Anonops #6: Anonymous en de MO-revoluties

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http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/rsa-2011-winning-war-losing-our-soul-022211#comment-6626

There was lots of noise and distraction on the crowded Expo floor of the RSA Security Conference this year. After a grueling couple of years, vendors were back in force with big booths, big news and plenty of entertainment designed to attract visitor traffic. Wandering the floor, I saw - variously - magic tricks, a man walking on stilts, a whack-a-mole game, a man dressed in a full suit of armor and a 15 foot long racetrack that I would have killed for when I was 10.

The most telling display, however, may have been the one in Booth 556, where malware forensics firm HBGary displayed a simple sign saying that it had decided to remove its booth and cancel scheduled talks by its executives. This, after the online mischief making group Anonymous broke into the computer systems of the HBGary Federal subsidiary and stole proprietary and confidential information. The HBGary sign stayed up for a couple days, got defaced by someone at the show and was later removed. When I swung by HBGary's booth on Thursday, it was a forlorn and empty patch of brown carpet where a couple marketing types where holding an impromptu bull session.

It would be easy to say that the lesson of HBGary is that "anyone can get hacked." After all, the company's founder, Greg Hoglund is one of the smartest security folks around - hands down. He's a recognized expert on malware and, literally, wrote the book on rootkit programs. HBGary Federal's customers included the U.S. Department of Defense as well as spy agencies like the CIA and NSA.

Or maybe the lesson of HBGary is simply not to "kick the hornet's nest," so to speak: needlessly provoking groups like Anonymous who have shown themselves to be hungry for publicity and have little to lose in a confrontation. Maybe, the lesson is simply that, if you're going to kick the hornet's nest, as HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr was determined to, then at least to spend some time securing your Web- and e-mail infrastructure and following password security best practices before you commence said kicking.

But I think the real lesson of the hack - and of the revelations that followed it - is that the IT security industry, having finally gotten the attention of law makers, Pentagon generals and public policy establishment wonks in the Beltway, is now in mortal danger of losing its soul. We've convinced the world that the threat is real - omnipresent and omnipotent. But in our desire to combat it, we are becoming indistinguishable from the folks with the black hats.

Of course, none of this is intended to excuse the actions of Anonymous, who HBGary President Penny Leavy, in a conversation with Threatpost, rightly labeled "criminals" rather than politically motivated "hacktivists." The attack on HBGary was an unsubtle, if effective, act of intimidation designed to send a message to Barr and other would be cyber sleuths: 'stay away.'

We can see their actions for what they are, and sympathize deeply with Aaron Barr, Greg Hoglund and his wife (and HBGary President) Penny Leavy for the harm and embarrassment caused by the hackers from Anonymous, who published some 70,000 confidential company e-mails online for the world to see. Those included confidential company information, as well as personal exchanges between HBGary staff that were never intended for a public airing. Its easy to point the finger and chortle upon reading them, but how many of us (or the Anonymous members, themselves) could stand such scrutiny?

Its harder to explain away the substance of many other e-mail messages which have emerged in reporting by Ars Technica as well as others. They show a company executives like HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr mining social networks for data to "scare the s***" out of potential customers, in theory to win their business. While "scare 'em and snare 'em" may be business as usual in the IT security industry, other HBGary Federal skunk works projects clearly crossed a line: a proposal for a major U.S. bank, allegedly Bank of America, to launch offensive cyber attacks on the servers that host the whistle blower site Wikileaks. HBGary was part of a triumvirate of firms that also included Palantir Inc and Berico Technologies, that was working with the law firm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to develop plans to target progressive groups, labor unions and other left-leaning non profits who the Chamber opposed with a campaign of false information and entrapment. Other leaked e-mail messages reveal work with General Dynamics and a host of other firms to develop custom, stealth malware and collaborations with other firms selling offensive cyber capabilities including knowledge of previously undiscovered ("zero day") vulnerabilities.

Look, there's nothing wrong with private firms helping Uncle Sam to develop cyber offensive capabilities. In an age of sophisticated and wholesale cyber espionage by nation states opposed to the U.S., the U.S. government clearly needs to be able to fight fire with fire. Besides, everybody already knew that Greg Hoglund was writing rootkits for the DoD, so is it right to say we're "shocked! shocked!" to read his e-mail and find out that what we all suspected was true? I don't think so.

What's more disturbing is the way that the folks at HBGary - mostly Aaron Barr, but others as well - came to view the infowar tactics they were pitching to the military and its contractors as applicable in the civilian context, as well. How effortlessly and seamlessly the focus on "advanced persistent threats" shifted from government backed hackers in China and Russia to encompass political foes like ThinkProgress or the columnist Glenn Greenwald. Anonymous may have committed crimes that demand punishment - but its up to the FBI to handle that, not "a large U.S. bank" or its attorneys.

The HBGary e-mails, I think, cast the shenanigans on the RSA Expo floor in a new and scarier light. What other companies, facing the kind of short term financial pressure that Barr and HBGary Federal felt might also cross the line - donning the gray hat, or the black one? What threat to all of our liberties does that kind of IT security firepower pose when its put at the behest of corporations, government agencies, stealth political groups or their operatives? Bruce Schneier - our industry's Obi-Wan Kenobi - has warned about this very phenomena: the way the military's ever expanding notion of "cyber war," like the Bush era's "War on Terror" does little to promote security, but a lot to promote inchoate fear. That inchoate fear then becomes a justification for futher infringement on our liberties.

"We reinforce the notion that we're helpless -- what person or organization can defend itself in a war? -- and others need to protect us. We invite the military to take over security, and to ignore the limits on power that often get jettisoned during wartime," Schneier observed. That kind of conflation is clear reading Barr's e-mails where the line between sales oriented tactics and offensive actions blur. The security industry veterans I spoke with at this year's show were as aghast at Barr's trip far off reservation, but they also expressed a weary recognition that, in the security business, this is where things are headed.

What's the alternative? Schneier notes that focusing on cyber crime as "crime" rather than "war" tends to avoid the problems with demagoguery. Focus on cyber crime and hacking in the same way as you focus on other types of crimes: as long term problems that must be managed within the "context of normal life," rather than "wars" that pose an existential threat to those involved and must be won at all costs. The U.S. needs peacetime cyber-security "administered within the myriad structure of public and private security institutions we already have" rather than extra-judicial vigilantism and covert ops of the kind the HBGary e-mails reveal. Here's hoping HBGary is the wake up call the industry needed to reverse course.

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Submitted by Anonypussy (not verified) on Sat, 02/26/2011 - 5:12pm.

"to excuse the actions of Anonymous,"



There's no reason for excuse. Information is free.

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This is where the link to openness (or the lack of it) comes in: As we all know, and the execs at BofA and HGF reinforce, zero-days can be powerful weapons. Exclusive knowledge of zero-days gives the possessor incredible power, and in cases such as these, almost always lead to corruption and misuse. It can be argued that we are better off as an industry if openness is employed as a means of elevating collective knowledge and also as a way to enforce checks and balances, so that no one company or individual is significantly more powerful in its knowledge and expertise than others. In such an industry, cyber offense is only a distant possibility, as you will be on a level playing ground with your adversaries.

Creating such an open culture for the security community requires a shift in thinking, because this is an industry that thrives on secrecy and obscurity. It requires that we recognize that secrecy, obscurity, and the act to restrict information can ultimately do more harm than good. It requires that we promote open research and build an ecosystem that rewards openness.

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From the aspect of development of cyber weapons the fact that HBGary was developing them for many clients is not suprising, however what to me personally was suprising is that you ripped yet ANOTHER of my ideas, my autonomous malware not requiring a C2 connection with your Magenta rootkit. Now I grant you, your not going to actually publicly credit me for inspiring your awesome creation due to classification and Offensive IO weapons development, but neither did you consult me on my ideas or even engage me in talks. I will simply take it for what its worth, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Ironically again, I think I actually did another blog posting about that when after discussing my Malware DNA idea, you developed code for it in private 30 days later, filed for a trademark, and then patented it and released it 6 months later as a marketable product, all along declaring to Goverment clients in proposals that this was solely developed by you and another developer with PRIVATE funds

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> > This law firm represents HBGary, Inc. One of the websites you are hosting,
> > http://conanthedestroyer.(...)gins-of-malware-dna/ is
> > being used to distribute confidential trade secrets and copyrighted works that have been misappropriated from HBGary as part of a well-publicized criminal intrusion into their network.

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Anony_Ops Anonymous Operations
BreakingNews: #OpEmmaa started. Women of the internets rising to support #Anonymous. Join #OpEmmaa Make yourselves heard. You are Anonymiss!

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AnonymousIRC Anonymous
by miaubiz
#OpEmmaa kicked off. We're not sure what we're doing but it involves a girl, so it's awesome. Also we have dedicated DNS. @emma_a

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http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/02/28/hackers-vs-billionaires-anonymous-takes-down-koch-supported-websites-amid-wisconsin-protests/

The hacker collective Anonymous may have just made its highest net-worth enemies yet. In the midst of the weekend’s protests in support of Wisconsin’s public employees, the group declared war on the billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, taking down two Koch-backed sites with cyberattacks and calling for a boycott on companies in which the brothers have invested.

