Anonops #12: Spy on the Spyers

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Op zondag 15 april 2012 16:10 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:
Wauw mij lukt het niet om die tweet te ontcijferen hoor

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Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin

Exclusive: Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style 'walled gardens'

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary."

The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of "restrictive" walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.

The 38-year-old billionaire, whose family fled antisemitism in the Soviet Union, was widely regarded as having been the driving force behind Google's partial pullout from China in 2010 over concerns about censorship and cyber-attacks. He said five years ago he did not believe China or any country could effectively restrict the internet for long, but now says he has been proven wrong. "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said.

He said he was most concerned by the efforts of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict use of the internet, but warned that the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and balkanising the web.

"There's a lot to be lost," he said. "For example, all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it."

Brin's criticism of Facebook is likely to be controversial, with the social network approaching an estimated $100bn (£64bn) flotation. Google's upstart rival has seen explosive growth: it has signed up half of Americans with computer access and more than 800 million members worldwide.

Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive," he said. "The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation."

He criticised Facebook for not making it easy for users to switch their data to other services. "Facebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for many years," he said.

Brin's comments come on the first day of a week-long Guardian investigation of the intensifying battle for control of the internet being fought across the globe between governments, companies, military strategists, activists and hackers.

From the attempts made by Hollywood to push through legislation allowing pirate websites to be shut down, to the British government's plans to monitor social media and web use, the ethos of openness championed by the pioneers of the internet and worldwide web is being challenged on a number of fronts.

In China, which now has more internet users than any other country, the government recently introduced new "real identity" rules in a bid to tame the boisterous microblogging scene. In Russia, there are powerful calls to rein in a blogosphere blamed for fomenting a wave of anti-Vladimir Putin protests. It has been reported that Iran is planning to introduce a sealed "national internet" from this summer.

Ricken Patel, co-founder of Avaaz, the 14 million-strong online activist network which has been providing communication equipment and training to Syrian activists, echoed Brin's warning: "We've seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realising the power of this medium to organise people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we're seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world."

Writing in the Guardian on Monday, outspoken Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei says the Chinese government's attempts to control the internet will ultimately be doomed to failure. "In the long run," he says, "they must understand it's not possible for them to control the internet unless they shut it off – and they can't live with the consequences of that."

Amid mounting concern over the militarisation of the internet and claims – denied by Beijing – that China has mounted numerous cyber-attacks on US military and corporate targets, he said it would be hugely difficult for any government to defend its online "territory".

"If you compare the internet to the physical world, there really aren't any walls between countries," he said. "If Canada wanted to send tanks into the US there is nothing stopping them and it's the same on the internet. It's hopeless to try to control the internet."

He reserved his harshest words for the entertainment industry, which he said was "shooting itself in the foot, or maybe worse than in the foot" by lobbying for legislation to block sites offering pirate material.

He said the Sopa and Pipa bills championed by the film and music industries would have led to the US using the same technology and approach it criticised China and Iran for using. The entertainment industry failed to appreciate people would continue to download pirated content as long as it was easier to acquire and use than legitimately obtained material, he said.

"I haven't tried it for many years but when you go on a pirate website, you choose what you like; it downloads to the device of your choice and it will just work – and then when you have to jump through all these hoops [to buy legitimate content], the walls created are disincentives for people to buy," he said.

Brin acknowledged that some people were anxious about the amount of their data that was now in the reach of US authorities because it sits on Google's servers. He said the company was periodically forced to hand over data and sometimes prevented by legal restrictions from even notifying users that it had done so.

He said: "We push back a lot; we are able to turn down a lot of these requests. We do everything possible to protect the data. If we could wave a magic wand and not be subject to US law, that would be great. If we could be in some magical jurisdiction that everyone in the world trusted, that would be great … We're doing it as well as can be done."

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The Guardian: Battle for the Internet.

Over seven days

the Guardian is taking stock of the new battlegrounds for the internet. From states stifling dissent, to the new cyberwar front line, we look at the challenges facing the dream of an open internet

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Op zondag 15 april 2012 16:12 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Er was wat gedoe rond TeaMp0ison, 1 van de leden, Trick, zou gearresteerd zijn en dit zou een wraakactie kunnen zijn.

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TeaMp0isoN Retaliation
By: a guest on Apr 15th, 2012 | syntax: None | size: 2.29 KB | hits: 236 | expires: Never
download | raw | embed | report abuse

_____ __ __ ___ _ _ _
|_ _|___ __ _| \/ |_ __ / _ \(_)___ ___ | \ | |
| | / _ \/ _` | |\/| | '_ \| | | | / __|/ _ \| \| |
| || __/ (_| | | | | |_) | |_| | \__ \ (_) | |\ |
|_| \___|\__,_|_| |_| .__/ \___/|_|___/\___/|_| \_|
@TeaMp0isoN__ |_|[irc.tsukihi.me #retaliation]

.: TriCk - f0rsaken - MLT - Phantom - aXioM - d3tonate - 2Root - iN^SaNe - vetr0 :.

We've lost the first and most important member of our team; our founder, our brother, our family member. Most importantly we lost a fighter for freedom, a fighter against corruption.

He strived for justice, and constantly fought against oppression and corruption, to help spread awareness on humanitarian causes, and now, he is no longer with us.

