Pastebin: Running the site where hackers publicise their attacks

Over recent years Pastebin.com has become a must-visit site for anyone wanting to keep track of the exploits of Anonymous and other hackers.

Text files containing emails, passwords and other hijacked information are often made public on the service - drawing attention as they climb its "trending pastes" list.

Twitter messages are frequently used to direct followers to the Pastebin, which has the advantage over the microblogging service of allowing "pastes" to run up to 0.5 megabytes in size rather than limiting them to 140 characters.

The platform was founded a decade ago, but its original owner sold it after thousands of people's Hotmail email passwords were exposed on the site in October 2009, leading him to briefly shut it down.

It was bought by Jeroen Vader - a Dutch internet entrepreneur who upgraded its features and has seen its popularity surge.         More Read