Anonops #10: Stop SOPA

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Op zondag 1 januari 2012 22:37 schreef Bakakame het volgende:

[..]

Wat is dit?

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'PrivateX' hackers target more gov't websites

MANILA, Philippines - Hackers who defaced the website of Vice President Jejomar Binay and at least 5 other sites have warned that they will attack more government websites.

Posts made in the past few days on the Facebook page of the PrivateX hackers' group mentioned several other government agencies.

"Expect us," said a December 29 message, with an attached article from the Department of of Social Welfare and Development.

The hacker group's founder, in an email to abs-cbnNEWS.com, said one of their members identified as "Blackrain" will answer questions about the hacking incidents soon.

The group's latest post on Monday made fun of the Department of Health by creating a page with an ASCII art showing a large nuclear explosion.

"Anonymous #OccupyPhilippines ProjectX PrivateX Philker," the message below the image said. "We are Anonymous, We are legion, We don't forgive, We don't forget."

Other government websites mentioned by the group in the page are those belonging to the Optical Media Board, the Philippine National Radiation Institute, the Senate Electoral Tribunal, the Commission on Appointments, the Philippine Racing Commission, and sites owned by the local governments of Libon, Camiguin, and Manaoag.

Some of the websites remained defaced Monday afternoon.

OVP admits website hacked

Meanwhile, the Office of the Vice President's (OVP) website has been fixed.

Joselito Salgado, head of the OVP's media affairs division, said the website has hacked by the PrivateX group around 4 p.m. on Sunday and was down for more than 15 hours.

He said the OVP's website is being hosted by the Advanced Science and Techology Institute (ASTI), an agency under the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

"We have been informed that ASTI is looking into the incident and will put in place the needed safeguards," Salgado said.

"The OVP website provides information on the programs, projects and services of the Office of the Vice President. It also provides the public the opportunity to bring their concerns to the attention of VP Binay. Unfortunately, the hacking incident has deprived the public, particularly our Overseas Filipino Workers with a channel to communicate with the Vice President," he said.

PrivateX, in a statement, said it does not seek to taunt the OVP website's administrator "but to point out that transferring to a paid hosting doesn't mean that you are secured."

"We did not delete any file on the server but we created an index.html and redirected the index.php to index.html (Deface page)," they added.

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2012 01:27 schreef robin007bond het volgende:
Papierversnipperaar, vind je deze acties niet een beetje te veel eigenrichting?

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Leuk hoor die acties, maar ik vraag me af of er ook daadwerkelijk wat mee bereikt wordt.

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http://pastebay.com/148920

Hi

It's 0xOmar from group-xp, largest Wahhabi hacker group of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Arabia hackers of Anonymous hacking movement.

We have posted this message in pastebin, but it seems they have deleted the file. So I try to use this page.

We decided to relase first part of our data about Israel.

We have hacked a lot of Israeli servers and extracted a lot of information about Israeli people, their name, address, city, zipcode, Social Security Numbers (Israeli ID

numbers), mobile phone number, home phone number, credit card number (including exp year, month and CVV) and...

We daily use these cards to solve our problems, purchasing VPNs, VPSes, softwares, renting GPU clusters, renting cloud servers and much more!

We decided to give the world a new year gift, about 400,000+ Israeli people information!!!

Here is list of data I leak:

** 4000.htm, it includes 4000+ credit cards and all needed information. All is Israeli.
** 27000.htm, it includes 27000+ credit cards and all needed information. All is Israeli.
** Cards1.mdb, it includes 260272 credit cards and all needed information. It includes address, emails and passwords of 260272 Israeli people.
** Cards2.mdb, it includes 120745 credit cards and all needed information. It includes address, emails and passwords of 120745 Israeli people.
** IsraCards1.txt, it includes 184 working fresh Israeli credit cards and all needed information.
** Business.mdb, it includes 22604 Israeli business people details, including, names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, etc.
** Judaism.txt, it includes 65 Zionist people who purchased stuff from Judaism web site
** TblDonate.htm, it includes 500+ people who donated to Israeli Zionist Rabbis.

If you need to purchase something, you have to use Google Translate to convert hebrew letters to engish.

It's first part of our release, my goal is reacing 1 million non-duplicate people, which is 1/6 of Israel's population.

We have it already, including 1M Israeli social security numbers (ID numbers) and all of their details, we want to see reactions to first part, later we'll release rest!