Anonymous laid out its grievances against at the billionaires duo, tied for fifth on Forbes’ list of the richest Americans with a combined wealth of $43 billion, in a statement that tied them to the bill that aims to end collective bargaining rights for state employees in Wisconsin.

On Sunday night, both the website of Koch-backed antiregulatory group Americans For Prosperity and a community forum site for Koch-backed toilet paper company Northern Quilt were down (at least every time I checked) for more than five hours under cyberattacks from Anonymous.

“It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch–the billionaire owners of Koch Industries–have long attempted to usurp American Democracy,” reads the statement. “Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.” The statement goes on to accuse the brothers of creating fake grassroots groups to oppose the unions in order to cheaply gain a monopoly on Wisconsin’s power utilities.

The statement also called for boycotts on U.S. brands including Dixie, Brawny and Angel Soft.

Back in the offline world, more than 100,000 Wisconsinites have taken to the streets in Madison and some continue to occupy the State’s capitol building.

The attack on the Tea-Party-associated Koch brothers is the latest in Anonymous’ increasingly political actions, and not one that all members of the group seem to support. One member of the group who says he was associated with the earlier hack of security firm HBGary told me via instant message that he wasn’t involved with the Koch takedown, and that proposals to attack the Tea Party have been unpopular within the group’s ranks. A blog post about another Anonymous threat to take down Tea-Party-related websites posted to AnonNews.org was ranked among the least popular on the site.

“Anonymous does not approve,” wrote one user on the site. Another questioned whether the Tea Party might not have some ideals in common with the libertarian hacker collective. “Interestingly the rank and file of the [Tea Party] probably share similar views as we do in relation to many aspects of freedom, it seems they are co-opted by business at the top levels but not lower down at all,” writes the anonymous commenter. “Makes me wonder if hitting the baggers is more useful than trying to steal them from big business.”

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There has been a lot of information brought to light about the alleged backdoor dealings between the billionaire Koch brothers and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in the weeks since public employees began protesting attempts to strip them of their collective bargaining rights. The debate that began in Wisconsin has spread nation-wide, organizations are reporting on Walker’s budget provision to allow no-bid contracts of that state’s power plants, and even the group of hacktivists known as Anonymous are firing back at Koch-funded fronts like Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party.

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http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/hbgary-federal-ceo-aaron-barr-steps-down-022811

Embattled CEO Aaron Barr says he is stepping down from his post at HBGary Federal to allow the company to move on after an embarassing data breach.

The announcement comes three weeks after Barr became the target of a coordinated attack by members of the online mischief making group Anonymous, which hacked into HBGary Federal's computer network and published tens of thousands of company e-mail messages on the Internet. HBGary did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comments on Barr's resignation.

In an interview with Threatpost, Barr said that he is stepping down to allow himself and the company he ran to move on in the wake of the high profile hack.


“I need to focus on taking care of my family and rebuilding my reputation," Barr said in a phone interview. "It’s been a challenge to do that and run a company. And, given that I’ve been the focus of much of bad press, I hope that, by leaving, HBGary and HBGary Federal can get away from some of that. I’m confident they’ll be able to weather this storm.”

The group conducted a preemptive strike on HBGary after Barr was quoted in a published article saying that he had identified the leadership of the group and planned to disclose their identities at the B-Sides Security Conference in San Francisco.

By combining a SQL injection attack on HBGary's Web site with sophisticated social engineering attacks, the group gained access to the company's Web- and e-mail servers as well as the Rootkit.com Web site, a site also launched by HBGary founder Greg Hoaglund. Ultimately, the group defaced HBGary's Web site and disgorged the full contents of e-mail accounts belonging to Barr, Hoglund and other company executives.

Though Barr and HBGary were the victims of the hack, the contents of the e-mail messages divulged plans that cast both in an unflattering light. Among them were data mining efforts and mentions of possible disinformation campaigns on behalf of a "large U.S. bank" and the law firm that represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that seem to run afoul of civil liberties and professional ethics.

HBGary counted many U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense, CIA and NSA as customers. The disclosure of e-mail messages from the company poses a major security risk to those organizations, as well as individuals who had corresponded with the firm. The breach also raises troubling questions about the direction that HBGary and other Beltway firms have taken. Email exchanges published online revealed the firm to be at work on a variety of plans to do data mining and information operations on U.S. organizations and journalists on behalf of clients including law firms representing a large U.S. bank and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Most recently, the incident spilled into the mainstream, with comedian Stephen Colbert devoting a segment of his Colbert Report program on February 24 to the HBGary hack.

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# Jonlabove_normal jonlabove RT @atopiary: Aaron Barr has quit! Join our party on IRC: http://irc.lc/Anonops/AnonLeaks | Official party music: http://bit.ly/gSTPN7 #HBGary #Anonymous 2 minutes ago via web

Original Party Hard music

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ANOTHER note to journalists.

Those of you monitoring this war of press releases are witnessing the explosion of what has been a growing rift inAnonymous. There are two main camps worth discussing: ³oldfags´ and ³newfags,´ the latter sometimes known as ³moralfags.´

Oldfags are the group most associated with the controversial board 4chan. They are avid consumers (and likelyproducers) of child porn, and pics and vids of gore, including decapitated people, and tortured and dismembered animals - often acts perpetrated by oldfags themselves for the enjoyment of their inhuman brethren. They arenihilists, sociopaths and sadists. They have no perceptible morality or ethics, and are only interested in ³lulz´ thatcome at a cost of pain and suffering to others. These oldfags often sympathize with the Tea Party and other similarly antisocial brands of anarchism. They cannot be trusted to do the right thing, and in fact, can usually betrusted to do the most horrible things imaginable. They are skilled at chaos and destruction, however, and driven by an egotistical, narcissistic will that all should fear. Evil is a good definition for what oldfags represent. Fortunately,this group is small, and their influence on the ranks of Anonymous is rapidly diminishing. Anonymous only owes these cretins thanks for the meme of Anonymous, a meme which would mean little if it had not been expanded to represent newfag-style hacktivism for causes greater than the sick fulfillment of wounded, twisted egos that hate everything in the world.

Newfags are very different. While we share a lack of respect for the flawed laws of men that serve only the powerfuland wealthy - the oppressors - we have a higher purpose: The dignity of humanity and its expression and fulfillment within the framework of a new civilization, currently under development in the form of the internet. Newfags envision humanity shaking off the shackles of authority, greed and apathetic powers that have little to do with the collective will of humanity. Anonymous, newfags believe, is itself a powerful facet of that collective will of humanity, a voice growing stronger by the day. Like oldfags, we treasure lulz, but get our kicks from those acts and ideas of creative destruction that empower humanity, not diminish it.

In the end, we encourage the media and people everywhere to accept us for what we are. A flawed entity, but one that is more good than evil, a trait we share with each individual human, and with humanity as a whole. We ask that you help us be a better person. Look beyond our weaknesses and see us for our strengths, as this will help those traits develop more fully, and help us outgrow our pathetic roots.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.

Expect us ± always

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Anonymous are Not Your Personal Army. I do not claim that I am or Speak for Anonymous. I do know that At least 100 years ago there was a time when Anonymous stood for nothing. Thats right nothing, but for one exception: Anonymous stood for the free and open exchange of information online, and freedom of speech. Anonymous did not stand for truth, justice, and the American way. They did not stand for equality, or rights, or anything else. They were not co-ordinated with anyone, They had no allegiance (save for a tenuous one with each other) and they certainly had no guiding purpose. They despised white knights, trolled to facebook accounts of the newly deceased for lulz, mocked moralfags, and had fun at the expense of others for no other reason then because they wanted to show the world that they can do what they want online. Why did they do that? Because that is what Anonymous was about: doing whatever you want online....for the lulz. It used to be that they only attacked those who want to get in the way of the flow of information. They were not 12, and they knew exactly what this was. They had no leaders, and no structure (see pic for perfect diagram of the anonymous hierarchy)

Now something has happened, everywhere I look it sounds like im sitting in some fucking University Sociology class with a bunch of newfags talking about how we need to be getting politically active. Anonymous is not some leftwing sockpuppet to do the bidding of unions and Rachel Maddow. Nor are they all a bunch of Ron Paul loving teapartyfags. Anonymous consists of everything from Anarchists, to Libertarians, to Conservatives, Liberals and anything else on the political spectrum. There were all kinds of people, we even had those who don't count as people (women - looking at you here) being Anonymous.

So please newfags, Fuck off and stop riding Anonymous' coat-tails. Magnanimous, you ripped off the logo, imitated anonspeak, and ended your statement with a slightly modified version of the tagline. You are poseurs. Die in a fire. You have never seen the Marblcake, you have no thrust vectoring so your skies are owned by real Anons, you have come to the wrong place, you have messed with football, and more importantly, you have closed the pool with your aids. All your efforts efforts to imitate and goad Anonymous into doing your bidding fail. You make Chips handon look legit and it's time to stop. Thank you for your time.

The return to what we once wereI call, operation chaotic neutral

I am not anonymous,

I am not legion

I forgive

I forget

Don't expect me - evar (I'm to busy masturbating to chubbies on 4chan)

P.S.Pic included with this post gives a perfect representation of the structure of Anonymous.

