Anonops #5: Anonymous en de MO-revoluties

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Anonymous, the clandestine group that operates "Operation Payback" and reportedly includes members of the "/b/" bulletin board 4chan.org, has set its sites on Egyptian government Web sites.

Soon after Egypt restored access to the Internet Tuesday, the group launched distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the Egyptian Ministry of Interior.

"Welcome back to the Internet, #Egypt. Well, except http://www.moiegypt.gov.eg -- you stay down," the group tweeted.

Several minutes later, the group added, "Internet in #Egypt is up. Why isn't Mubarak's site? Because we do not forgive, We do not forget. Egyptians, Hang in there, we are with you."

Group spokesman Gregg Housh told the New York Times that the attack is part of a larger campaign Anonymous is running to support anti-government protests. Last month, the group also took down the Web sites for the Tunisian government and its stock exchange.

This is the latest in a string of DDoS attacks organized by Anonymous. Last month, British police arrested five men for their alleged involvement in a string of DDoS attacks that targeted the Web sites of Visa, MasterCard, Amazon, and PayPal. The companies stopped processing payments and cut hosting ties with WikiLeaks after it released 250,000 State Department cables in late November, a move with which Anonymous disagreed.

Anonymous later said the UK government had made a "sad mistake" with the arrests and said DDoS attacks are simply the digital equivalent of a protest or sit-in.

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Op vrijdag 4 februari 2011 18:29 schreef Im.Kant. het volgende:

een Egyptische gevangenis

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Op vrijdag 4 februari 2011 18:35 schreef Im.Kant. het volgende:

[..]

Het enige wat ik tot dusver van dit topic heb geleerd is dat anon-falertjes niet enkel uit 14-jarigen maar ook uit oudere hoopjes vervelend bestaat

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Op vrijdag 4 februari 2011 18:45 schreef Im.Kant. het volgende:



Het gaat hier namelijk gewoon om zielige hoopjes mens die hun 'roem' zoeken op het internet.

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Hacktivists from the online group Anonymous have turned their attention to Yemen as part of their battle for greater net freedoms.

The website of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has become inaccessible as Yemenis stage anti-government protests.

It follows attacks on the websites of Egypt's ruling party and ministry of information this week.

Last month Anonymous shut down some Tunisian websites, including the government's official site.

Anonymous's move into Middle East politics has alarmed security experts, who warn people against jumping on the bandwagon.

"If you participate in these attacks, you are knowingly engaging in a cyber crime," said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant for security firm Sophos.

Web freedoms

"If you aren't prepared to go and throw rocks, then maybe you should think again about clogging up websites with traffic," he added.

There have been five arrests in UK and the FBI launched raids across the US in connection with the Wikileaks cyber attacks, which saw members of Anonymous targeting firms which had withdrawn services from the whistle-blowing site.

Anonymous claims that it wants to uphold web freedoms around the world but as such attacks increase, it could have knock-on effect of governments seeking to make it harder to remain anonymous online, thinks Mr Cluley.

"If there was no ability for anonymity, we would all be the losers," he said.

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Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” Hillary Clinton, January 25, Washington

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When asked about the revolt in Egypt, 72% of american adults agreed that they should overthrow the current Pharaoh.” Anonymous member, #opegypt IRC, January 26,

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But interestingly, in the #opegypt channel, one Anonymous member responded to criticism of Clinton by noting that, had the State Department statement been any stronger in support of the Egyptian protests, it might have enabled critics to paint them as tools of US policy, like the Iranian dictatorship did about 2009’s protests in that country. It was a subtle point, particularly for a group described variously as “juvenile”, “domestic terrorists” (thank you Fox News) and an “underground hate group”.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/2/5/175932/7709?new=true

Anonymous Concedes Defeat

A recent article in the Financial Times cites a certain Aaron Barr of the "security services" firm HBGay Federal (amirite?) as claiming to have discovered the identities of Anonymous' operating leadership and founder, with this having been accomplished in large part by an infiltration of our entirely secret IRC server anonops.ru and in particular our ultra-clasified channels #opegypt, #optunisia, and, of course, #reporters, which itself is the most secret of all.

The following message was relayed to all Anons possessing at least 30 degrees of initiate status (17 in Scotland) or their equivalent in reddit karma, and is being leaked to the laity in an effort to gain their useless sympathy:

URGENT WARNING TO ALL ANONYMOUS HACKTIVISTS:

Mr. Barr has successfully broken through our over 9000 proxy field and into our entirely non-public and secret insurgent IRC lair, where he then smashed through our fire labyrinth with vigor, collected all the gold rings on the way, opened a 50 silver key chest to find Anon's legendary hackers on steroids password.