Enjoy purchasing stuff for yourself in internet, like VPN, VPS, Software licenses, commercial emails, domains, etc.
We even purchased security scanners like Acunetix to hack more servers using these cards!

What's fun for us?
- Watching 400,000 people gathered in front of Israeli credit card companies and banks, complaining about cards and that they are stolen
- Watching Israeli banks shredding 400,000 credit cards and re-generate new cards (so costly, huh?)
- Watching people purchasing stuff for theirself using the cards and making Israeli credit cards untrustable in the world, like Nigerian credit cards
- and much more...

Enjoy our work and feel free to contact us.

Web Contact Form: http://www.alm3refh.com/v(...)84895a4b62321bb6a4ae

Our website: http://www.alm3refh.com/vb/

Saudi Arabian hacker rules!!!

Israeli Data Leak File:
http://www.multiupload.com/OM1S9YLZKV
(30 MB compressed, 210 MB uncompressed)

We are anonymous, we are legion, we do not forget, we do not forgive...
Enjoy and share it!

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Anonymous imposters: hiding behind the AntiSec identity

Anyone can say they're part of Anonymous.

It's the perfect cover for hackers with motives more sinister than fun and propaganda.

Could that be why private intelligence firm Stratfor was just hacked?

The Operation AntiSec collaborators Anonymous and LulzSec dominated media coverage of online security through 2011, taking credit for hacks of Sony, AT&T, the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency and News International newspapers - even though the more serious cybercriminals continued working on the money-spinners.

The Stratfor hack looks like all the others. It was announced via Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous. Samples of the pilfered data were posted online as evidence. The hackers taunted the victim about its pathetic defences. And the data vandalism was dressed up as political action.

The victim - Stratfor - is based in Austin, Texas, and provides analysis of global security matters using open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques - that is, they analyse publicly-available material. Anyone can subscribe to their newsletters, but their main business is providing secret, bespoke analysis to undisclosed corporate and government clients.

Over the Christmas weekend, AntiSec hackers posted data lifted from Stratfor's servers, including what they claimed to be the company's private client list, plus lists of passwords and credit card numbers.

The hackers told Wired that they'd penetrated Stratfor "several weeks ago" and obtained 200 gigabytes of data, including 2.7 million emails and various internal documents - the real target, according to Barrett Brown - more of which they intend to release soon.

There was also a surprise bonus: around 75,000 credit card numbers belonging to Stratfor subscribers. They've already been published.

They also claim to have wiped four of Stratfor's servers as well as the backups, and to have used some of the credit card numbers to donate between $500,000 and $1 million to charity.

A data breach on that scale would be embarrassing for any organisation. It's doubly so for Stratfor. More embarrassing still is the hackers' claim that credit card details were stored in plain text rather than being encrypted - a clear breach of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

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Richard Stallman Was Right All Along

Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia - but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality.

Up until relatively recently, it's been easy to dismiss Richard Stallman as a paranoid fanatic, someone who lost touch with reality long ago. A sort of perpetual computer hippie, the perfect personification of the archetype of the unworldly basement-dwelling computer nerd. His beard, his hair, his outfits - in our visual world, it's simply too easy to dismiss him.

His views have always been extreme. His only computer is a Lemote Yeelong netbook, because it's the only computer which uses only Free software - no firmware blobs, no proprietary BIOS; it's all Free. He also refuses to own a mobile phone, because they're too easy to track; until there's a mobile phone equivalent of the Yeelong, Stallman doesn't want one. Generally, all software should be Free. Or, as the Free Software Foundation puts it:

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Op dinsdag 3 januari 2012 10:47 schreef robin007bond het volgende:

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Ja ach, het eist even wat aandacht op, maar dat valt mee. DDOS wordt over het algemeen beschouwd als een simpele ingreep en krijgt buiten dit topic ook niet zo heel veel publiciteit, met uitzondering van dat Mastercard gedoe.

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Eigen rechter spelen gebeurt als je het recht in eigen hand neemt. Daar is hier bijna spraken van, want het zijn gewoon strafbare feiten die gepleegd worden, onder het mom van dat iets je niet aanstaat.

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‘Wij, burgers van cyberspace, eisen onze broncodes’
^{zaterdag 24 december 2011 door Folkert Jensma}
Ik probeer altijd sceptisch te blijven over ICT-denkers die claimen dat de samenleving revolutionair verandert door de digitalisering van Alles. Zeker, zo is het, maar de krant wordt nog steeds bezorgd. En zolang ik op tijd alle updates installeer, ook in m’n eigen hoofd, hou ik de veranderingen wel bij.