Most of you think that this is end of TeaMp0isoN and that this is end of our fight.
We're glad to shout:
#################################
#_ITS NOT OVER, IT JUST STARTED_#
#_ITS NOT OVER, WE ARE STRONGER_#
#_ITS NOT OVER, WE ARE UNITED_ #
#################################

I ask you, a fellow hacker, as a blackhat, to rise, to unite and to fight. For years the hacking scene for the most part has been misrepresented by skids, who have inevitably led to the copious amounts of faggotry and butthurt which currently pollutes the scene. Whitehats continue to lurk and grow, and nothing is preventing them from disclosing exploits.

As a collective we have to stop this, to ascend out of the underground and show the world we are not fucking around, something which TriCk firmly believed in. We, as hackers, have to unite to revive the blackhat scene, for TriCk... and everything that we stand for.

Do you support TeaMp0isoN? Help out via:
irc.tsukihi.me
#retaliation

-----------------------------------------
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf skids/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf whitehats/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf governments/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf justicesystem/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf police/*
-----------------------------------------

Blend in.
Get trusted.
Trust no one.
Own everyone.
Disclose nothing.
Destroy everything.
Take back the scene.
Never sell out, never surrender.
Get in as anonymous, leave with no trace.

TL;DR Blackhats unite, fuck some shit up, in the name of TriCk.

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Ricken Patel on the freedom of the web: 'We need to move from the defensive to the offensive'

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Co-founder of Avaaz Ricken Patel talks to Ian Katz about the rise of attacks on the freedom of the internet from governments and corporations, and about the campaign to defend it. He says that citizens need to come together to create a charter or global treaty to secure the future of the web

twitter:

PLF2012 twitterde op dinsdag 17-04-2012 om 21:45:26 The PLF & Anonymous proudly bring you a "no logs" & server side encrypted alternative to PasteBin | AnonPaste - http://t.co/BePbFhWk | :-) reageer retweet

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AnonPaste is based on the open source ZeroBin software. It is a minimalist, opensource online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. Data is encrypted/decrypted in the browser using 256 bits AES. More information on the project page.

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Wereldwijde storing Gmail

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Cyberaanval treft 275.000 klanten XS4ALL

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50 MB aan tweets, adressen en al je nummers. Dit is wat Twitter van je weet

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What does Twitter know about me?, luidt de titel van haar geruchtmakende stukje. Ze vroeg al haar persoonlijke gegevens op bij het sociale netwerk, waar ze volgens de Europese Privacyrichtlijn recht op heeft. Na drie weken ontving ze keurig antwoord in de vorm van een enorme .zip-file. Met de nadruk op enorme: het bestand was bijna 50 MB.

Niet alleen de gegevens van Anne zelf (al haar tweets inclusief ID-nummer, haar logins vanaf 1 februari 2012 met IP-adressen en al haar Direct Messages) stonden in het bestand, maar ook meer dan 1000 e-mailadressen en 150 telefoonnummers van Anne’s contacten. Verkregen uit haar adresboek, toen ze de find friends optie gebruikte.

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Technologie internetcensuur onder de loep

Het Europees Parlement wil het moeilijker maken om technologie te exporteren waarmee regeringen internet kunnen censureren of zelfs blokkeren. Er moeten regels komen voor bedrijven die geld verdienen met internetcensuur. Het Europarlement roept de Europese Commissie op in 2013 met voorstellen te komen en nam daartoe vandaag een resolutie aan.

De oproep komt naar aanleiding van de succesvolle rol van internet en sociale media bij de Arabische Lente. D66-Europarlementariër Marietje Schaake is blij met de oproep. 'We hebben duidelijke regels nodig over welke technologieën Europese bedrijven wel en niet mogen exporteren. Sommige technieken zijn niets minder dan 'digitale wapens' en worden zelfs speciaal gemaakt om mensenrechten te schenden.'

'Er is een race gaande tussen diegenen die nieuwe media inzetten voor vrijheidsdoeleinden en diegenen die ze inzetten voor onderdrukking', aldus een Britse Europarlementariër. Hij hekelde de acties van telecomgigant Vodafone die op verzoek van het voormalige Egyptische regime zijn diensten in het land staakte slechts enkele weken voor de revolutie in het Noord-Afrikaanse land

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'Blokkades zijn riskant voor het stabiel functioneren van internet: straks zitten wij met de brokken'

Een digitale flitspaal is een veel betere oplossing tegen het uploaden van films dan het blokkeren van The Pirate Bay. De initiatiefnemers van Steunfonds Open en Stabiel Internet roepen op de blokkade morgen in de rechtszaal niet uit te breiden naar alle grote ISPs.

Sinds 1 februari moeten de Internetproviders Ziggo en XS4ALL van de rechter The Pirate Bay blokkeren en heeft de stichting BREIN een carte blanche om de blokkadelijst aan te vullen in een, naar het zich inmiddels laat aanzien, eindeloos kat-en-muis spel.

Zulke ad-hoc blokkades bij de providers zijn erg riskant voor het stabiel functioneren van Internet. In Denemarken bestaat al enige tijd zo'n blokkadesysteem. Eind februari werd op de verkeerde knop gedrukt en gingen er 8000 sites uit de lucht, waaronder zoekmachines, sociale netwerken en belangrijke publieke informatiebronnen. Straks zitten wij, de gebruikers, bedrijven en de BV Nederland, met de brokken.