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Op dinsdag 1 maart 2011 02:10 schreef truepositive het volgende:
Bedankt voor het constant updaten van deze thread, ik heb besloten dat dit dagelijks nieuws gaat worden voor mij

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley experienced a "very sensitive" break-in to its network by the same China-based hackers who attacked Google Inc's computers more than a year ago, Bloomberg reported, citing leaked emails from an Internet security company.

The emails from the Sacramento, California-based computer security firm HBGary Inc said that Morgan Stanley -- the first financial institution identified in the series of attacks -- considered details of the intrusion a closely guarded secret, the report said.

Bloomberg quoted Phil Wallisch, a senior security engineer at HBGary, as saying that he read an internal Morgan Stanley report detailing the so-called Aurora attacks.

The HBGary emails don't indicate what information may have been stolen from Morgan Stanley's databanks or which of the world's largest merger adviser's multinational operations were targeted, according to the report.

Representatives for HBGart were not immediately available for comment.

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http://www.washingtonpost(...)AR2011022805810.html
A group of House Democrats is calling on Republican leaders to investigate a prominent Washington law firm and three federal technology contractors, who have been shown in hacked e-mails discussing a "disinformation campaign" against foes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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http://blogs.forbes.com/a(...)-with-bar-complaint/
The nuclear fallout from HBGary’s tangle with the hacker collective Anonymous has blown into the territory of another player in the scandal: Hunton & Williams, the law firm that solicited proposals from HBGary on behalf of clients like Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Kevin Zeese, a lawyer with the NGOs VelvetRevolution.us and StopTheChamber.com, filed a complaint with the Washington, D.C. Bar Association earlier this week against John Woods, Richard Wyatt Jr., and Robert Quackenboss, three members of the law firm Hunton & Williams, seeking their disbarment. The complaint alleges a long list of misbehavior that includes domestic spying, cyber stalking, spear phishing, cyber attacks, and theft.

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Nature of anonymous operations makes fbi arrests difficult

The world is still somewhat perplexed over Anonymous Operations, the group of online activists who temporarily shut down the websites of PayPal and Mastercard in retaliation for actions against WikiLeaks.

The organization, composed of anonymous users, has few if any official stances and no political orientation. Their activities have ranged from helping activists in Iran and Egypt, to launching cyberattacks against Amazon.com, to providing information that led to the arrest of an animal abuser.

While the FBI is targeting its members for arrest—particularly those involved in the Mastercard cyberattacks, and more recently against security company HBGary—finding a group with no leadership and whose members may or may not engage in illegal activities could prove difficult.

“Anonymous has no definite structure or leadership. It is merely a name that people use. Therefore, it’s hard to put a number on Anonymous at all, let alone the amount of people that engage in such actions,” said a member of Anonymous in an e-mail interview, who requested to be cited as “Anonymous.”

Even among Anonymous Operations (AnonOps) members, there are disagreements around the ethics of each given operation.

According to Anonymous, the different views are “the nature of the organization,” adding “consensus is not only unnecessary, but also often not reached amongst Anonymous members. We all choose, and are responsible for, our personal actions. Many of us choose perfectly legal avenues of dissent.”

A recent press release from members of AnonOps apologizes for the actions of some of its members. “We have invaded the privacy of corporations, and no matter what other Anons say, the standard behind Anonymous did not agree with the HBGary hit,” states the press release. “In fact, many of us are waiting for those who were involved in that Operation to be taken in by the law and will not associate with that sort of outlet.”

Since they have no leadership, however, there are also problems of individuals trying to represent the group as a whole or starting operations on their own.

Their most recent project, “Operation Wisconsin,” is targeting Wisconsin-based company Koch Industries, which they believe “recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin,” according to an AnonOps press release.

Another press release, published on their AnonNews website, states otherwise: “While some Anons are undoubtedly passionate about this issue, it would be a mistake to report that Anonymous is targeting the Koch brothers, or are even uniform in their opinion of collective bargaining rights of public employees at the state level.”

Some operations also fizzle out due to lack of wide support from AnonOps members. One in particular, “Operation 1984,” was announced with a clock counting down the minutes to when it would launch. Months later, the operation never happened.

AnonOps members say they’re unsure of what happened to Operation 1984. “I don’t think anyone cared for it. It was just an operation setup by a bunch of guys,” said an AnonOps member in their official IRC chat for journalists, who requested to be cited as “Anon.”

Not all of their operations are malicious either. A large part of their “Operation Freedom” to support activists, including those in Egypt and Libya, is sending a “Care Package.”

The package is a file containing information and tools. Among them are guides to circumvent government Internet blockades, first aid information, and even a tool to remove the Tunisian government’s phishing scripts that steal e-mail and social networking accounts.

Their main tool, however, is a free program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) that launches distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on websites. A DDoS attack can shut down a website by overloading it.

They also recently obtained the binaries of the Stuxnet computer virus through e-mails stolen from HBGary. Stuxnet is the virus used to destroy nuclear centrifuges at Iran’s nuclear power plant.

According to Anon, however, they have no plans to use it. “Not sure how we could use a virus designed to destroy SCADA systems,” Anon said, adding that the binaries were already available.

“[The] vulnerabilities have been patched by now,” stated another member, also by the name “Anon,” who added, “it’s basically ... uninteresting.”

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Calls to hack Gaddafi's personal webpage
Tuesday, 01 March 2011 11:27

There have been calls for protesters across Libya for cyber hacker to attack the Libyan dictators personal page at http://www.algathafi.org/html-arabic/index.htm this request has been personally targeted at the infamous hackers that call them selves anonymous.

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AliTweel my opinion: to stop Libyans from killing each other, the truth must be revealed, this will not be possible without stopping LibyanTV's lies.

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LibyanAffairs ACTION NOW: PLZ email/call/fax NileSat to block Libyan State TV becuz they are promoting violence! http://bit.ly/dZ0Fto #Egypt #Libya #Feb17

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http://networkedblogs.com/eUaK7

I am completely fascinated with the work/antics of the internet hactivists know as Anonymous. They have it seems, become at least in part, the Robin Hood of the intertubes.

You may not agree with their motives or their actions but the undercover group has become downright legendary. They fearlessly stand up against organizations that terrify many such as, Scientology. They defend freedom of information by guaranteeing space for Wikileaks. They help oppressed, war ravaged people comunicate and (as of the writing of this post) they do interesting little things like shut down the hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church’s website, “godhatesfags.com” for 7 days (and counting.)

The mysteries that surround the group bring up more questions than answers.

Are they preventing free speech while trying to preserve it? A little.
Are they breaking the law? Yes, in some cases.
Is it for the greater good? The jury is still out.

And now the question is: Are they feminists?

Anonymous has started a campaign to encourage women to come on board as supporters called, Anonymiss.



Anonymiss

Taken from the Anonymous news website:

Gentlemen,

tell your girlfriends, your wives, your sisters, your mothers, that we protect their freedom of speech all around the world. And tell them that it will be even more protected if they protect it themselves. And if they don’t do it for the fun, tell them to do it for the innumerable censored women all over the planet. Don’t be a wanker : share our ideal!

A quick search on the #anonymiss hash tag on twitter brings up topics ranging from teaching women how to seek online privacy by getting behind a proxy, to being an activist for the group, to joining their IRC network, to talking about getting more “hot” girls online. Hmmmm, not sure about that last one and I’m not sure what the outcome of this will be, but they have my attention.

So what do YOU make of this? Is Anonymiss pro-feminism or quite the opposite? What do you think the goal of this operation is? Could it be helpful to encourage freedom for women in oppressed places? Will it encourage more women in technology? Does anyone know where I can get a black tailored suit?

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http://www.escapistmagazi(...)consin-Labor-Dispute

No longer content to be hacker watchdogs, Anonymous is now apparently blowing the whistle on the underlying government corruption in the Wisconsin brouhaha.

Anonymous brought down the Americans for Prosperity website with a DDoS attack and released a statement asking us all to boycott Koch Industries products like Quilted Northern, Angel Soft and Dixie cups. The statement claimed that the billionaire brothers Koch are undermining the democracy of our country through funding organizations to protest against the state workers of Wisconsin who are fighting for their right to negotiate their contracts as a group. Anonymous believes Koch Industries is doing this in order to profit and not because of any interest in furthering the political process. As of press time, however, the Americans for Prosperity website is back online.

The goings-on in Wisconsin have been the talk of the mainstream news in America the last few weeks. The newly elected Governor of the state previously best known for its dairy products and football teams proposed a bill that would seriously curtail state-paid workers (including teachers) medical benefits and make it illegal for them to negotiate with the state as a consolidated group. Removing the labor unions' right to collective bargaining will effectively render them useless organizations, and even though Governor Scott Walker says that he is more concerned with balancing his budget, he says he won't budge on outlawing collective bargaining.

Enter Anonymous. The hacker group discovered a little-noticed clause in the bill proposed by Walker which would allow the state to sell its utilities to anyone it chose, at any price, without the public even being notified. This clause would allow companies like Koch Industries to purchase publicly owned utility plants, and Anonymous believes this is the reason that Koch-funded "grassroots" organizations like Americans For Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United are supporting Walker's plan to rid the unions of their collective power.

