On Tuesday, pro-freedom fundraising platform GiveSendGo came back online after a Sunday hack forced the site to temporarily shut down.
[source: The Daily Caller]
“Sunday evening, February 13th, GiveSendGo was attacked by malicious actors attempting to eliminate the ability of its users to raise funds,” the company said in a statement posted to Twitter, acknowledging the hack publicly for the first time and announcing that the site was back online.
— GiveSendGo (@GiveSendGo) February 15, 2022
The personal information of donors to Canada’s Freedom Convoy, a group of truckers and individuals protesting Canada’s vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions, was stolen from GiveSendGo and leaked to the site of nonprofit group Distributed Denial of Secrets late Sunday. The leaked data included names, IP addresses, email addresses and zip codes, and GiveSendGo was temporarily offline following the hack.
BREAKING: GiveSendGo, the crowdfunding website used by the Freedom Convoy, is now redirecting to the domain GiveSendGone[.]wtf.
A video from the Disney film Frozen now appears alongside a manifesto condemning the website and the Freedom Convoy. pic.twitter.com/3TLAwfvZ3w
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) February 14, 2022
The private information stolen during the hack was then accessed by state propaganda media operatives in Canada. Reporters proceeded to harass private donors via email as ‘research’ for a ‘news’ story about who’s really funding Freedom Convoy efforts.
BREAKING: Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster is combing through the illegally hacked database of GiveSendGo donors, and emailing donors asking them to explain themselves.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 15, 2022
Truly scary stuff.
GiveSendGo said it voluntary shut down to address security issues following the hack and “prevent further illegal actions.” The company said no credit card information was leaked and no money was stolen during the attack.
“We have also performed many security audits to ensure the security of the site before bringing the site back online,” the company said.
Following the hack, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced late Monday that he was invoking the “Emergencies Act” to grant the Canadian government additional powers to suppress the Freedom Convoy protests.
Under the Act, crowdfunding platforms like GiveSendGo are to be subject to “terrorist financing” laws allowing the government greater latitude to monitor and intervene in financial transactions occurring on the platform.
“We are in a battle. We didn’t expect it to be easy. This has not caused us to be afraid,” the company said. “Instead, it’s made it even more evident that we can not back down.”
The world has not witnessed this level of widespread, corrupt left-wing authoritarianism since the formation of the Soviet Union.
Author: Elizabeth Tierney