Nutteloos
Een blokkade helpt niet tegen auteursrechtinbreuk met filesharing-programma's. BREIN stelde van wel en de rechter gaf BREIN het voordeel van de twijfel. De effectiviteit was in Nederland niet aantoonbaar voordat deze blokkade in werking trad. Met een nu herhaalde meting wel. Afgelopen vrijdag is door de Universiteit van Amsterdam bekendgemaakt dat er geen significante daling is gevonden door de blokkades bij Ziggo en XS4ALL. Blokkeren blijkt inderdaad nutteloos.

BREIN wil deze blokkade uitbreiden naar alle grote ISPs en voert daartoe op 19 april een Kort Geding. Een belangrijk argument van BREIN is dat een blokkade bij de Internetproviders het laatste redmiddel is voor auteursrechthebbenden en daarmee proportioneel. Dit verrast. Werkelijk iedereen is het erover eens dat blokkeren (of beter nog, verwijderen) bij de bron de beste maatregel is. Maar met het blokkeren van The Pirate Bay wordt auteursrechtinbreuk niet verminderd, want de verwijsindex die ze tonen is zelf niet de bron van de inbreuk. En er bestaan wel degelijk andere doelgerichte alternatieven.

Bij het gebruik van fileshare-software wordt de daadwerkelijke inbreuk gepleegd door de eindgebruikers zelf: zij zijn het die via hun upload het materiaal aanbieden. Stoppen van auteursrechtinbreuk is alleen mogelijk als eindgebruikers meewerken. Óf vrijwillig, door alleen gebruik te maken van legale diensten, óf onvrijwillig, door bestraft te worden voor gebruik van niet-legale alternatieven. We snappen natuurlijk best dat tot nu toe zowel politici als auteursrechthebbenden er niet happig op zijn hun kiezers en klanten aan te pakken. Maar dat is echt het enige dat werkelijk effect heeft. Het collectieve struisvogelgedrag moet stoppen in het belang van een open en stabiel internet.

Combinatie
Het aanpakken bij de bron kan: we schetsen enkele van de vele mogelijkheden. Combinatie werkt wordt nog doelgerichter.

UvA onderzoekers hebben meet-software vrij beschikbaar gesteld die met grote regelmaat 'foto's' kan maken van de situatie rond uitwisselingsverkeer op het Nederlandse internet. De software kijkt alleen naar degenen die daadwerkelijk betrokken zijn bij uploaden en vermijdt daarmee overige internetters onder constante bewaking te zetten. Dit kan goed gebruikt worden om 'veelplegers' op te sporen, zonder ongewenste neveneffecten voor de privacy en communicatievrijheid.

Daarmee is in feite een 'Digitale Flitspaal'ontstaan. Zoals boetes voor snelheidsovertredingen op de deurmat belanden via de Kentekenregistratie, zo zouden ook boetes aan uploaders uitgedeeld kunnen worden. Iedere internetverbinding heeft namelijk zijn eigen 'kenteken', het Internetadres. Internetproviders zijn wettelijk verplicht die te registreren bij het CIOT, een centrale overheidsdatabank die de Internetadressen koppelt aan naam, adres en woonplaatsgegevens. Daarmee is in analogie met de 'Wet Mulder' voor snelheidsovertredingen een transparant en controleerbaar boete-incassosysteem op te zetten voor auteursrechtinbreuk.

Daarnaast kan ook een systeem opgezet worden waarbij een gebruiker die veelvuldig auteursrechtinbreuk pleegt, eerst een waarschuwing krijgt per e-mail voordat daadwerkelijk tot individuele (boete-) heffing wordt overgegaan. Vergelijk het met de waarschuwingen voor flitspalen op een TomTom. De internetprovider vervult hierbij zijn normale rol van doorgeefluik, waarbij hij als extra voorziening de identiteit van zijn klanten afschermt.

Tot slot kan de invoering van een downloadheffing overwogen worden. Oftewel: legalisatie van digitaal kopiëren op beperkte schaal in huiselijke kring, als uitbreiding van de thuiskopieerheffing. Een bedrag afhankelijk van de aard en capaciteit van de internetverbinding, zoals wegenbelasting. Het totaalbedrag wordt vervolgens op de gebruikelijke wijze via auteursrechtenorganisaties verdeeld onder de rechthebbenden.

Riskant
De nu opgeëiste blokkades als laatste redmiddel bestempelen gaat veel te ver: het blijkt niet effectief, er zijn riskante neveneffecten en er zijn betere alternatieven. Maar ook het downloadverbod van Staatssecretaris Teeven sneuvelde in de Tweede Kamer. Stagnatie en onnodige juridische procedures domineren.

Steunfonds Open en Stabiel Internet zal daarom een publiek debat organiseren waarin alle betrokkenen, internetproviders, auteursrechthebbenden, maar nu ook de gebruikers, bedrijven, politiek en overheid samen tot een afgewogen en beheersbaar systeem kunnen komen, dat maximaal recht doet aan alle belangen.