"It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch - the billionaire owners of Koch Industries - have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back," a statement purportedly from Anonymous read.

At first glance, it seems that the hacker conglomerate Anonymous is gaining legitimacy in furthering its own political agenda of freedom of information and empowering the downtrodden. Many people, myself included, want to picture this loosely-held together group of posters on a forum as something grander than they actually are. One or two, or even twenty so-called "members" of Anonymous might support the unions in Wisconsin, but there are just as many - if not more - who think the whole mess is a load of political bullshit that's not worth their attention. As one Anonymous member writes, "Anonymous is not some leftwing sockpuppet to do the bidding of unions and Rachel Maddow. Nor are they all a bunch of Ron Paul loving teapartyfags. Anonymous consists of everything from Anarchists, to Libertarians, to Conservatives, Liberals and anything else on the political spectrum."

Anonymous even has a handy guide for people who are too quick to equate the group's actions with some overarching political agenda:

Anonymous has no official position on abortion
Anonymous has no official position on tax policy
Anonymous has no official position on health care
Anonymous has no official position on collective bargaining agreements
Anonymous has no official position on campaign finance reform
Anonymous has no official position on the Tea Party
Anonymous has no official position on the Democratic Party
Anonymous has no official position on the Republican Party
Anonymous has no official position on the Green Party
Anonymous has no official position on global warming
Anonymous has no official position on off-shore drilling
Anonymous has no official position on budget deficits
Anonymous has no official position on George Soros
Anonymous has no official position on the Koch brothers
Anonymous has no official position on Fox News
Anonymous has no official position on MSNBC
Anonymous has no official position on CNN
Anonymous has no official position on NAFTA
Anonymous has no official position on the IMF or World Bank
Anonymous has no official position on Wall Street
Anonymous has no official position on entitlement programs
Anonymous has no official position on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Anonymous has a very fucking official position on LULZ

I don't know why, but that list makes me happy. My faith in the hackerdom of Anonymous is restored.

quote:

http://www.dailykos.com/s(...)p-Palantir-Do-it-now

Anonymous' counterattack against HBGary and the network of federal contractors and even government agencies that colluded in unethical and perhaps illegal activities in an effort to destroy Glenn Greenwald, Wikileaks, and various unions has yielded a number of victories for decency and transparency. Still, our work - which is yours as well - is far from over. Thus it is that we invite you to consider the following:

1. Facebook heavy Peter Thiel is pimping the firm Palantir, in which he has invested quite heavily, as the next big thing.

2. Palantir was involved in the HBGary affair, itself one of the most incredible and ostentatious conspiracies to have been revealed in years.

3. Nonetheless, Palantir initially "cut off ties" from HBGary in such a way as to leave the blame with that firm...

4. ... despite the fact that their own employee, who was presumably not working unsupervised despite insane claims to the contrary by Palantir, was heavily involved in some of the most disgusting plans.

5. After we discovered the extent of his role, I contacted Steckman via e-mail to provide terms of surrender a couple Fridays ago (and forwarded to press to protect myself). I received a call from the firm's head counsel an hour later (which I recorded and provided to a journalist, again to protect myself). He and I agreed on a conference call for 1:00 pm EST the next day - one which they seem to have decided not to attend.

6. Palantir is lying.

7. What follows is a guide, prepared by Anonymous lawyers (seriously - we have those now) which I have provided to Glenn Greenwald and other relevant parties. Now is the time to distribute it in such a way as to help ensure that a firm like Palantir does not end up being any sort of Facebook or even a ChipsAhoy.com.

8. By downloading an IRC client and joining irc.anonops.in #anonleaks, anyone may also join us in our targeted rampage against the parties that have engaged in what I would refer to as the "politics of personal destruction" were Anonymous not so rightly intent on the personal destruction of those who brought the U.S. to this sad and degenerate age.

9. We do not forgive.

10. We do not forget.

quote:

http://www.anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=619

Open Letter To The World

We stand at a unique time in our history, the rise of the internet and computer technology have contributed to an unparalleled rate of prosperity for the First World.

We have created for ourselves and empire unlike any other, a global network of constant trade and communication, a new age of technological advancement. We have come a long way from our humble roots in the Industrial Revolution and the days of Manifest Destiny. We are now pioneers on new digital frontiers expanding our domain from the quantum world to the far reaches of space.

And yet, the empire faces a crisis, a global recession, growing poverty, rampant violence, corruption in politics, and threats to personal freedom. As it was before in other times of crisis, the old stories have begun to repeat themselves. The half truths, this time repeated nightly on cable news and echoed through a series of tubes onto the internet: the empire is strong, change is unwise, business as usual is the answer. In times of uncertainty there are those who seek to add to the confusion, to prey on our insecurities and fears. Those who would seek to keep us divided for their own gain. The pervasive strategy takes many very convincing forms: Liberals and Conservatives, Christians and Muslims, Black and White, Saved and sinner.

But something unexpected is happening. We have begun telling each other our own stories. Sharing our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our demons. Every second, day in day out, into all hours of the night the gritty details of life on this earth are streaming around the world. As we see the lives of others played out in our living rooms we are beginning to understand the consequences of our actions and the error of the old ways. We are questioning the old assumptions that we are made to consume not to create, that the world was made for our taking, that wars are inevitable, that poverty is unavoidable. As we learn more about our global community a fundamental truth has been rediscovered: We are not so different as we may seem. Every human has strengths, weaknesses, and deep emotions. We crave love, love laughter, fear being alone and dream for a better life.

You must create a better life.

You cannot sit on the couch watching television or playing video games, waiting for a revolution. You are the revolution. Every time you decide not to exercise your rights, every time you refuse to hear another view point, every time you ignore the world around you, every time you spend a dollar at a business that doesn't pay a fair wage you are contributing to the oppression of the human body and the repression of the human mind. You have a choice, a choice to take the easy path, the familiar path, to walk willingly into your own submission. Or a choice get up, to go outside and talk to your neighbor, to come together in new forums to create lasting, meaningful change for the human race.

This is our challenge:

A peaceful revolution, a revolution of ideas, a revolution of creation. The twenty-first century enlightenment. A global movement to create a new age of tolerance and understanding, empathy and respect. An age of unfettered technological development. An age of sharing ideas and cooperation. An age of artistic and personal expression. We can choose to use new technology for radical positive change or let it be used against us. We can choose to keep the internet free, keep channels of communication open and dig new tunnels into those places where information is still guarded. Or we can let it all close in around us. As we move in to new digital worlds, we must acknowledge the need for honest information and free expression. We must fight to keep the internet open as a marketplace of ideas where all are seated as equals. We must defend our freedoms from those who would seek to control us. We must fight for those who do not yet have a voice. Keep telling your story. All must be heard.

quote:

http://www.thehackernews.(...)-from-anonymous.html

Anonymous

We are anonymous, and we are Legion, for every one of us you find, and everyone you manage to take down, ten shall take his place, we do not forgive, we are many and therefor can’t forget. We have conflicting goals and wants, yet we act as one, therefor we are the face of chaos, we are the perfect observer, composed of people from every standpoint and therefor impartial and the only true Harbingers of judgment.

We laugh in the face of tragedy, we mock those in pain, we ruin the lives of other people simply because we can, these things we do for the lolz and we do them with no remorse, no caring, no love, and no sense of morality, we attack all things in this way, we can, we will, and we have destroyed countless that stand to harm anonymous.

Our power lies with our numbers. We choice to use loic in our attacks. We do this because it limits our strength to our numbers. This is a good thing. It prevents people from attacking on their own, in the name of Anonymous. Yet we have spread our ranks to thin. With so many operations we are ineffective, and we are made weak.

I recommend we put all operations on hold and start Operation Shutdown.
On March 4th we will likely be presented with a rare opportunity. This chance will be given to us by the very corruption that we must rid the US government of. On March 4th the US government will shutdown and all nonessential government functions will be put on hold. This gives us a chance to show the world that we are a force to be listened to. This will give us a chance to gain leverage. This will give us an undeniable voice in the world.

We must attack while they are weak or they will eventually land a crippling blow. Besides think of the lolz

We are anonymous
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

quote:

parnell44 RT @Think4Freedom: ICARUS has crash-landed. No Op, voted down! We repeat: NO OP! Voted down! RT @AnonymousIRC #anonymous #AnonOps #anon #cnn #fail #Honeypot !!

quote:

Bank of America Accidentally Shuts Down Web Site Trying to Delete Evidence of Fraud

quote:

http://www.benningtonvale(...)ally-shuts-down.html
Bartholomew Hyootner, a San Narciso-based IT specialist who’s been following the situation, said, “My preliminary findings suggest that a BofA network geek accidentally deleted thousands of customer records instead of the evidence that proved bank officials knowingly sold billions worth of toxic securities to investors. Happens all the time. One database table gets confused with another. It’s an honest mistake.”

quote:

Op woensdag 2 maart 2011 22:26 schreef truepositive het volgende:


Hopenlijk weten ze daar binnenkort dan ook wat smeuïge informatie uit te slepen.

quote:

#hiyabrad RT @OfficialAnonOps: www.anti-piracy.nl has been taken down by #Anonymous #AnonOps 15 minutes ago via web

quote:

Will Anonymous become the great equalizer?