As Mr. Barr has discovered in spite of our best efforts, Anonymous was founded by Q last Thursday at the guilded Bilderberg Hotel after a tense meeting with one Morrowind mod collection, which itself includes the essential Morrowind Comes Alive 5.2 as well as several retexturing packs, all of which seem to lower one's FPS unless one has also installed the latest Risc Architecture framework and thus obtained the killer refresh rate that is the right of all world citizens, except for noted heterosexual Tom Cruise.

In addition to the sudden disappearance of Anonymous leader Q, Anonymous co-founder Justin Bieber also disappeared just before his top-secret mission to Eritrea to offer physical succour to the rebels, suggesting that Mubarak is in our base, eating our Cheetos, likely with military support authorized by Hill Dawg. All of this comes at a low point for the Official Anonymous Organization, Inc. and its valued shareholders; several Anons had already lost their Fallout New Vegas saved games in the unwarranted and faggy raids perpetrated by the U.S. federales.

At this point, it is safe to assume that the underground server sites at the North Pole have been compromised as well. Back up all porn drives now, because the super secret P2P centralized distribution server of Backdoor Sluts 9 is presumed to be immediately threatened. Male Anons have been commanded to switch back to traditional tentacle porn while femanons, or "Rei Ayanami wannabes," continue to be shared among the Echelon Nine Working Group that has since replaced Owen as sky marshall.

However, David Davidson (who might also be the legendary Ceiling Cat, as rumors have it) so far eludes custody, so all is not lost. Mr Davidson skyped the anonymous leaders from his hideout in Philadelphia to remind them that he was "Never gonna give them up, never gonna let them down". Meanwhile, the board of directors remains little more than a gin-addled menagerie of puppets.

Despite these setbacks, the planned conference in Vienna is not slated for cancellation, although the buffet may be altered to include fewer Cheetos. The scheduled appearence of Boxxy is a subject of much contention within Anonymous ranks, being an event of considerably greater importance than the 4th return of Raptor Jesus, which itself is older than the internet.

We shall note in conclusion that we like the guy and want to believe him, but we still have to ask: Did Aaron Barr shave and murder Alexander Hamilton in 1993? We're just asking questions here, people. At any rate, the Pink Horse prophecy will soon be fulfilled.

All Hail Xenu,

-Anonymous

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10.52am: Our correspondent in Cairo, Jack Shenker, reports on the latest skirmishes in a propaganda war between the regime and the protesters.

Jack Shenker

The standoff between protesters in Tahrir and the Mubarak regime is a media battle as much as anything else, and it's a vastly unequal one: the Egyptian government spends millions of dollars on a trio of top Washington lobbyists to help push its message to the international media and foreign policy-making circles, whilst those opposed to the regime have to rely on word of mouth and online social media sites, access to which has regularly been cut off by the authorities in recent days.

Now though, members of the anti-Mubarak occupation are getting more savvy in their efforts to keep global opinion on their side. A new tactic is to put out fake press releases, spoofing the official statements issued to journalists by government ministers. Take for example this announcement from newly-appointed prime minister Ahmed Shafiq on Friday (sent by the Ministry of Information):

Prime Minister: Protestors will not be forced to leave

4-2-2011

Cairo – Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik reiterated Governmental commitments that demonstrated would not be forced to leave Tahrir Square.

Speaking to an Arab Satellite Channel Dr. Shafik stressed that demonstrators were free to remain in the Tahrir Square, and that no one would be arrested for participating in the protests so long as they had not committed an act of violence or vandalism.

And now the response from a group of protesters in Tahrir, sent to me this morning:

Protesters: Mubarak will be forced to leave

6-2-2011

Tahrir – Pro-democracy activists reiterated their commitment that the existing regime would be forced to leave government.

The overwhelming consensus in the participatory, democratic arena of Tahrir Square, was that Mr Mubarak would be free to flee to the country of his choosing, and that he would not meet his just rewards, despite his prolonged acts of violence and vandalism against the country.

Given the brutality perpetrated against the anti-Mubarak crowds in Tahrir and elsewhere in the country - first by the state's central security forces then by regime-backed baltagiyya (thugs) - the protesters might be forgiven for thinking that it would be relatively simple to garner support from those watching events unfold from outside the square. But the struggle to shape the news agenda hour by hour, day by day, is a tough and unceasing one, and protesters know they have to try and keep their own voices prominent as other more formal opposition forces begin dialogue with the government, claiming to speak in their name. These spoof press releases may just do the trick.