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 21:59:10 bumastemra.nl #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

twitter:

digital_human twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:07:11 "#OpAap: Tango down sena.nl @DwayneV1x #Anonymous #SaveTPB" i dont support dd05 but for this i make an exception. Pewpew reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:02:30 nvbinfocentrum.nl #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:01:48 nver.info #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:17:52 filmdistributeurs.nl #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

Knife Party - Destroy Them With Lazers

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Operation AAP

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*****Operation AAP (Against Anti-Piracy) #OpAap on twitter*****
18th of april, 20.00 GMT

Hello world,

In the Netherlands, as you might know, we have an organisation called 'Stichting Brein'.
A organisation says they defend copyright of artists, but they are censoring the internet in the Netherlands.
at january the 11th, 2012, the dutch providers Ziggo and XS4ALL already blocked our lovely piratebay.com because the judge told them to after a case with Stichting Brein. many TPB mirrors have been blocked too!
At the 19th of April, 2012, Brein goes to the judge again, to get The pirate bay blocked for all other dutch providers like tele2.

We can't just stay looking at this, while Brein is censoring internet in a country as the Netherlands that should be free!

So I'm calling in your help! share this message with everyone you know!
In a week, at the 18th of april, a day before the decision, at 20:00 GMT (21:00 dutch time) ,we will unleash hell to Stichting Brein, and let them know that they should have expected us!

Help all the people of the Netherlands in a war against censorship, we can't do it all alone!
Let the DDoS beast attack!

@CHARGE YA LAZ0RS!

IMPORTANT ONES HERE!
Sites that help and sponsor Brein:
1. http://www.bumastemra.nl ---- > Ip: 87.236.98.212
Tel: 023 - 799 79 99
fax: 023 - 799 77 77
Bas Erlings
tel: 023-799 76 90
mobile: 06-526 76 035

2. http://www.sena.nl ---- > Ip: 130.117.73.211
Fax: 035 628 09 71
Tel: 035 625 17 00

3. http://www.nvpi.nl ---- > Ip: 109.71.48.125
tel: 035-625 44 11
fax: 035-625 44 10

4. http://www.filmdistributeurs.nl ----> Ip: 193.67.128.73
Tel: 020–386 86 30
Fax: 020–386 86 31

5. http://www.nvbinfocentrum.nl ---- > Ip: 93.187.8.15
tel: 020-42 66 100
fax: 020-42 66 115

6. http://www.videma.nl ---- > Ip: 217.149.72.146
tel: 0183-583 000
fax: 0183-583 090

7. http://www.nver.info ---- > Ip: 83.149.121.142
Tel: +31 (0) 35 672 90 90
Fax: +31 (0) 35 672 90 99

8. http://www.nuv.nl ---- > Ip: 92.52.84.14
Tel: 0031 (0)20 - 430 91 50
Fax: 0031 (0)20 – 430 91 99

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, Brein themselves!:
9. -------> www.anti-piracy.nl <------ ------> IP: 94.75.218.97 <------
Tel: (023) 799 78 70
Fax: (023) 799 77 20

SOME PERSONAL PHONE NUMBERS AND NAMES OF PEOPLE THAT WORKS/WORKED FOR SENA (SECOND WEBSITE TO ATTACK):

Eduardus Hermannus Theresia Maria (Ed) Nijpels - Chairman, (VVD member).
+031(0)623916333
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Koert Pouwel Ligtermoet - Vice Chairmen, (ex)boardmember of BREIN.
+031(0)622395869
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Erwin Radjinder Angad-Gaur - Member, (D66 member) general secretary at Ntb and member of PALM
+031(0)651180903
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Peter Boertje - Member, (VVD member), Associated with Casual Solution BV & Essential Dance Music BV
+31(0)786848788
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A.C.M (Bert) Ruiter - Member, also Member of BSO/BSA (Buma/Stemra-related) and member of PALM, Freelance musician/composer
+31(0)355316209
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Eva Anna Grietje (Eva) Kamer-Führen - Chief financial officer, chemist-entrepreneur
+31(0)356248229
--------------------
Johannes Adrianus Petrus Maria (JOhannes/Hans) Van Berkel - (ex)CEO, Treasurer at VOI©E, Executive Chairman at KOBALT NEIGHBOURING RIGHTS LIMITED
+31(0)356473157
--------------------
Cees J.J. van Steijn - Interim Director, worked for Amsterdam RAI B.V., Newconomy N.V., Landis ICT Group N.V., NOB N.V., Veronica, Priority Telecom N.V. , Blue Fox Enterprises N.V, Econcern
+31(0)650691920
--------------------
Tom Peters - Member, CEO at NRGY Music, composer and producer.
+31(0)356246161
--------------------
Simone Vierstra - Member, CEO at Fit2Play, Violinist
+31(0)644770539
--------------------
John J.P. van Leeuwarden - Member, Aka Johhny Lion, Singer, Actor, Journalist
+31(0)765871594
--------------------
Annemarieke Schulte - Member, Lawyer (including lawyer of Ntb)
+31(0)614315810
--------------------
Michiel A.B. Steenhuis-Daalhuizen - Member, Laywer, CEO Law Firm Steenhuis and CEO Rattle Records
+31(0)648102343
--------------------
Anne de Jong - Member, CEO at Challenge Records International B.V., Knockwood B.V. and Alex Merck Music B.V.
+31(0)337676110
--------------------
Berry van Sandwijk - Member, CEO at Sony Music Entertainment Netherlands B.V., also worked for EMI Music
+031(0)356298298
--------------------
Maykel M.G.J. Piron - Member, CEO at Soundpiercing Music B.V. (part of Armada Music B.v.)
+031(0)655897507
--------------------

Only if possible!:
www.twitter.com/TimKuik (owner)
www.twitter.com/Stichtingbrein (official twitter account)

HELP THE NETHERLANDS!

