WikiLeaks Cyber War

Contrary to the group's name, Anonymous members who used the LOIC program to attack targets could easily be traced and identified, The University of Twente in Holland said in new research. Dutch police have already arrested two teenagers over the attacks.

James Lewis, a specialist in cyber security at Washington think tank the Centre for International and Strategic Studies, played down the attacks, saying it was more like a "noisy political demonstration" than a cyber war as only websites were knocked out, not back-end systems.

"For me, this is political theater, kabuki - entertaining and perhaps influential, but much less than war," he said.

Change of strategy

While there is no central command structure to Anonymous and several splinter groups have formed, a statement put out over the weekend said Anonymous was changing tactics, abandoning its strategy of online attacks on organisations seen as hostile to WikiLeaks.

In an overnight blog post, Anonymous said it now aimed to publish parts of the confidential US diplomatic cables as widely as possible and in ways that made them as hard as possible to trace.

"We have, at best, given them a black eye. The game has changed. When the game changes, so too must our strategies," said the blog post announcing "Operation: Leakspin".

The activists are now encouraging supporters to search through leaked cables on the WikiLeaks site and publish summaries of ones that have been least exposed, labelling them so they are hard to find by any authority seeking to quash them.

"Use misleading tags, everything from 'Tea Party' to 'Bieber'. Post snippets of the leaks everywhere," the blog said, referring to the US grassroots conservative movement and the 16-year-old Canadian pop phenomenon Justin Bieber.

US charges imminent

Mr Assange is in isolation at London's Wandsworth prison awaiting hearings related to Sweden's request to extradite him to face sexual misconduct allegations.