Public Enemy - Don't Believe The Hype

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my blog is under attack, i will publish the documents again, feel free to distribute 26 minutes ago via web

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# security experts say DDoS attack 17 minutes ago via web

# documents not verified, but still my blog is being attacked for publishing them, fishy! 18 minutes ago via web

# those were the 5 documents, save them offline, publish elsewhere if possible, i give you all permission 19 minutes ago via web

# doc 5 http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7848/sixf.jpg 20 minutes ago via web

# doc 4 http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7848/sixf.jpg 21 minutes ago via web

# doc 3 http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/4770/threehe.jpg 22 minutes ago via web

# doc 2 http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/6810/twovi.jpg 25 minutes ago via web

# doc 1 http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/9167/onexj.jpg

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@bbclysedoucet: Just saw a motorcyle roar by with a pizza delivery..isn't there a curfew in Cairo? #jan25 #egypt

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http://krebsonsecurity.co(...)hacked-by-anonymous/

A company that is helping the federal government track down cyberactivists who have been attacking business which refused to support Wikileaks has itself been hacked by the very same activists.

At the center of the storm is a leaderless and anarchic Internet group called Anonymous, which more recently has been coordinating attacks against Egyptian government Web sites. Late last month, authorities in the U.K. and the U.S. moved against at least 45 suspected Anonymous activists. Then, on Saturday, the Financial Times ran a story quoting Aaron Barr, the head of security services firm HBGary Federal, saying he had uncovered the identities of Anonymous’ leaders using social networking sites. Barr said he planned to release his findings at a security conference in San Francisco next week.

Anonymous responded by hacking into HBGary’s networks and posting archives of company executive emails on file-trading networks. The group also hacked the firm’s Web site and replaced it with a message saying it was releasing Barr’s findings on its own because the group was confident Barr’s conclusions were wrong.

“We’ve seen your internal documents, all of them, and do you know what we did? We laughed. Most of the information you’ve ‘extracted’ is publicly available via our IRC networks,” the statement reads. “The personal details of Anonymous ‘members’ you think you’ve acquired are, quite simply, nonsense. So why can’t you sell this information to the FBI like you intended? Because we’re going to give it to them for free.”

I tuned into this conflict late Sunday evening, after HBGary President Penny Leavy had waded into Anonymous’ public chat channel in an attempt to reason with the group. Earlier in the evening, Anonymous sympathizers hijacked several Twitter accounts belonging to HBGary employees, and used them to post offensive comments and personal information about the account holders.

The topic of the IRC channel Leavy joined said it all: “Mission: Aaron Bratt FIRED. His salary donated to Bradley Manning Defense Fund. Simple.” Leavy said the group was planning to publish online the entire email archive belonging to Greg Hoglund, the security researcher in California who co-founded HBGary, which is part owner of HBGary Federal.

A snippet from that conversation:

“[20:06:12] <+Penny> Guys, I can’t fire someone that owns a portion of the company What i can promise is we will have a meeting to discuss next steps”

In a phone interview late Sunday evening, Hoglund said that unlike the more traditional Web-site attacking activities of Anonymous, the hackers who infiltrated HBGary’s system showed real skills, even social engineering a network administrator into giving them complete control over rootkit.com, a security research site Hoglund has long maintained.

“They broke into one of HBGary’s servers that was used for tech support, and they got emails through compromising an insecure Web server at HBGary Federal,” Hoglund said. “They used that to get the credentials for Aaron, who happened to be an administrator on our email system, which is how they got into everything else. So it’s a case where the hackers break in on a non-important system, which is very common in hacking situations, and leveraged lateral movement to get onto systems of interest over time.”

Hoglund said Anonymous had crossed a line, and that posting the company’s email online would expose internal, proprietary data that would likely cost HBGary millions of dollars. He added that Anonymous activists should be able to see — if they read the email they’ve stolen — that HBGary ultimately decided not to publicly name any of the members it had identified.

“Before this, what these guys were doing was technically illegal, but it was in direct support of a government whistle blower. But now, we have a situation where they’re committing a federal crime, stealing private data and posting it on a torrent,” Hoglund said. “They didn’t just pick on any company, but we try to protect the US government from hackers. They couldn’t have chosen a worse company to pick on.”