Maar na de oratie van Mireille Hildebrandt donderdag in Nijmegen ben ik uit mijn comfort zone. Zij schetst hoe rechtsrelaties in cyberspace structureel veranderen. Vrijwel alles wat we zien, wat we weten en wat er beslist wordt, is de uitkomst van geheime algoritmes op de computer. Daarbij raken rechtsbeginselen als privacy, discriminatieverbod en gegevensbescherming uit het zicht. De beginvraag ‘mag dat wel’ wordt ingehaald door ‘het kan, het gebeurt, dus het is wel best zo’. En àls de burger al een akkoordje moet aanvinken op zijn scherm, gebeurt ook dat automatisch. Zij heeft het over de ‘computationele wending’ in de rechtsorde. Haar conclusie: in de nieuwe techniek moet rechtsbescherming standaard worden ingebouwd. Aan meer papieren wetten is hier geen behoefte.

Vorige maand zat ik op een studiemiddag over de ‘cookiewet’, die het automatisch verzamelen van informatie over surfgedrag aan banden moet leggen. Cookies zijn kleine peilbakens die worden geplaatst door websites die je bezoekt. Ze houden bij hoeveel en welke pagina’s je bezocht (zodat je terug kunt bladeren), ze personaliseren websites en houden je ingelogd.

Reuze handig, maar ze passen ook de advertenties aan op jouw zoekgedrag. Ze vertellen door waar je was en wie je bent. Dat ‘track and trace’ is een voorbeeld. Wie vandaag online een vliegticket zoekt, wordt nog dagen automatisch getrakteerd op hotel- en huurauto opties in de plaats van bestemming. Websurfen doe je tegenwoordig wadend door een veld vol luistervinken, geplaatst door advertentienetwerken, die zien hoe vaak u ‘like’ op Facebook aanklikt en wat u zocht en kocht.

Hildebrandt, nieuw hoogleraar ‘ICT en rechtsstaat’, beschrijft de ‘cognitieve economie’, de handel in informatie die met elkaar in verband is gebracht. Alles draait nu om ‘patroonherkenning’ – het voorspellen van gedrag op basis van digitale sporen. Die informatie is veel geld waard. In cyberspace staat behalve wat je er deed inmiddels ook vrijwel vast wat je straks gaat doen. Je gedrag wordt voortdurend opgeslagen en met gelijksoortige anderen vergeleken: „Om je preferenties te achterhalen, risicovol gedrag te voorzien, prijzen aan te passen, of problemen te voorspellen. En hoe meer cyberspace de toekomst weet te voorspellen, hoe meer het die toekomst ook lijkt te maken”, zegt zij.

Dankzij deze patroonkennis wordt de vrije handelingsruimte van de burger ongemerkt kleiner. Internet, ooit de gedroomde vrije anonieme ruimte waarin je een second life kon beginnen, desnoods als hond, is nu een gouden kooi waarin de gebruiker exact die prikkels krijgt die statistisch zijn afgeleid uit zijn voorkeuren. Ieder leeft in zijn eigen dorp met zichzelf als ijkpunt, met aanbiedingen op smaak, voorgesorteerde informatie en toezicht op maat.

Het recht moet de digitale burger volgens Hillebrandt weer greep geven op de juistheid, betrouwbaarheid en relevantie van de informatie die over hem wordt verzameld. Vooral de rechten op privacy, gegevensbescherming, gelijke behandeling en op tegenspraak worden geraakt door wat zij de nieuwe ‘IT-inkijkstructuur’ noemt. De burger moet weten welke risicoprofielen over hem bestaan en moet kunnen zien hoe die worden beïnvloed.

Er zou daarom een grondrecht op de betrouwbaarheid en doorzichtigheid van cyberspace moeten komen. De burger moet zicht krijgen op de manier waarop hij wordt ‘gelezen’ op internet. „De burger, consument, gebruiker kan dan veel beter inschatten welke machinaal leesbare gedragingen zij unplugged (onbespied) wil verrichten”. Zij stelt zich programmaatjes voor waarmee de burger op ieder moment ‘onder water kan kijken’ om te zien „wie er vanuit welke locatie meekijkt, wat voor profielen de ‘content’ bepalen die we te zien krijgen en hoe data-analyse de beslissingen beïnvloedt waarmee we worden geconfronteerd”. Zodat je kunt begrijpen waarom jouw zorgtoeslag wordt geweigerd, je aanbetaling zo hoog uitvalt en waarom je al dagen alleen maar advertenties voor damespumps te zien krijgt. (‘En wie is er weer via mijn pc online wezen shoppen?’) ‘Wij, burgers van cyberspace’ moeten dus toegang tot de broncodes bedingen, zegt zij. Argumenten als bedrijfsgeheimen, nationale veiligheid of auteursrecht waar bedrijven of overheden mee zullen komen, moeten daar voor wijken. Wie hecht aan een scheiding tussen de publieke en private versie van zijn leven moet dat verdedigen.