The once infamous hackers have shaken off their image of sophomoric pranksters and emerged on the world stage as a serious digital posse of hacktivists. From Egypt, to Libya, to Wisconsin, this amorphous collective of wireless wizards have shown impressive strength and proficiency. Their ability to respond quickly and effectively to situations around the globe put traditional government and military forces to shame. They’ve executed their operations with an increasing level of effectiveness, impacting the abusive powers whom they target, while respecting and protecting critical services of the innocents they support.

As their ranks swell, so does the depth of their collective personality. From youthful beginnings Anonymous has matured into a force to be reckoned with. Actions are carefully considered, contingency plans established, and outcomes weighed. The speed and responsiveness of a collective community allows for the simultaneous consideration of a multitude of options, the processing of objectives, and the establishment of action plans, or operations.

Operations Payback, Paperstorm, Leakspin, Egypt, Libya, Wisconsin, and KochBlock have each elevated the functioning level and responsiveness of Anonymous. While none have been a failure, each endeavor has built on the strengths of the last. Technology, ingenuity, and flexibility have been the key to Anonymous’ success.

In each case that the Anonymous collective has arrived at a consensus and executed an operation a full statement of their goals and reasons have been published with a clarity that the governments of the world seem unable to accomplish. Their reputation for effectiveness is quickly becoming rivaled by their reputation for integrity.



As the uprising for democracy and equality grows across the globe, so will the role of Anonymous. Unrestrained by borders, time-zones, corporate funding or politics, Anonymous is becoming a crucial force in that struggle. Free from authoritarian leadership, and seemingly immune to traditional forms of repression, Anonymous may be the best hope we have of ensuring that the Internet stays accessible for activists, organizers, and revolutionaries.

As global capitalism tries to hang on to a faltering empire voices of dissent will be met with more and more severe obstacles. As the status quo is challenged, the challenge to those seeking justice will be increased. A strong, flexible, responsible support system will be needed to realize the changes envisioned. Anonymous has already become a significant actor in world affairs and is only beginning to scratch the surface of its true potential.

We can all be a part of that support system. We all should be a part of that support system. Anonymous is not a closed community, does not have an application form, and does not collect dues. While Anonymous is pretty much ubiquitous on the web, if you’re interested, you can start here. Anonymous provides the possibility for possibilities and is quickly becoming the great equalizer.

quote:

Op donderdag 3 maart 2011 10:11 schreef truepositive het volgende:
Begint al goed zo vroeg op de dag

quote:

DAY 9 - get the message? - www.godhatesfags.com www.godistheterrorist.com www.westborobaptistchurch.com - #TANGODOWN ALL YOUR DOMAINS. #wbc

quote:

http://www.thetechherald.(...)with-attack-on-BREIN

Anonymous, while continuing their actions to support protestors in North Africa, the Middle East, and Wisconsin, has resumed their most infamous operation to date - Operation Payback. On Thursday, the mass protest started with a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on the Dutch anti-Piracy organization BREIN.

The attack on BREIN (anti-piracy.nl) started just after 12:00 a.m. on Thursday morning Eastern Standard Time. In a matter of minutes, 10 people using the LOIC software Anonymous is known for, were able to take the organization’s website offline.

From that point, it remained offline, only appearing intermittently around 04:00 EST. At the time this article goes to press, the domain is offline.

BREIN is the Dutch acronym for Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands. It’s also the Dutch word for brain. They have been linked to Hollywood anti-piracy efforts, and were selected by Anonymous for recent actions against a large Warez domain that impacted a legit business in the crossfire.

While targeting a Warez (illegal software) Topsite, BREIN seized several servers from hosting provider WorldStream. Among the equipment seized were servers owned by a legit ISP with no connection to the illegal software domain. According to reports, the ISP owner lost $138,000 USD worth of equipment in the BREIN raid.

TorrentFreak has more information here, including allegations of BREIN installing backdoors on the seized servers and hijacking the ISP owner’s GMail accounts.

In addition to the Warez raid that snared a legit business, Anonymous is also targeting BREIN for Operation Payback’s resurrection because of their involvement with the takedown of 11 Usenet related domains.

While the Usenet domains also included access to illegal software, BREIN’s actions resulted in cutting Usenet connections to legitimate groups, removing their right to communicate in the process. In all, the Usenet raids by BREIN impacted nearly a million people.

Right now, Anonymous is using the DDoS attack on BREIN to build momentum. They plan to stick with smaller targets until support grows. Once that happens, then the sky is the limit for them when it comes to selecting a new target for cyber protest.



“Since early 2011, Anonymous has busied itself with very successful operations which it can be very much proud of. Not only has Anonymous proven that it is a force to be reckoned with, it has grown in strength and diversity, and it continues to gain numbers and attract attention from all over the world,” a statement from Anonymous reads.

“Operation Payback has now begun its "researching" phase, due to some actions taken by some copyright organisations, including "BREIN", who have censored popular sites on the internet over the past couple of weeks. This censorship can't be taken lightly, it is time to avert some attention to them and enable them to [realize] that this kind of censorship will not be tolerated, Anonymous style.”

Operation Payback started as a campaign by Anonymous against the anti-piracy efforts of groups such as the RIAA, MPAA, ACS Law, AiPlex, and AFACT. In addition, the operation has also taken on, and taken out, MasterCard, Visa, the Swiss bank Post Finance, PayPal, and others.

Update:

Five minutes after this story was published, Anonymous started targeting ifpi.org.

From their domain: "IFPI represents the recording industry worldwide, with a membership comprising some 1400 record companies in 66 countries and affiliated industry associations in 45 countries."

quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)d&utm_medium=twitter
While larger companies can afford blanket protection from computer criminals, and the national infrastructure receives an "extremely good" protection service, Williams warns that smaller businesses, universities and individuals are still dangerously exposed to criminal rings from around the world looking to steal everything from cash and identities to intellectual property.

"We are very concerned at the extent and growth of cyber crime. It is getting to be an increasingly larger problem," said Williams. "The agencies policing this are bringing all of their skills and capacity to the table to fight this. If we don't, it will have such a profound effect on share prices, on investment, and on how much the government has to spend on pensions. It is big stuff."

A Cabinet Office report released two weeks ago and written in conjunction with private firm Detica, a subsidiary of weapons manufacturer BAE Systems, estimated cyber crime losses at £27bn.

Williams conceded there were real problems with collecting cyber crime data but she said £27bn was a conservative estimate of the losses.

She drew attention to the increasing youth of online fraudsters and her fears that e-criminals, including politically motivated hackers or 'hacktivists', may be too readily sucked into breaking the law because of a lack of human interaction.

quote:

>> Here is some information that I have gathered that we can think about including. Of course using Palantir and automating some of the collection will make this a lot more powerful and complete.
>>
>> 235 Linked in Profiles currently employed with H&W
>> 68 LInked in Profiles of Partners currently with H&W
>> Corporate email address structure: abarr@hunton.com (first initial, last name @ hunton.com
>>
>> email addresses are great to use to see if people have used them to sign up for other accounts, for example jwoods@hunton.com signed up for a sabre.com account using this email address (the UVA football team - his alma mater).
>>
>> or
>>
>> Bob Tata and his wife, Anne Ferrell, live in Virginia Beach with their four children, Peyton, Carter, Riley.
>> Also found a spam list containing other possible email addresses for btata.
>> btata56207@msn.com
>> btata@att.net
>> btata@bellsouth.net
>> btata@hunton.com
>> btata@massed.net
>> btata@msn.com
>> btata@usa.net
>> btata@worldnet.att.net
>> This is a rather large group that just gets larger through associates, attorneys, etc. Lots you can tell about individual people from social link and artifact analysis. For example. John Woods does rarely uses his Facebook account. 95%+ of his friends are from his hometown/high school. To get to him I would create someone from his past, find someone he went to high school with on Classmates.com that doesn't have a FB profile and create him/her. Either that or I would go through a professional association, but thats harder to pull off.
>>

quote:

AnonOfTheAbove RT @Arktist: FYI: nsa.gov is National Security Agency domain/site. IRC fm there is either mis-use of Internet site or NSA is interested in #Anonymous 18 minutes ago via TweetDeck

quote:

AnonOfTheAbove RT @Arktist: Repeating my question of late last night: Why was someone fm nsa.gov domain in an #Anonymous IRC chat last night? Whose side is (s)he on? 18 minutes ago via TweetDeck

quote:

There is no Anonymous

If you are talking about the Anonymous from 4chan, then there isn't any group like that. That implies to much organisation, a hierachy, an organization.

The idea originally was related but NOT the same to "I am Spartacus". And many people don't even understand that statement.

The "I am Spartacus" statement is this: "I hereby declare that I am the person you are seeking and accept all responsibility for my actions." If you state this, you BECOME Spartacus, you are it and LOOSE yourself with it. You can't say, "I smallfurrycreature represent Spartacus", you surrender yourself to the cause and become it. In the movie, the people all nailed up, are ALL Spartacus and by doing so the idea of Spartacus if not the person becomes invincible. No matter how many Spartacusses you nail to a cross, there is always one more just around the corner. It is the undying hero, the person dies but the idea goes on.