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Greetings HBGary (a computer "security" company),

Your recent claims of "infiltrating" Anonymous amuse us, and so do your attempts at using Anonymous as a means to garner press attention for yourself. How's this for attention?

You brought this upon yourself. You've tried to bite at the Anonymous hand, and now the Anonymous hand is bitch-slapping you in the face. You expected a counter-attack in the form of a verbal braul (as you so eloquently put it in one of your private emails), but now you've received the full fury of Anonymous. We award you no points.

What you seem to have failed to realize is that, just because you have the title and general appearence of a "security" company, you're nothing compared to Anonymous. You have little to no security knowledge. Your business thrives off charging ridiclous prices for simple things like NMAPs, and you don't deserve praise or even recognition as security experts. And now you turn to Anonymous for fame and attention? You're a pathetic gathering of media-whoring money-grabbing sycophants who want to reel in business for your equally pathetic company.

Let us teach you a lesson you'll never forget: you don't mess with Anonymous. You especially don't mess with Anonymous simply because you want to jump on a trend for public attention, which Aaron Barr admitted to in the following email:

"But its not about them...its about our audience having the right impression of our capability and the competency of our research. Anonymous will do what every they can to discredit that. and they have the mic so to speak because they are on Al Jazeeera, ABC, CNN, etc. I am going to keep up the debate because I think it is good business but I will be smart about my public responses."

You've clearly overlooked something very obvious here: we are everyone and we are no one. If you swing a sword of malice into Anonymous' innards, we will simply engulf it. You cannot break us, you cannot harm us, even though you have clearly tried...

You think you've gathered full names and home addresses of the "higher-ups" of Anonymous? You haven't. You think Anonymous has a founder and various co-founders? False. You believe that you can sell the information you've found to the FBI? False. Now, why is this one false? We've seen your internal documents, all of them, and do you know what we did? We laughed. Most of the information you've "extracted" is publicly available via our IRC networks. The personal details of Anonymous "members" you think you've acquired are, quite simply, nonsense.

So why can't you sell this information to the FBI like you intended? Because we're going to give it to them for free. Your gloriously fallacious work can be a wonder for all to scour, as will all of your private emails (more than 44,000 beauties for the public to enjoy). Now as you're probably aware, Anonymous is quite serious when it comes to things like this, and usually we can elaborate gratuitously on our reasoning behind operations, but we will give you a simple explanation, because you seem like primitive people:

You have blindly charged into the Anonymous hive, a hive from which you've tried to steal honey. Did you think the bees would not defend it? Well here we are. You've angered the hive, and now you are being stung.

It would appear that security experts are not expertly secured.

We are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us - always.

---

Quick 'n dirty way to read the emails in a human-readable format:
1. Get a client. http://www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/
2. Get a file renaming tool. http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Download.php (Windows)
3. Rename all the mail files so that they have a .eml extension.
4. Drag & drop them into Thunderbird.
5. Enjoy.

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ANONYMOUS PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Distribution
February 7th, 2011

Recently, the head of internet security firm HBGary Federal, Aaron Barr, sought to elevate his investigation of the Anonymous movement by providing the Financial Times with what he claimed to be accurate and useful information about those who allegedly drive our activities.

In yesterday's release we inferred that the information presented was easy to undermine by any of the millions of people around the world with a cursory understanding of internet culture. Not only was the information provided by HBGary Federal woefully inaccurate, it provided no incriminating evidence against any of the persons named.

Today, Anonymous learned that HBGary Federal intended to sell to the FBI a large document (it can be found at http://hizost.com/... ) that allegedly detailed the identities of dozens of our participants.

Within hours of learning this, Anonymous infiltrated HBGary Federal's network and websites. Anonymous acquired the document with supposed personal details of anons, along with more than 50,000 company e-mails (~4.71GB) - all of which have now been distributed on the internet. Additionally, his associated websites and social media accounts were hijacked and manipulated to stress how poorly this 'security expert' handles matters of his own security ( http://imagebin.org/... ). Woe to his clients and others who invested in his confidence.

The lack of quality in Aaron Barr's undertaken research is worth noting. Aaron Barr missed a great deal of information that has been available online, and in fact failed to identify some of those whose identities were never intended to be hidden. People such as DailyKos' diarist blogger Barrett Brown, and the administrator for anonnews.org joepie91, whose identities could have been found with a simple Google search.

It is also worth noting that Aaron Barr was also providing this documentation as an example of investigation protocol. This would introduce a systemic flaw to the FBI's investigative woodwork. The risk of institutionalising a flawed procedure exponentiates a problem, and it does so at the taxpayers expense in every sense. Had the FBI indeed bought this information from HBGary Federal, it would have been paid for by taxpayers money. Many innocent people would have been marked as leaders in actions they may not even have been associated with.