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'Anonymous' declares 'Blitzkrieg' on neo-Nazis

“Anonymous” hackers have declared “Blitzkrieg” on neo-Nazis for the New Year, disabling a number of their websites and publishing lists of extreme-right supporters.

A Nazi-Leaks portal has appeared on the internet listing hundreds of names of people subscribed to various shops selling far-right clothing, as well as writers for the Junge Freiheit newspaper which carries contributions from far-right commentators.

The hackers say they have managed to close down 15 websites associated with the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), the Frankfurter Rundschau reported on Monday. They have reportedly called their campaign "Operation Blitzkrieg".

The paper said that the German version of the neo-Nazi internet platform Altermedia was at times offline. A Twitter message addressed to those trying to get into the site wished all Nazis and in particular Altermedia a good start to the New Year.

This was greeted by a message reported by left-wing websites as coming from Altermedia calling for information about the hackers, and offering to reward useful tips with the hackers' amputated fingers. The Frankfurter Rundschau said it could not check whether the comment was really from Altermedia as the site was offline.

Long lists of names, some with addresses, purporting to be customer registers of firms such as the infamous Thor Steinar clothing firm were posted on the Nazi-Leaks portal.

People listed on the portal as having written for the Junge Freiheit newspaper included Peter Scholl-Latour, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau. He is a respected journalist and Afghanistan expert who has written for, among other publications, the Stern magazines.

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Sony and Nintendo drop SOPA support amid Anonymous threats

Sony and Nintendo have dropped support for the controversial SOPA bill, backtracking on what has been accused as a pro-censorship push by legislators amid threats of internet attack from groups like Anonymous. Both companies are now absent from the official list of supporters [pdf link] of the Stop Online Piracy Act, along with games publisher Electronic Arts, though it’s unclear how much of the decision – by Sony Computer Entertainment, at least – was swayed by Anonymous’ threats to target first the PlayStation Network and then individual executives at the firm.

Originally, threats against the PSN were made by Anonymous members as part of #OpSony, with the warning that Sonys support of the act is a signed death warrant and that yet again, we have decided to destroy your network. That was later amended to single out Sony executives, PlayStationLifestyle reports, rather than the PSN itself, with Anonymous declaring open season on the credit card details and other personal information.

Sony is yet to comment on the Anonymous issue, but its worth noting that, while SCE has withdrawn its SOPA support, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Music Nashville are all still listed as in favor of the act. Meanwhile both SCE and Nintendo are members of the Entertainment Software Association, which also remains a supporter.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Google, eBay, PayPal and others were considering an attention-grabbing blackout of their respective sites in the hope of prompting a mass uprising of public complaint about SOPA. The move would follow a similar call to arms by microblogging platform Tumblr, which motivated almost 90,000 users to contact their Representatives to discuss the act.

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New York Police Circulating Mysterious Government Guide to Criminal Tactics of “Protest Extremists”

An email contained in the latest AntiSec release indicates that law enforcement agencies in New York have been circulating an out-of-date manual that was previously criticized by the ACLU to instruct officers about issues related to Occupy protests. The brief email from December 5, 2011 was circulated to a number of law enforcement agencies affiliated with the Mid Hudson Chiefs of Police Association and contains several document attachments that describe tactics used by protesters, including basic guides on how to conduct your own “Occupy” protest. One of the documents is a police manual titled “Civil Disturbance and Criminal Tactics of Protest Extremists” that describes “illegal” tactics used by protesters and so-called “protest extremists”. The document, which was last revised in 2003, does not list its originating agency or author and is marked with a number of unusual protective markings indicating that it is not intended for public release.

The existence of the document was first discussed in a 2003 article from the Colorado Springs Independent which quoted a representative of the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force discussing the manual:

. In a written statement recently obtained by the Colorado ACLU, an agent of the Denver Joint Terrorism Task Force describes how he has used the manual to instruct local law-enforcement officers.”Beginning in 2001, I began using a training manual created by the U.S. government, which identifies civil disturbance and criminal protest tactics and instructs on how to respond to those tactics,” states the agent, Tom Fisher. The manual, he states, is “part of a program offered by the United States government on criminal protest tactics.”