We are the 99 %

We are united by one, divided by zero,
We are Anonymous,
We are legion,
We do not forgive,
We do not forget,
Brein should have expected us!

Someone from #AntiSecNL

twitter:

AnonymousCenter twitterde op donderdag 19-04-2012 om 04:12:38 #Anonymous is now officially one of the 100 most influential people/ideas of the world. | #Time #Anonymous reageer retweet

quote:

Brein: mogelijk 'zwaardere maatregelen' tegen providers

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Als een bokkade van de populaire downloadsite The Pirate Bay niet werkt, zal auteursrechtenorganisatie Brein 'zwaardere maatregelen' tegen internetproviders overwegen. Dat zei advocaat Joris van Manen namens Brein tijdens het kort geding tegen KPN, UPC, T-Mobile en Tele2, dat vandaag in de Haagse rechtbank dient. Om wat voor maatregelen het dan zou gaan, werd niet duidelijk.

Brein eist dat de internetproviders de populaire downloadsite The Pirate Bay blokkeren. Volgens Brein gaat het om de 'grootste auteursrechtinbreuk in de geschiedenis van de mensheid.'

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In januari wist Brein een blokkade van The Pirate Bay al via een uitgebreide bodemprocedure bij Ziggo en XS4ALL af te dwingen. Volgens de auteursrechtenorganisatie is er daarom geen reden om dat niet ook van andere providers te verlangen. Brein hoopt dat dat vandaag bij de rechter in Den Haag lukt.

Effect
Maar in de tussentijd zijn er vragen gerezen over het vonnis uit januari. Zo zou de rechtbank fouten hebben gemaakt bij de interpretatie van cijfers van het aantal klanten van de providers die van The Pirate Bay gebruik maken. En onderzoekers van de UvA meldden onlangs dat de blokkade van de site nauwelijks effect sorteert.

Rond de twintig procent van de abonnees van de gedaagde providers maakt volgens Brein gebruik van The Pirate Bay. Brein baseert die gegevens op metingen van Alexa en Google AdPlanner. Brein bestrijdt ook dat de blokkade geen effect zou hebben. Er zouden inmiddels al bijna 250.000 mensen last van de blokkade hebben gekregen. Mocht desondanks blijken dat de blokkade niet werkt, dan liggen 'zwaardere maatregelen' binnen de mogelijkheden, aldus Van Manen, zonder te vermelden wat die maatregelen zouden kunnen zijn.

Momenteel zijn de providers bezig met hun verweer.

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The online copyright war: the day the internet hit back at big media

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In this seemingly never-ending battle, 18 January 2012 was a defining date, a day when the internet hit back. Mike Masnick, founder of TechDirt and one of Silicon Valley's most well-connected bloggers, remembers running through the corridors of the Senate in Washington, laptop open, desperately trying to find a Wi-Fi signal.

Around him was chaos. Amid a cacophony of phones, political interns were struggling to keep up with the calls and emails from angry people across the US and the world claiming Hollywood-backed legislation was about to break the internet and end its open culture forever. In an unprecedented day of action, Wikipedia and Reddit, a social news website, had gone offline in a protest organised by their communities of editors, and backed by thousands of other sites, large and small. Google had blacked out its logo in protest. Students around the world were bitching on Twitter that they couldn't get their homework done without Wikipedia. Even Kim Kardashian came out swinging.

One senator's office that Masnick visited calculated they had taken 3,000 calls. Within hours of the unprecedented assault, Sopa, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was dead and a sister act, Pipa, a neat acronym for the tortuously titled Protect IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) was sunk too. In Europe, the action buoyed up opponents of Acta, the US-backed international copyright treaty that has sparked protests across the continent. Countries including Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia have all refused to sign, arguing that Acta endangers freedom of speech and privacy, and the bill has stalled. But for how long? "The industry has this down cold," Masnick says. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Valenti's old stomping ground and one of the most powerful lobbying bodies in Washington, has emerged bruised from the battle, but few doubt it will rally.

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Evgeny Morozov: 'I'm all for elite models when it comes to digital activism' - video

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Evgeny Morozov explains his theory of cyber utopianism and why he believes the web does little for democratisation around the world. He presents a critique of online hactivism groups, including LulzSec and Anonymous, and suggests digital activism more broadly would benefit from an elitist reworking

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Hacktivists in the frontline battle for the internet

Amid the power struggle between hacktivism and officialdom, Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow explains why he is working on a system to fund online activists hit by corporate blockades

If there is a battle over the future shape of the internet – and society as a whole - then hacktivist groups such as Anonymous and Lulzsec, Wikileaks and the file-sharing site Megaupload.com are among the frontline battalions.