Unlike you, Aaron, we did our research, we know who you are, and now, so will everyone else. Although you have managed to ruin your credibility in an attempt to further it, you did provide us with entertainment, albeit very briefly.

Anonymous does not have leaders. We are not a group, we are not an organization. We are just an idea. What we have done today will appear harsh. It is harsh. We will respond to those who see threats to Anonymous. We understand that our participants have been concerned about recent FBI raids and companies such as HBGary lurking in our chats, so we’ve given all of Anonymous a message: we will fight back.

We are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us - always.

Yours faithfully,

Anonymous.

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After the first few days of protests, it was clear that it was risky to be instantly identifiable as a journalist anywhere in Cairo. The state media has been pumping out xenophobic stories about foreign journalists causing all the problems and damaging Egypt’s image. (This in itself will be an interesting dynamic once it becomes clear which has triumphed: the nimble new-media denizens of Tahrir Square or a regime in full control of the official newspapers and television channels, harnessing its power to divide and rule.)

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http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/854937-anonymous-hacks-security-firm-in-revenge-for-identification-claims?ITO=socialnet-twitter-button

The head of a security company who boasted that he could identify the 'leaders' of hacktivist collective Anonymous has found his Twitter account, emails and company website hacked by members of the group.

Aaron Barr, CEO of security firm HBGary, had claimed that his firm was able to identify many of the leaders of Anonymous - the loose group with a constantly shifting membership that was behind cyber attacks on perceived enemies of WikiLeaks last year, such as MasterCard, Visa and PayPal.

Barr claimed that Anonymous only had about 30 regular participants, and 10 key individuals in leadership roles, out of the hundreds who take part in operations. He also claimed to have identified several of the key leaders.

But now he's discovered the downside of poking Anonymous, after his Twitter account was hijacked over the weekend. According to a report in the Guardian, the hijackers then started tweeting that they had full control of HBGary's websites, and had access to their email archives, financial and personal details, and had wiped a terabyte of data from their system. They also said that they were going to release the companies emails as a torrent.

In a final indignity, they also claimed to have wiped Barr's iPad.

While it's not possible to confirm the accuracy of all their claims, the HBGary website is certainly offline at the time of writing, having previously been replaced with an image that mocked the firm and Barr - reading, in part: 'You have little to no security knowledge... You think you've gathered the full names and home addresses of the "higher-ups" of Anonymous? You haven't. You think Anonymous has a founderand various co-founders? False... We've seen your internal documents, all of them, and do you know what we did? We laughed.'

'Let us teach you a lesson you'll never forget: you don't mess with Anonymous,' they added.

Penny Leavy, president of HB Gary Inc, told the Financial Times that the attack would cost the firm millions of dollars, and that they would work with police to track down those responsible, saying: 'They have committed a crime against our company and, unfortunately, we are legally bound. I wish it had been handled differently.

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Sometime last night after 10pm, a /b/ user posted a proposition that the board's users troll the "pedophile" Dahvie Vanity. 4chan was still basking in its earlier harassment of Jessi Slaughter, so users quickly got on board—the thread exploded with suggestions and encouragement accompanied by unrelated pictures of boobs.

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Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Evidence collected by the FBI about Anonymous, which attacked websites of four companies to punish them for blocking contributions to WikiLeaks, will be considered this week by a U.S. grand jury, according to court papers and an informal spokesman for the group of activist hackers.

The federal grand jury in San Jose, California, will begin reviewing evidence tomorrow that includes computers and mobile phones seized from suspected leaders as prosecutors probe the coordinated so-called denial-of-service attacks in December, according to a federal subpoena and the spokesman, Barrett Brown. Anonymous directed activists to target payment processors MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., EBay Inc. ’s PayPal, and U.K.-based Moneybookers.com in public chat rooms.

Among the evidence seized by the FBI during multistate raids on Jan. 27 was data taken from an individual who controls one of Anonymous’s primary servers, identified by the organization only by his cyber-handle ‘Owen,’ Brown said.

“The FBI is breaking down people’s doors with guns drawn,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a member of the board of the National Lawyers Guild , which has talked with Anonymous organizers about their legal defense. “A group of people are engaged in a modern day electronic sit-in, and the FBI wants to treat that like it’s terrorist activity.”