This doesn't sit well with our individual culture.

Anonymous takes this even further, if people understood it. You cannot state "I am Anonymous" for this is silly. The moment you tie yourself to this concept, you are no longer anonymous. You can speak with a thousand voices, you can at best be one voice representing a thousand but never a thousand. You cannot be anonymous only be a non-significant part of it.

The real idea behind it all on 4chan was to give a name to the movements/actions that were observed. It is like watching the migration patterns of animals and calling them Bob. Just because it now sounds like a person doesn't mean that a wildebeast migrating represents Bob or is controlled by the motives of Bob.

Does any of this rant matter

Yes. The Muslim brotherhood, are they the protesters in Egypt? Some western "news" stations would have you believe this. BUT this has NOT been an Islamic revolution. It might or might not become one but the protests where NOT guiden or orchastrated by them... some PROTESTERS might have been but not the "protest". It can be hard to grasp the difference. It is the difference between the resentment of the masses and individual grievances. Same as the protests in Tunesia were not about a closed vegetable stand or in Egypt about the beating of a youth or in France about cake or in the USA about tea.

Anonymous is not a group that exists on 4chan in /b/. If anything it is the behavior of individual but unknown people who use the web to do something in a minimally organised way to have a far reaching effect. It is the mob effect on the internet.

That means that there is no point in ousting its leaders. You can get the leaders of one mob and might even be cheered for that by the mob next to it. Anonymous cheers cat killers and hunts them down. It is not a singleton, it is a class. You can spawn things from it but almost by its nature, the moment you do that is ceases to be the idea and it becomes Anonymous XYZ the group.

Anonymous doesn't have its hands on anything and has its hands on everything because we can all be Anonymous and we all aren't.

But media doesn't grasp that since they need to put a face to the name. But ultimately this means that Anonymous will just get more legenday. Strike one group down and another will take its place. Just as killing a few hundreds protestors, and arresting/torturing far more, did NOTHING to stop the protest in Egypt. Or killing all the buffalo stopped Bob.

quote:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/a(...)ak-afp-339310749.htm

Reticent judges and slow legal frameworks are passing out soft and unbalanced charges to online criminals including members of the Anonymous collective, a move that is frustrating the Australian Federal Police

Australian members of Anonymous — a loose online activist collective responsible for a string of devastating cracking and denial-of-service attacks — were caught last year after they helped bring down the Prime Minister's website under Operation Titstorm.

The operation was a response to the Federal Government's mandatory internet content filtering plan which the collective fiercely opposes.

The AFP launched an operation called Whisk to look into the online attacks and netted two Anonymous participants using intelligence from the Defence Department's Cyber Security Operations Centre.

Both men, Melbourne resident Steve Slayo and Newcastle resident Matthew Gordon George, faced 10 years imprisonment for "causing unauthorised impairment of electronic communication to or from a Commonwealth computer" but received a good behaviour order and a $550 fine with a recorded conviction respectively.

Those penalties are not enough, according to one AFP officer involved with the case.

"Judges are not willing to hand out tough sentences," AFP High Tech Collection and Capability manager Grant Edwards said. "They don't understand the threat."

Catching Anonymous members is not the problem because Internet Protocol addresses can be traced, Edwards said, but rather the lack of understanding of the severity of the crime.

"It is difficult to create laws against cybercrime," Edwards said, citing problems of tracking perpetrators overseas.

"Unless we understand the impact, we can't create the laws. The issue is also the speed to create these laws," he added.

The AFP's High Tech Crime Investigations unit is charged with investigating and prosecuting individuals for attacks against Australia's critical infrastructure and information systems. It works in collaboration with the Cyber Security Operations Centre and the newly fledged CERT Australia.

Judges are also handing weak and unbalanced sentences to paedophiles charged with holding online child pornography, Edwards said.

quote:

To illustrate the problem, Edwards said one paedophile charged with holding 200,000 child pornography was sentenced to 14 months in jail, while another caught with 100,000 images was sentenced to four years.

The AFP said in a statement that "activities such as hacking, creating or propagating malicious viruses or participating in DDoS attacks are not harmless fun [and] can result in serious long-term consequences for individuals, such as criminal convictions or jail time".

quote:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/49979252/IRC-Intro

IMPORTANT!!!
Communicating via IRC is NOT a crime in any way. Is talking in Japanese on the phone a crime?FUCK NO! If someone says otherwise, smack them with a giant fishbot.

quote:

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2011/02/on-anon.html

As I've described in a lengthy introduction, I encountered the phenomenon of Anonymous, often described as a "looseknit online community of hackers," in the virtual world of Second Life. I've detailed three major incidents that defined my involvement, starting with a comment on their offensive art; then moving to abuse reports on their violations of the Terms of Service inworld; and progressing to regular documentation of their raids and posses against me, my tenants and others in the virtual world. In time, I began to follow their activities elsewhere on the Internet, but I don't claim any special expertise or knowledge; I just claim common sense and a basic willing to report the truth -- something that is often absent in the treatment of Anonymous by the mainstream media and various blogs, whether by tech specialists, "progressives" or conservatives.

1. The most fundamental truth about Anonymous is that they lie: they lie about little things and big things; they lie about lying; they lie about lying about lying -- and so on.

2. Anonymous is not a looseknit movement. It's very structured, in fact. It has very rigid cultural norms and rules; it has very strict lines of communication. It is a cult and its members behave like cult members and its leaders behave like cult leaders. To describe Anonymous as "loose," like, say, a Facebook group that "likes" Coca Cola or Lady Gaga is "loose," or a group that teens make on Facebook with names like Didyouhearthatstupidthingmrhallsaidtoday is "loose" is to not get it about gangs, cults, dysfunctional movements of various types -- they are all about rigidity; they are all about very, very stiff and not fluid relations. Anonymous is often described as some really versatile franchise that enables the franchiser to pick from a huge menu of options. That would be like saying a McDonald's franchiser can put out baked home-made sweet potatoes instead of standard frieds made in standard Fry-Max with standard seasoning. It's simply untrue. You have only to watch and look and stop reading tripe in the media.

3. Anonymous is not anonymous. First of all, Anonymous are people like your best friend's son or your uncle's coworker -- you know them. Secondly, they are definite people with definite identities who do very specific acts -- those who rise to the level of actually leading and perpetrating attacks are not so great in number, are known, especially inside the movement, and are identified by law-enforcement and intelligence and even journalists or casual observers. They trip up and expose themselves many times; they are exhibitionists and want to be caught many times and be heroes/martyrs. If Anonymous were really so, it wouldn't have to tell you. That's all.

4. Anonymous are caught; they go to jail. The man who broke into Sarah Palin's mail account was sentenced to one year. Five Anonymous activists were arrested in the UK over the WikiLeaks scandal; there are many others who have in fact been arrested and known. Nearly all the dozens of people in SL are known and identified and banned several times over.

5. Anonymous is not legion; its numbers are fairly small. To be sure, the lookie-loos and the day-trippers and weekend w-hatters may seem like a lot of people at times, but even they fit into the usual online power curve of 10 percent of any community who do anything at all while the rest watch, and are a tiny percent of that 10 percent (less than one). Anonymous numbers have been fairly accurately assessed by some smart people who have noticed a thing that they all inevitably do and have tabulated it, and put the numbers ranging from about 8700 to 12,500 around the world, with seasonable and episodic variations -- but with only about 700-800 who actually plan and execute major attacks. Like Wikipedia and other online cults, there is a tiny number of collectivized leaders, sometimes turning over frequently, who make major decisions.

6. 4chan.org is a big part of Anonymous. Saying 4chan.org is a mere images board where people trade jpeg pictures is like saying the SDS was merely a student group that discussed textbooks. The main action at 4chan.org is the long chats in forums where the pictures are merely a kind of prop to the chat. 4chan.org is where attacks are planned and coordinated; 4chan is where people can get links to the various other chat places and IRC channels and pastebin.org chatlogs. If the authorities want to cut to the chase and stop fooling around with expensive security firms that embarrass themselves by doing retarded things like going in an IRC chat and deciding they now have a list of Anonops, they could more strategically simply call in Ken Lerer, the owner of the holding company of Huffington Post, and Christopher Pool, the owner of 4chan.org whom Ken Lerer has hired as an adisor on what is "cutting edge," and have a chat with them about what is on their servers. They will deny involvement in DDOS attacks but will in fact have inevitably participated in them, and they can stop them by having 4chan take a public position and by backing it up with bans and blocks. They won't do that. That's the problem. See no. 7.

7. Anon is not reformable. Members of Anon never truly leave the organization when they claim to; they may cease griefing expeditions for a time but always come back. They lie about reforming; they are never sincere. Think "Eddie Haskell".

8. A popular griefing mechanism of Anon involves a dramatic claim of a come-to-Jesus moment when a griefer realizes "the error of his ways" and "quits griefing". After his confession and altar-call, he "reforms" and takes up an activity like "volunteering for Relay for Life" at the American Cancer Foundation or some other charity. This is always fake, and is merely another operation. After gulling innocent first-timers and even gullible repeat-believers, they come back and grief again -- Lucy and the football, Charlie Brown.