While the individual incidents and clashes involving these groups may seem disparate and unconnected, those at the core of online activism say all these organisations, plus relatively mainstream movements such as Occupy and the Pirate Party, are linked.

John Perry Barlow, lyricist for the Grateful Dead and co-founder of the well-known advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF), says the over-arching motivation of such efforts, whatever tactics are used, was to shift the nature of society.

"What unites these groups is the belief that the future is not about vertical, hierarchical government, but horizontal [peer-to-peer] government," he said. "This pits the forces of the information age against those of the industrial age, as we move from scarcity of information to abundance. The last year has established our ability to have revolutions, but not to govern in their wake – but that's coming.

"Different groups are on a spectrum. Organisations like the EFF would be on the conservative end. Along the way is WikiLeaks and the Pirate party, with Anonymous at the more radical end."

Though ties between the groups are often tenuous, a broadly shared ideology of a libertarian distrust of government, belief in networks of free citizens, mistrust of copyright and intellectual property laws, and a drive for self-determination appear to unite the hacktivist fringe of the internet.

Barlow believes the US government has started aggressively pursuing political hackers such as Anonymous and Lulzsec. The groups mounted attacks taking US and UK government websites offline, targeted News International, allegedly taking a tranche of emails belong to staff of the Sun, and took the full email archives of US intelligence firm Stratfor and passed them to WikiLeaks.

"The government targets Anonymous for the same reason it targets al-Qaida – because they're the enemy. And in a way, they are. The shit is starting to hit the fan, but we haven't started to see the effects of that yet. The internet is the most liberating tool for humanity ever invented, and also the best for surveillance. It's not one or the other. It's both."

Barlow is working on a system to oppose the financial blockade imposed against WikiLeaks. In the wake of WikiLeaks' publication of US diplomatic cables, Senator Joe Lieberman called on US companies to cut off the site. Payment providers Visa, Mastercard and Paypal acceded to the request, despite no order or request coming from government, starving the site of funding.

Barlow is planning the establishment of a foundation aimed at funding any organisations affected by corporate blockades with first amendment implications.

"We hope it makes a moral argument against these sorts of actions," he says. "But it could also be the basis of a legal challenge. We now have private organisations with the ability to stifle free expression. These companies have no bill of rights that applies to their action – they only have terms of service."

As a result, battles over the future of the internet are becoming increasingly politicised as opposing sides try to set the legal framework. A huge network of grassroots organisations coalesced in the US to fight the stop online piracy act (Sopa). The bill was eventually stopped in its tracks as opposition mounted, but similar efforts in the EU and elsewhere have had more success proceeding through the legislature.

On other fronts, cyber-surveillance is increasing, with the UK government proposing a law to allow the monitoring of information on emails, social network and Skype traffic on all users in real-time. To fight such efforts, hacktivists are getting political.

The best known movement of this sort is the Pirate party, which was founded in Sweden by Rickard Falkvinge in 2006 and is marginal in the UK but is building up substantial influence across the world. The party has two MEPs in the European parliament, and recently took 7.4% of the vote in recent elections in the Saarland region of Germany – and according to recent polls it is now the third biggest in the country.

The party has even briefly had a cabinet minister, Slim Amamou, a Tunisian activist who served as sports and youth minister in his country for a brief period last year before resigning in protest over web censorship imposed by Tunisia's army.

Amelia Andersdotter, one of the party's two MEPs, thinks authorities tend to ignore the political element of hacking attacks by groups such as Anonymous.

"Some of these hacking attacks are misconstrued. Many are clearly politically targeted, attempts to register protest at something a government or organisation is doing," she says. "There is a lack of understanding in cyber-security. Things are seen as big and intimidating when they are often not.

"Suddenly, denial of service attacks [an attack which floods a site with fake traffic, preventing people visiting] which used to be legal in many member states, are being prosecuted. Most of these used to be for bad reasons, attacks by rivals, but now more than half are political and there are more prosecutions."

Andersdotter's priorities are looking into how public authorities' security efforts are regulated and held to account, attempting to reform the EU's intellectual property laws, and helping to spread fibre internet – faster broadband speeds – across the EU.

Others aren't content merely to lobby politicians for a free internet. Instead, they have built tools designed to make regulating the internet an impossible task. One of the most widely used is Tor, short for "the onion router".

Tor, when used properly, anonymises all internet traffic coming from a machine by bouncing it around dozens of other computers around the world, taking a different path each time. This means an individual will only be identifiable when he or she chooses to log into a given site.

The system is not infallible, as it can be blocked – temporarily – by authoritarian governments, but provides a huge degree of protection, whether to activists working in oppressive regimes, or to those using the internet to smuggle drugs or share child pornography.

This dilemma has not gone unnoticed by the people behind the tools.

"Criminals will always be opportunists and will see new prospects before everyone else does," says the Tor project's executive director, Andrew Lewman. "Old-fashioned police work still works incredibly well against such people. Almost every transaction in the UK uses EFT [card payment], there is CCTV on every street, and monitoring of online communications – but you still have trafficking and other crimes.

