the weight of its own influence.

But, according to "We Are Anonymous," by Parmy Olson, the London bureau chief for Forbes magazine, it had taken a single hacker and his botnet to close PayPal. "He then signed off and went to have his breakfast," she writes.

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