9. You can never know enough about Anonymous. You are always wrong, and always off balance.You said they were in this faction; they were in the other one. You claimed they were behind this hacking; they were actually not, but behind another that didn't have their fingerprints. You are stupid; they are clever. You don't get it; they are on the inside. You thought you were a specialist; guess what, you were played. Anonymous is all different than you say! Anonymous is all wonderful! You aren't!

10. You can never hope to keep up with the memes and inside jokes. You thought "cool story bro" was the joke of the week? You are hopelessly behind the times and a newb and a feeb. Oh, you hope to establish your savvy by indicating that in fact it's "You mad bro?" this week? You couldn't be more wrong. 4channer girls are laughing hysterically about "Perhaps....dresses?" this week...and you aren't...but you're a girl, aren't you?

11. Anonymous are thought to be closet gays, or gays unhappy with their sexuality, or ambivalent bisexuals, or transgendered males changing to females. Perhaps some of this is true, but there is another factor that explains more about their character and their sexuality: they are autoerotics. They have come to find online-assisted masturbation so compelling that they attracted to other men not because of homosexuality, but because of insular autoeroticism. A real homosexual is capable of falling in love with another man or at least of affection; the Anonymous is a narcissist in love with himself and his online reflections. Other people are toilet paper to him.

12. Far from being anarchists in the details of their online lives, Anonymous in fact are finicky and particular and heavy control freaks. They like order and repetition. They crave the incessant repetition of the same pictures and words over and over again like toddlers having to see the same video or hear the same story again because it helps order their chaotic nervous systems and cope with their overstimulation. They are not free; they are under heavy constraint. They need to do the same thing over and over and over again *in the same way*, like obsessive-compulsives and bear striking resemblance to them. They can repeat the same griefing action incessantly, day after day, with crushing boredom and regularity because it sooths them not only to get the same reaction out of another person and annoy them, but also to gain a sense of power from the routine. That this makes it easier to catch them doesn't seem to bother them; their need for repetition is GREAT.

13. Far from being loose-knit, the Anonymous movement is very structured. It has strict codes of conduct, definite lines of authority, very precise marching orders. Many an observer, close or far, has mistaken the Politburo-like "democratic centralism" of the movement, where a topic or action might be discussed "freely" in a group as being "loose knit"; in fact, the rituals and procedures for the topics and debates are very limited, and bear no resemblance to open parliamentary debate or Roberts Rules of Order; they are a cult, even if not listed on rickross.com

14. Many people think that Anonymous is successful because it has lots of people and can easily and flexibly decide in an uncoordinated way to do various actions -- as noted, it is considered to be a kind of vast franchise where ideas spread like wildfire and get acted upon. In fact, Anonymous doesn't work like the flu or a viral video, but works like an army -- there are recognized cult leaders and recognized signals of authority. While any effort to try to isolate some badge or code of authority would fail, there are markers and signals that a few key individuals develop and spread with rigid connivance.

15. One of the more retarded things a certain faction of Anonymous tried to do was start a caper that involved hacking a weather site and claiming that they were trying to "hack winter" and "make it spring." This action was taken directly after the hacks (yes they are hacks) of Amazon, PayPal, etc. and was designed as a counterspin against a growing public dislike and distrust of the movement -- a period when it was ceasing to be cool and being now alarming. This dodge and feint was a flop and convinced nobody and never attracted significant following among the ranks to catch on. Anonymous always reverts to ugly, horrid form -- it is not evolving or getting better, and more than the Lord's Resistance Army is "getting better".

16. In the same way, a false flag operation (FBI or other foreign intelligence or freelance security operatives mounting an action made to look like Anonymous and confuse them) mounted not long after the Paypal attacks, implying that now a "new" Anonymous was being born that would focus on political causes like attacking the Egyptian government's sites wasn't typical and wasn't convincing. This effort of hostile outsiders or possibly an insider faction hoping to distract the public with a positive message wasn't typical. Whether it had significant backing or whether it was just a cynical dodge, soon the b-tards were back hacking and slashing again like they always had and this dodge made no difference.

17. Nobody can stop or call off Anonymous or deflect them. The confused and babbling John Perry Barlow, now in his dotage, that he had "called off" people that had "misunderstood" or "overreacted" to his call to war in cyberspace is absurd (and an admission of guilt -- how can you "call off" that which you claim you hadn't "called on"?)

18. The movement has not changed or matured or evolved. Some members are visibly associating themselves with the Egyptian cause; but the same or other members are going around harassing online worlds and communities with horrible obscene and racist content, and attacking the firm HBGary, and telling the female executive to show her tits in chat messages. All the ugly and disgusting behaviour continues; all the racist and sexist talks continues everywhere, merely distracted from.

19. The fight against Scientology was not a fight for freeodom or human rights or secularity against religious cultism; it was a competition by one cult with another, by a newer online cult by an older one that was among the first to harness the earliest forms of the Internet for its cause. It's a gang war for turf, and not a liberal struggle for rights for all.

20. Anonymous have a concerted plan to fan out to forums and argue with people who criticize them in various formulaic ways -- lying, obfuscating, challenging the critic's credentials, or using the Saul Alinsky tactics, as they conservatives call them, of picking out some feature of the target and exaggerating it, or picking out some aspect of the issue and insisting that it's in the target's own interests to agree with them, or part of the target's own values to concede their point. Always and everywhere, Anonymous tell you that you are wrong about whatever you think of their movement; that you don't have that facts; that you mixed something up; that you have laughably taken something too seriously.

21. Anonymous often word-salads or obfuscates various technical issues; they describe themselves as having "2,000 nodes" (Jacob Appelbaum), something giving precise numbers to lies to make them seem more convincing.

22. Anonymous are not teenagers are young men only. In fact, many are 30-40-50 year old men, some with prestigious IT jobs or academic or media jobs. Anonymous is a professor or an executive, not just a kid in his mom's basement.

23. Anonymous is penetrated by foreign intelligence agencies. This wasn't hard to do given both the ostensibly loose nature of the movement *and* the rigid culture which makes it brittle and unable to resist undermining -- it is very easy captivated or manipulated in fact. The Russian FSB seems to be obviously at work here, and there are quite a few examples of the use of sites with the RU address, various Russian cultural features, not to mention of course the Soviet memes, which are sometimes adopted as a joke, to tweak what they see as fanatical critics invoking their Leninism, but which also has its roots in actual belief systems.

24. Anonymous has what is called the "bro code". This brotherly set of ethics, if you will, chiefly involve never reporting on a fellow member to authorities such as police. When this appears to happen, it is often part of an elaborate caper that is itself merely setting up the next griefing operation. Those appearing to turn state's evidence may be involved in merely a more elaborate form of social hack.

25. Probably 75 percent or more of Anonymous hacks are social hacks that don't involve actual computer programming skills. They involve spying on or simply observing people and gathering clues about them to use to guess or attempt to produce their password or to find some other aspect of their lives online or off that can be accessed.

26. But Anonymous themselves have the same propensity for leaving enormous numbers of clues to their identities and activities online that they are not particulary good at covering up. They have a propensity, like all totalitarian movements seeking total power, to document their crimes as a form of narcissism and cultic reinforcement. Often, they make tapes of phone conversations; they compulsively save chatlogs; they make video tapes of themselves griefing or planning to grief, and they can't help showing off, online and in real life. The videos in particular often contain telltale clues to their locations and corroborating evidence that helps establish who they are despite careful work by their enablers to hide their real names (*waves to Mullet Handelsohn*).

27. The downfall of many an Anon is the victory dance. The victory dance usually has to follow each griefing posse or raid or major DDOS attack or other hacking operation. It is an essential part of the ritual and has to be participated in and documented. It is no fun crashing a server or hacking into an email system and publicizing its contents if you can't go somewhere afterwards and have a party to wash down the success, as it were; the victory dance often involves elaborate manifestations of the memes and catch phrases, where not only is the story told and retold, but those who didn't participate and who may even keep strategic distances from the actual perpetrators may show up, on a guest appearance, to tacitly give their nod of approval in some way. Somebody who elaborately hid his tracks with proxies while griefing might log on from his home to go to a victory dance by mistake.

28. Anonymous always tries to minimize the damage they have caused. They scoff and snort outright at anyone putting costs to damages; they decry the "Internet as srs business", they say that victims are "butthurt". They always remind people that online life isn't real; if they are crying about a rape in cyberspace, they are indignantly told to grasp the horror of real rape. An online virtual rapist thrusting a giant penis in somebody's face in Second Life might simultaneously also angrily tell you on a forums that his sister was raped; that we have no idea of the pain and how dare we compare these utterly unlike things. This pixel peniser might in fact even volunteer for a group in SL doing real-life fund-raising for victims of domestic violence, just to show you what a good guy he is, and laugh all the while at your protestations that his behaviour is inconsistent and unfair.

29. Anonymous always tells you that they never forget, that they remember slights and punish them for ages, relentlessly. Yes and no. Anonymous are capable of planning an elaborate raid, but suddenly logging off in boredom because something better came up on TV. They may stalk you for months and suddenly stop, because they got bored or simply found a jucier target. Some of them are methodical and repetitive, but just as many have ADHD.