"The benefits of the open internet work much the same as motorways or interstates: they outweigh the costs. In the US, police opposed the building of interstate roads, saying they would help criminals circumvent the law. But the police adapted, and the benefits of highways clearly outweigh the costs."

Lewman says the main motivating factor behind the Tor project is not to overthrow government, or even to engage in activism, but rather to give users control over how they use the internet and who is able to monitor their activity. But he is not surprised that governments are trying to regulate the internet.

"Governments are starting to realise a growing share of their GDP depends on the internet. Government like stability, not rapidly shifting ground," he concludes.

But government could be circumvented entirely, as coders haven't only been building ways of circumventing legal oversight: they have built a whole new stateless currency from the ground up.

The currency is known as Bitcoin, and relies on a series of mathematical algorithms to govern the amount of money in circulation and the future inflation rate. Each Bitcoin has a unique ID and transactions are recorded in public ledgers, making fraud far more difficult than most real-world currencies – but as Bitcoins aren't backed by a government, if they're stolen, they're gone forever, as some early adopters found out to their cost.

At the time of writing, there are more than 8.7m Bitcoins in existence, worth a total of around $42.3m (£26.2m). The combination of a stateless currency and untraceable internet use is a powerful one, as one underground site highlights.

The Silk Road is a website only accessible in the "dark" section of Tor, meaning it can't be viewed or traced on the general internet, and accepts only Bitcoins for payment. The site allows the buying and selling of illegal drugs, predominantly in the US, UK and Netherlands.

Its existence isn't a secret. In 2011 two senators wrote to the US attorney general asking for action to be taken against the site, which was described as a "one-stop shop for illegal drugs that represents the most brazen attempt to peddle drugs online that we have ever seen".

Action against the site, which operates in a similar manner to eBay, linking independent buyers and sellers, has so far proved impossible, and the publicity generated for the Silk Road only boosted its – and Bitcoin's – popularity.

Promoting such enterprises is not, though, the driving motivation for most of the people behind the development of Bitcoin.

One core member of Bitcoin's development team, Amir Taaki, explains the broad motivations of the hacktivist movement from a "hackspace" in east London – a loose members' club designed to let people build, code and tinker as they wish. Even the space's door is customised: it's tailored to open when members pass their Oyster card or similar radio-frequency ID nearby, and then plays a customised greeting (one has chosen the victory theme from Final Fantasy VII, a cult 90s videogame).

The first principle of hacker culture, Taaki says that "all authority should be questioned". He stresses this doesn't mean governments or police are necessarily corrupt, or aren't needed, but that the public should always be in a position to hold such authorities to account.

This leads to the second core principle: information should, generally speaking, be free. Copyright laws, patents, government secrecy and more are a huge target for the movement.

What this would mean for industries such as pharmaceuticals, where a pill may cost pennies to make but millions to research is unclear, though – and Taaki doesn't have the answers. What he does raise is a challenge. To date, it's the entertainment industries – Hollywood, music, television and publishers – that have felt the effects of piracy and filesharing. Developments in technology mean that may not remain the case for long.

Devices known as 3D printers are able to create real-life objects based on three-dimensional plans. The technology is expensive: a cheap commercial machine costs upwards of £10,000, but a build-it-yourself open source version has already been conceived. The RepRap can be built for just over £300. Intriguingly, a RepRap can currently produce around half the parts needed to make another one. Given enough time, the devices will likely be able to print out the parts to make a whole new 3D printer – a self-replicating machine.

It's a technology with impressive potential, the ability to "print" virtually any item that can be conceived – tools, toys, even food – but the applications to date are fairly basic, and costly. At present, the printers can mainly make novelty items – though early, successful attempts to clone plastic Warhammer toys led to lawsuits and a predictable backlash.

A technology that could allow anyone to manufacture any item, given the right blueprints, heralds a huge storm for any company relying on old-world business models – and today's hackers know it.

"The battle between pirates and the music or film industries is really nothing, it's a warm-up," Taaki says. "When this technology matures, manufacturers, agriculture businesses, technology firms, any of this could be easily replicated by almost anyone, anywhere. That's when we'll see the real fight – and they don't even see it coming."

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The cyber misinformation campaign against USA Today

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It's not hard to find a precedent for the harassment alleged by USA Today of its staff investigating Pentagon propaganda

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The report by USA Today in which two of the paper's employees became targets of a widespread and dishonest online disinformation campaign immediately after making inquiring calls to several intelligence contractors with ties to the US military might be very surprising to those of the nation's journalists who only pay attention to our intelligence and security community and its conduct when some of its members are caught with prostitutes. The other dozen or so will not be surprised at all.

In the case that the guilty party is found, and does indeed turn out to be one of the private firms that the Pentagon has hired to provide "information operations" for use in Afghanistan, what are the consequences likely to be?

To judge from the last known incident in which several government contractors were actually caught planning a far more sophisticated campaign of intimidation against yet another journalist, the consequences will not be so bad as to prevent others from doing the same thing. It's easy enough, especially for those firms that are encouraged by their government clients to produce new and better ways by which to lie and discredit. And there's money in it.