Anonymous responded on Feb. 6 by hacking a California-based security firm that it said was aiding the probe, hijacking 60,000 company e-mails and making them public on one of the organization’s servers. The e-mails included a proposal by the company to develop a malware tracking program for the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), among other confidential documents.

Drawn Guns

Jenny Shearer, a Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman, said the agency couldn’t comment on the probe or its targets. She said “it’s not unusual” to have drawn guns during the execution of a search warrant until “the situation is secure.”

The subpoena shows federal investigators are trying to piece together the workings of an elusive group composed of hundreds of hackers and activists stretched across several countries. Brown said about a dozen members are able to influence the direction of Anonymous .

Agents served a grand jury subpoena on a California man who goes by the screen name ‘Trivette,’ ordering him to appear before the panel tomorrow. It demands all information he has on how the December attacks were organized, including instructions to activists on how to download software that can overwhelm websites by inundating them with thousands of service requests a second.

‘Names, Handles’

The subpoena requested information on the group’s hierarchy and structure, including “names, handles, e-mail accounts, or IP addresses,” according to a copy provided to Bloomberg News by the organization.

The FBI also raided the home of a 19-year-old Nevada woman, Brown said. Agents seized two computers, including one owned by her father, her iPhone, two flash drives and a router, Brown said.

Among other recent high-profile attacks, Anonymous has claimed in public statements responsibility for crashing government websites in Egypt and Tunisia to support political protests.

Brown said the group, whose activities have sparked an international investigation and five arrests in Britain, is dedicated to “the defense of liberty.” Its goal is “a perpetual revolution across the world that goes on until governments are basically overwhelmed and results in a freer system,” he said.

History of Retaliation

Several cyber-security experts declined to speak about the group or its activities on the record because of its history of retaliating against critics, such as the Feb. 6 attack on a cyber security firm HBGary Federal, which Anonymous accused of aiding the government’s investigation.

Shearer, the FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment on any cooperation between the agency and the security firm.

Aaron Barr, the head of security services for the Sacramento-based company, was quoted in the Financial Times on Feb. 4 saying that he had information on the identity of Anonymous leaders that he planned to release at a cyber conference this month.

The following day, the group hacked into the company’s network and took more than 60,000 internal e-mails and began releasing them last night, Brown said. It also hijacked the Twitter accounts of HBGary’s employees, using them to post personal information such as social security numbers and addresses, he said.

In one e-mail provided by Anonymous, HBGary Chief Executive Officer Greg Hoglund discussed a possible “60 Minutes” interview on Anonymous, as well as how the security firm could use it to their advantage.

Public ‘Hero’

“Position Aaron as a hero to the public,” Hoglund wrote to Barr and Karen Burke, the firm’s spokeswoman. “I think these guys are going to get arrested, it would be interesting to leave the soft impression that Aaron is the one that got them, and that without Aaron the Feds would have never been able to get out of their own way.”

Burke declined to comment on that communication or the other e-mails or whether the firm negotiated with Anonymous to retrieve the internal communications before they became public, as the group claimed.

Investigation Continuing

“The investigation into our breach is still ongoing so it would be premature to comment further at this time,” HBGary Federal President Penny Leavy said in a statement.

The exposure has the potential to be extremely damaging to the security company and its reputation, said Susan Freiwald, an expert on cyber security and law at the University of San Francisco.

“It’s a security firm,” Freiwald said. “It’s especially sensitive for them to be portrayed as insecure.”

The search warrants issued by the FBI in some cases referred to possible violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the main federal anti-hacking statute, Brown said.

The law can be used to prosecute denial-of-service attacks, according to a Justice Department manual relating to computer crime and intellectual property posted on the agency website. Prosecutors must prove an attack caused at least $5,000 in damage to a company or its operations, a threshold the December attacks probably meets, Freiwald said.

No One Arrested

No one has been arrested yet in the U.S. in connection with the probe, Brown said. The Lawyers Guild’s Verheyden-Hilliard said the attacks against PayPal or MasterCard should be viewed as a form of modern-day civil disobedience, the equivalent of blocking a company’s virtual storefront.

Those attacks may have slowed or disabled the companies’ websites temporarily without affecting their payment processing functions, the companies said.

“Civil disobedience is historically more effective when the state intervenes in a heavy-handed way,” said Ryan Calo, an expert in cyber crime at Stanford University in Stanford, California. “It is not just the act but also all the follow-up -- the subpoenas, arrests, a trial. That’s all part of the act of civil disobedience.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Riley in Washington at michaelriley@bloomberg.net .

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net .