30. Anonymous talk a good game and brag a lot; they vowed to take down AT&T just because their site was blocked for a time when it was a victim of a DDOS attack. They made the most violent and horrible comments about AT&T and its executives, but stopped short of any RL violence or even hacking attacks once AT&T executives made a statement that the site had only been temporarily blocked. In fact, Anonymous often stops short of crossing that blood-brain barrier called of "taking it to real" -- going into real life to pursue somebody online. They don't mind getting b& but they don't want to go in the real-life paddy wagon downtown.

31. Anonymous never shows solidarity to their fellows when arrested. It's as if they died in World of Warcraft and their characters got teleported home to respawn later if the right potion is found. They never mention them. They never defend them. They never sign petitions. They never speak to the media about them. They never try to reason with anybody to get them out. They turn their backs on those fallen behind enemy lines, and never look back, like brave little soldiers in war. An arrested Anonymous is easy to break because he has no solidarity, no brotherhood, nothing like an old-world mafia to fall back on. This is both a strength and a weakness of Anon. To be sure, Anon might laughingly make graveyards of banned avatars or mentioned banned people in reverential tones but they never cross the street to actually defend them.

32. Many times Anonymous claim they do things just for laughs -- for the lulz. Other times they imply, but never rally specify, that they are engaged in some short-term goal of "doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do," i.e. fighting Scientologists or the Egyptian government. The reality is that Anonymous has a very conscience and very specific purpose that is very deeply and zealously felt by every cult member: they wish to prevent anyone from using the Internet in any way they think it should not be used, and especially not to take it seriously.

33. Sometimes Anonymous is believed to be a new cutting-edge progressive movement, some sort of new form of online democracy. In fact, Anonymous is profoundly conservative. Its structures resemble more of an 18th or 19th century Masonic Lodge than they resemble casual Facebook groups in the newest form of social media. Anonymous has leaders; it has followers. It has codes; it has rituals. It has a certain way of doing things; and has ruthless conformity procedures.

34. Anonymous is most ruthless to its own people. It will use the most outrageous pressure tactics. If somebody's parents have to be called up to harass a young person out of line, that will be done; if somebody fails to conform, they can be harmed at their job with a deliberate harassment tactic or pizzas can be sent to their door or even the SWAT team of the local police urged to storm the apartment.

35. Anonymous is often described as having "16 year old girls" in it. These are more than likely men in drag, i.e. 30 or 40 year old men taking on the persona of a 16 year old girl. This is very, very common. There are, to be sure, real 16 year old girls, but not that many of them.

36. Although they are styled as anarchists at heart and indeed do hew to the traditions of Bakunin and others, they are in fact strict legalists, always and everywhere fanatically invoking law and rules and procedures. On every forum, they will invoke TOS regulations, even the most obscure paragraphs; on any chat discussion they will cite Constitutional clauses or Supreme Court decisions or various arcane agency regulations with superior and smug glee; they can be the most assiduous abuse-reporters on any platform and take keen delight in bringing down someone else on a technicality. Always and everywhere, this apparenty legalism is a sham -- it is lawfare that exploits law to wage a war; it is a distraction from their own inherent lawlessness. They are legal nihilists, that is, they do not care to have any rule of law over themselves. They prefer "rule-by-laws" that breeds arbitrariness rather than "rule of law" that would imply some higher power to which they were accountable.

37. While they pride themselves as being Anonymous, faceless, colourless, melting into the crowd, in fact, the b-tards cling fiercely to identifying marks -- groups they join, nicknames, memes, pictures. If a moderator of a board were to rule that the name Anonymous or Anon E. Moose cannot be used, or rule that no pictures of suits with question marks over the heads can be used, or no Guy Fawkes masks -- that is, to behave like a high school principal in New York City might behave to demand the removal of gang insignia -- they will erupt into an uproar of outrage about the suppression of their free expression and the supposed hysteria and drama and "security theater" sins of the moderators. They will downplay the significance of insignia that in fact they hold dear. The most important thing is the group and its name.

38. I could go on and on.

quote:

Op vrijdag 4 maart 2011 21:17 schreef Odysseuzzz het volgende:

[..]

Het is ook nog eens totale onzin.
Maar dat zie je wel vaker met de combinatie second life en bloggers. Die denken dat ze antropologie aan het bedrijven zijn.

quote:

http://www.myce.com/news/(...)ilitary-brass-40933/

The clandestine hacker group known as Anonymous has been quite busy lately.

Yesterday we discussed how the group’s myriad operations might be affecting its overall impact – something an alleged member quickly countered in the comment section. Now we’re hearing new reports that the secretive members are focusing on military personnel in addition to the corporate executives they’ve long battled.

The New York Daily News wrote about Anonymous’ renewed efforts, citing a post at DailyKos. The statement made by Barrett Brown read, “The decision to charge Bradley Manning with a capital offense in addition to other charges is a provocation, and Anonymous is set to respond accordingly.”

Bradley Manning is the U.S. Army soldier charged with passing on classified, top-secret information to whistleblower site, WikiLeaks. More charges were recently added, including “aiding the enemy.” Manning faces life in prison if convicted.

In the past, Anonymous stood up for the controversial site created by the controversial man Julian Assange, going so far as to launch DDoS attacks against companies fighting against it – such as MasterCard. While the hacker collective promised to continue fighting against “corporate execs involved in plots against WikiLeaks,” its threat against the U.S. military for arresting and jailing Manning is certainly a new wrinkle in the ongoing story.

What type of cyber attack will be launched, and against whom? The statement specifies “military officials,” which suggests officers and other high ranking members.

Considering Anonymous’ recent shutdown of HBGary, a security company which saw CEO Aaron Barr resign last week thanks to a truly bizarre saga, there are no doubts the group will follow through with its promise. Just how much chaos it will cause is unknown.

quote:

http://www.myce.com/news/(...)mpaign=related_posts

The United States Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the Wikileaks investigation is drawing criticism not only from Anonymous, a vigilante activist group that has been fighting against censorship involving the leak of US diplomatic cables, but also from an 85 member European Parliament group known as the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

The European politicians organized a protest on Wednesday against the DOJ’s attempt to obtain private information from Twitter about close Wikileaks supporters including Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Jacob Appelbaum, and Iceland Parliament member Birgitta Jónsdóttir. They planned to call upon the EU to request clarifications from the US government about the Twitter subpoenas.

The United States Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the Wikileaks investigation is drawing criticism not only from Anonymous, a vigilante activist group that has been fighting against censorship involving the leak of US diplomatic cables, but also from an 85 member European Parliament group known as the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

The European politicians organized a protest on Wednesday against the DOJ’s attempt to obtain private information from Twitter about close Wikileaks supporters including Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Jacob Appelbaum, and Iceland Parliament member Birgitta Jónsdóttir. They planned to call upon the EU to request clarifications from the US government about the Twitter subpoenas.

“[Our group defends] the right to offend which is an essential part of freedom of expression, and we will stand with those who come under pressure to freely express their views,” said German European Parliament Member Alexander Lambsdorff at an event back in July which hosted both Assange and Jónsdóttir.

Meanwhile, Anonymous released a new video on their blog Wednesday which announces global protests to take place on Saturday January 15th “in defense of Wikileaks and freedom of expression”. That video contained the following message:

“Beneath this mask there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof. We believe that free speech is non-negotiable. The quality of an idea matters more than its authorship and the radical notion that information should be free. We are done waiting for someone to save us from tyranny and censorship. The internet needs champions and we will rise. We didn’t start this to destroy a cult. We took on a cult to defend free speech. Tens of thousands strong, we lie in wait as the real battle approaches. We are Anonymous, and so are you. Stand up and fight. Every city, everywhere, January 15th. Expect us.”

All of this comes as worry grows that Wikileaks’ founding member Julian Assange may face the death penalty in the US if Swedish officials are successful in extraditing Assange to their country where he faces allegations of raping two woman. Assange’s defense attorney, Mark Stephens, outlined his concerns in a 35-page legal document released on Tuesday.

“It is submitted that there is a real risk that, if extradited to Sweden, the U.S. will seek his extradition and/or illegal rendition to the USA, where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, in conditions which would breach Article 3 of the ECHR,” Stephens states in the document. ”Indeed, if Mr. Assange were rendered to the USA, without assurances that the death penalty would not be carried out, there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well-known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr. Assange should be executed.”

Lately, I have been talking with others in my local community about Wikileaks events and how the case should be handled, and the responses have been quite mixed. Some believe that the information contained in the leaked diplomatic cables should be openly published and that the government should learn a lesson about transparency from the situation. Others believe that the cables represent stolen property and should never have see the light of day. The situation is dividing not only Americans, but citizens around the world on views of government control and freedom of expression.

My personal feelings are mixed on the matter. While I believe that the actual theft of the cables is wrong, I don’t necessarily agree with the US government’s response on the matter. Since the cables were already out, I believe that government officials should have taken the opportunity to assist Wikileaks in redacting personal information contained in the cables before they were published, rather than taking the hard stance which caused cables to be published with information intact that has put some of the people involved in grave danger. Should Assange be severely punished? Is the US treatment of PVC Bradley Manning wrong? These are questions that I’m having difficulty answering.

What are your views on the Wikileaks situation? Let your opinion be heard in the comments.