Early in 2011, four contracting firms with strong government ties – HBGary Federal, Palantir, Berico and Endgame Systems – decided to combine their capabilities and set up a high-end private info warfare unit called Team Themis. Bank of America asked them to write a proposal for a covert campaign against WikiLeaks. Aside from hacking the group's European servers, the team raised the possibility of going after Salon contributor Glenn Greenwald, a prominent WikiLeaks supporter. "These are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals," wrote HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr. He resigned with a severance package a few weeks after the affair was exposed by Anonymous; soon afterwards, he got a new job with another government contractor.

What of the others? Berico simply broke ties with HBGary Federal, as if it were merely a bad influence. Endgame Systems, whose execs explicitly noted in internal emails that their government clients didn't want its name appearing in a press release, was barely noted by the press at all – until, a few months later, Business Week discovered that their shyness may stem from the fact that they have the capability to take out West European airports via cyber attacks (if you've got a couple of million dollars to pay for that).

Palantir, which received seed money from the CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, and shares founders with PayPal, made a public apology to the effect that the cyber-plotting did not reflect the company's values, and put one of the employees involved, Matthew Steckman, on leave. A few months later, when the press had lost interest, Palantir brought him back on. Nothing at all seems to have happened to another employee, Eli Bingham, who was also heavily involved. When Palantir throws its annual convention, it still attracts keynote speakers like former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff – who happens to be on the board of another huge contractor, BAE Systems, which, in turn, happened to have done some business with HBGary Federal, as well.

To be fair, these sorts of companies provide valuable services to the US and its allies. For instance, when US Central Command (CentCom) needed software that would allow 50 of its information warfare people to pretend to be 500 entirely fake people who don't exist outside the internet, it had the USAF put out a call for bids. A number of contractors were up for the job – including the ethically challenged HBGary Federal – but only one of them could actually win.

Perhaps the others can provide this sort of "persona management" capability to other, private clients with a need to discredit their enemies in a clandestine fashion. I can think of about a dozen journalists they might want to go after. The rest won't be a problem.

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‘Anonymous’ hacker: Legalize marijuana for the cure



Heroes to some and villians to others, the “Anonymous” movement has come to symbolize much more than just a group of rogue hackers. But far from breaking into computer networks run by rogue governments or multinational corporations, as they’ve come to be known for, the online hacktivists now have their sights set on a different human rights issue entirely: marijuana prohibition.

Members of the hacking collective, who were at the epicenter of planning and promoting “Occupy Wall Street” last year, announced earlier this month that April 20, 2012 would mark the beginning of an official “Anonymous” push-back against America’s drug laws.

Speaking to Raw Story this week, a person claiming to be a member of “Anonymous,” who watched an attack on Sony’s website from behind the scenes but did not participate, claimed responsibility for the group’s new “OpCannabis” campaign, explaining that the operation is determined to throw the collective’s weight behind drug reform.

After launching a pitch for “OpCannabis” over one year ago, the hacker said that their “PR text evolved into a video,” which was “translated into German by parties unknown,” but then it fizzled.

“[S]omething was missing,” the source explained. “For some reason my inbox wasn’t blowing up and only a few hundred people seemed to show interest. This may or may not have had something to do with AnonNews deciding not to carry our press release. Thankfully this has since been resolved.”

Now that the leading “Anonymous” news account has tuned into the marijuana campaign and began circulating the latest “OpCannabis” updates, it has gone global.

Members of “Anonymous” plan to get outside and be vocal on Friday during nationwide protests against America’s drug policies. Some may even be following up with more computer hacking and website defacement. And just earlier this month, “OpCannabis” got its own website and Twitter account, connecting hundreds of “Anonymous” activists who are now sharing ideas to foster the push-back against prohibition.

But “OpCannabis” isn’t designed to be a hacking spree, Raw Story’s nameless source explained. “Anyone I’ve found that is involved with marijuana activism, I’ve told that they can e-mail any and all materials to the opcannabis@gmail.com and I’ll sort through it and get it on the site.”

“We ask you to please educate yourself on its many benefits and share these benefits with your sick or injured friends,” an “OpCannabis” press release implores. “We all know somebody that has cancer or diabetes and cannabis has helped or cured both and many other disorders! Anonymous will begin its support for the legalization of cannabis on 4/20/12. So please show your support by educating yourselves and making your profile pic or timeline banner on your social services accts green or 420 friendly.”

They’ve also asked that each chapter of the remaining “Occupy” groups around the country participate in marijuana-related events, pointing out the billions already spent just this year to incarcerate tens of thousands of marijuana prisoners around the country.

Raw Story’s source specifically pointed at the government’s hypocrisy in declaring that the plant has no medical value when pharmaceutical companies are practically begging for permits to research new marijuana-based drugs that address a whole host of ailments, including possible cures for several types of cancer.

“I think the Internet is an absolutely great medium for getting uncensored information,” Raw Story’s nameless source explained. “I’ve read countless stories of doctors outright denying that cannabis has any medical value, when the previously terminally ill cancer patients with six weeks to live are sitting in front of them cancer free two years later. I think through accurate and scientifically valid examination of cannabis and CB1/CB2 receptors, CBD and THC we can prove without a doubt what so many doctors don’t want you to know.”

“Cures don’t make money,” the “Anonymous” member concluded. “Half-assed and defective cures keep you dependent on the medical industry and its artificial products and keep you buying month after month until you die. They don’t want you cured. And that’s the sad reality.”