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Operation Payback is facing a little payback of its own. First Twitter closed the pro-Wikileaks hacker movement's account. And now we hear the Feds are shutting down some online discussion of Operation Payback attacks.

Some sites have received federal court orders to cease any further online documentation of the attacks, which targeted Visa, Mastercard and other financial companies who froze Wikileaks accounts, a source close to the situation tells us.

"A group of Internet activists calling themselves Operation Payback have taken credit for shutting down the website of a bank that earlier Monday froze funds belonging to WikiLeaks."

In recent days, with Iranians taking to the streets to protest against the government, the country's Islamic authorities have boosted their censorship efforts in a bid to crush opposition activity online. This is where Anonymous and its "Operation: Iran" come in.

'Anonymous' hackers flexed their muscle again Wednesday, orchestrating a successful denial of service attack against Visa, the largest credit card provider in the world.

Hacktivist group Anonymous took control of the U.S. Sentencing Commission website Friday, January 25 in a new campaign called "Operation Last Resort." It appears that via the U.S. government website, Anonymous had distributed encrypted government files and left a statement on the website that de-encryption keys would be publicly released (thus releasing the as-yet unknown information held on the stolen files) if the U.S. government did not comply with Anonymous' ultimatum demands for legal reform.

Hacktivist group Anonymous, which has been responsible for cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, News Corp, and others, has vowed to destroy Facebook on November 5th (which should ring a bell). Citing privacy concerns and the difficulty involved in deleting a Facebook account, Anonymous hopes to "kill Facebook," the "medium of communication [we] all so dearly adore."

By Tuesday, members of “Anonymous” had begun denouncing the operation and “strongly advising” that no one take part.

“Please change these tactics for this Op to spare our movement the loss and to spare Occupy Wall Street the bad press,” said a statement on YourAnonNews.

Within the chairman’s mark of the 2012 Defense Authorization bill is language that would allow DoD to carry out clandestine operations in cyberspace against targets located outside the United States and to defend against all attacks on DoD assets.

Instead of prosecuting elite computer hackers, the US government should recruit them to launch cyber-attacks against Islamist terrorists and other foes, according to a leading military thinker and government adviser. The brilliance of hacking experts could be put to use on behalf of the US in the same way as German rocket scientists were enlisted after the second world war, said John Arquilla, a professor of defence analysis at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, in an interview with the Guardian.