In what has been coined “Operation Payback,” WikiLeaks and the hacker group known as Anonymous have allegedly targeted Drake Magazine intelligence, stymieing its PayPal systems and scrambling the free flow of its members’ illicit ramblings for more than 24 hours last week.
Speaking to us via coded HTML brail documents delivered over dial-up Internet, Deputy Marshall of The Drake IT Empire, Grant Summerlin, says the fault lies entirely with the U.S. government for allowing infinite Internet accessibility.
“Even if controls are imposed on top-secret information, governments cannot control leaks. WikiLeaks allows Buff-wearing banditos, corporate saboteurs, Twitter account holders, and disgruntled pop musicians such as Ke$ha to spread information instantly, everywhere. Leaks of a flyfishing nature are part of this insatiable underground trade.”
Secrets are sometimes essential, but the majority are not. Clearly, issues of a Drake nation must be protected for the safety of everyone. And insider info that threatens the Drakian community should be too.
“These must be protected by impenetrable firewalls, but aren’t for the most part. Look at the ease in which the Drake archive could be accessed, stolen, and shipped to a PO Box in Portugal,” Summerlin says.
WikiLeaks orchestrator Julliane Assange, now in jail in Britain on charges of rape and molestation in Sweden, denies any wrongdoing, but has threatened to release Canadian diplomatic cables about a rouge magazine editor from the Northern Territory in the event a pending lawsuit makes it to court.
As of late Thursday morning, The Drake’s online entities have returned to status quo. The damage appears to be minimal, Summerlin says, but it may not be the next time.
“Collaboration plus fluorocarbon transparency are watchwords in the lexicon of the Digital Commons. For the key disseminators of flyfishing intelligence there are fewer places to hide, few secrets that cannot be unearthed, and no government capable of reversing the transformation underway.”
Magazine profiteer, and Chief Officer of Drake Enterprises, Inc., Tom Bie, was unavailable for comment at press time. He is believed to be sequestered at his private Brazilian hideaway in pursuit of the world-record, fly-caught crocodile.
Geoff Mueller is senior editor at The Drake. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. Follow him: @thedrakemagazine, @geoffmonline.