. According to the statement, the training manual is “law-enforcement sensitive” and not to be released to the public.

. Fisher also states that he has been teaching the Denver Police Department about “terrorist issues,” including “criminal tactics of protest extremists.”

The manual contained in the latest AntiSec release is further confirmed to be this document by a spokesman for the Colorado Springs Police Department who quotes from the document and refers to it by name:

. A spokesman for the Colorado Springs Police Department said he’s not sure whether the department received the Oct. 15 FBI memo. “We have no record of receiving that intelligence bulletin, although that’s not to say we didn’t,” said the spokesman, Lt. Skip Arms.Springs police have not received training from Fisher, though they do use a manual titled Civil Disturbance and Criminal Tactics of Protest Extremists, Arms said.

. “It’s something that our tactical people would look at and compare to their tactics,” he said.

Arms said he doesn’t know where the department obtained the manual or who authored it. The introduction states that it is “the result of an extensive interagency collaboration to address a surge of protest activity worldwide,” but nothing in it indicates specifically that it was developed by the U.S. government, he said.

Lt. Arms quotes from the introduction which states “‘Civil Disturbance and Criminal Tactics of Protest Extremists’, was prepared in response to the increase of protest activity worldwide and the escalation of violence and property destruction that has occurred in the past several years. Information regarding the unlawful operational and tactical activities was collected and interpreted by multiple agencies. The information presented is for law enforcement and public safety officials to assist in effectively managing civil disturbances and large-scale protests”.

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Scientologist rallies followers against leader in leaked email

Debbie Cook says emphasis on fundraising under David Miscavige is betrayal of founder L Ron Hubbard's beliefs

A rare expression of internal dissent has broken out in the world of Scientology, with one of its most senior figures sending a mass email to 12,000 fellow members complaining that the self-styled church has become obsessed with fundraising and has amassed unused reserves of over $1bn (£640m).

Debbie Cook says she remains committed to the group, set up in the 1950s by the former science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard. She is critical, however, of David Miscavige, who has led the Church of Scientology since Hubbard's death, 26 years ago.

Miscavige, who has faced and vehemently denied accusations of a despotic leadership style and physical assaults on colleagues, has presided over a "new age of continuous fundraising", Cook claims.

In what appears to be a direct attempt to undermine Miscavige's leadership, Cook, who spent three decades inside the church's equivalent of a clergy, the so-called Sea Org, , urged people receiving the email to reject orders not directly backed up by Hubbard's teachings, and to encourage other members to do the same.

One recipient passed the email to New York's Village Voice, which posted it in a blog. While the email was later removed at the request of Cook – who has verified its authenticity – it has been republished elsewhere.

Under Miscavige's leadership, Scientology has expanded hugely, not least thanks to celebrity endorsements from the likes of Tom Cruise and John Travolta. However, the church has faced criticism for alleged pressure on members to donate regular and sometimes significant sums of money.

An obsession with money, said Cook, was both contrary to Hubbard's teachings and a distraction from efforts to disseminate the late writer's beliefs. These involve psychoanalysis-based self-help and counselling, and the supposed malign influence of alien spirits brought to Earth 76m years ago by a galactic emperor called Xenu.

In an email full of church jargon and Hubbard references, Cook quoted the church's founder as decreeing that the maximum sum people should pay to be a Scientologist was a lifetime membership of $75. Instead, under Miscavige, Scientology had acquired a vast and largely unused wealth, she said.

"Currently, membership monies are held as Int reserves and have grown to well in excess of a billion dollars. Only a tiny fraction has ever been spent, in violation of the policy above. Only the interest earned from the holdings have been used very sparingly to fund projects through grants."

Miscavige had also been dismantling the church's original management structures, Cook said, writing that she had spent time working at an otherwise empty headquarters building: "empty because everyone had been removed from post. When I first went up lines I was briefed extensively by David Miscavige about how bad all of them were and how they had done many things that were all very discreditable. This seemed to 'explain' the fact that the entirety of the Watchdog Committee no longer existed."

Miscavige had dismantled the "complete and brilliant organisational structure" put in place by Hubbard, she added. "There never was supposed to be a 'leader' other than LRH himself as the goal maker for our group."

Cook urged fellow members to refuse to make new donations unless church authorities could produce a Hubbard teaching to say they were required, adding: "No one will be able to produce any references because there aren't any." She went on: "The other thing you can do is to send this email to as many others as you can, even if you do it anonymously. Please keep this email among us, the Scientologists. The media have no place in this."

This is a deeply awkward moment for the Scientology organisation, which has been attempting to regain the initiative after a period that has seen the public defection of another Hollywood adherent, the Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis, as well as the allegations against Miscavige and judicial investigations in France and Australia.

In a statement sent to the Times, which followed up the Village Voice blog, the Church of Scientology dismissed the email, saying: "Ms Cook's opinions reflect a small, ignorant and unenlightened view of the world today. They are not shared by the thousands of Scientologists who are overjoyed by our 27 new churches and what they mean to the communities they serve."

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Denmark, Germany and Italy Targeted by Anonymous in Op Europe

Since the Lulzmax operation was a “complete success,” hackers working under the Anonymous name revealed their new objectives purposed to unmask the corruption that takes place in European institutions.

Schools, universities and government institutions from European countries such as Greece, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Italy are about to become targets of the latest operation called Op Europe.

The hacktivist collective already released a teaser to show the world that they’re serious and promise that the first results “are coming in few hours.” An FTP backup and emails from an Austrian school were already obtained and posted online for the everyone to see.

Operation Europe will take place over the course of several months, period during which the institutions that feel they may be targeted should buff up their security measures to avoid any unfortunate incidents.

Anonymous - #opeurope - Expect us!

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

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Something Rotten in Iowa? The “Hacktivist Threat” Timeline

As reported by The End Run yesterday, it turns out that Clarke Davidson, one of the protesters arrested for blocking the door to Ron Paul’s campaign office in Ankeny, Iowa, is the same guy responsible for uploading a video to YouTube calling on activists to “peacefully shut down” the Iowa caucuses this Tuesday, January 3.

The video, supposedly created by “Anonymous” and anonymously delivered to Davidson, is now being used in conjunction with these on-going “Occupy” protests (which have also targeted candidates like Mitt Romney and Barack Obama) as a pretext to move the vote counting for the Jan 3 primary to a secret location.

Given these facts, it behooves us to look more closely at Davidson, the origins of the “Anonymous” video that he uploaded, how it has being utilized by the media and GOP establishment, and how it may be used moving forward. We are going to do just that, right now. Let’s look at this chronologically:

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America rejects anti-piracy rules

And disagrees with censoring the web

The Copy Culture Survey has finally been released and it is bad news for politicians hoping to pick up a few reactionary votes from pushing through anti-piracy rules.

Apparently the great unwashed think that piracy is okay and socially acceptable. If you announce at a party that you have just spent the entire evening ripping your Beatles collection your friends will not shun you.

You will not have a problem asking for the hand of the miller's daughter just because you downloaded a copy of "Sherlock" the night before and her dad found out. In short, piracy is as much a part of the fabric of modern society as that nasty stain is a part of your cream sofa.

The Copy Culture survey was sponsored by The American Assembly, with support from a research award from Google.

The results are based on interviews on landline and mobiles onducted in English with 2,303 adults aged 18 or older living in the continental United States from August 1-31, 2011. For results based on the entire sample, the margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points.

According to the survey; copyright infringement among family and friends is common. The survey reveals that 46 percent of adults and 75 percent of young people have bought, copied, or downloaded some copyright infringing material. More than 70 percent of those surveyed think it is reasonable to share music files with friends and family.

Solid majorities of American internet users oppose copyright enforcement when it is perceived to intrude on personal rights and freedoms. Support for internet blocking schemes was at 16 percent.

The survey will probably be taken one way by Big Content: that the plebians don't know what's good for them and a censorship project like SOPA is what the country really needs, if the studios are still going to churn out classics like 2011's Gnomeo and Juliet.

But it seems that rather than winning votes, SOPA could cost the politicians that support it. This could do more damage than votes generated by the bribe money, er, campaign contributions, from the music and film industry can buy you.

Nearly half of pirates claim that they pirate less since the emergence of streaming services.

Read more: http://news.techeye.net/s(...)-rules#ixzz1iVdCamCC

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Peace Officers Union pushes for legislative probe into Anonymous hack

SACRAMENTO, CA - Members of a Peace Officers Union are demanding a legislative probe after Anonymous hackers accessed the information of more than 2,500 members of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association.

On New Year's Day, hackers exposed the private home addresses, phone numbers, and in some cases, the credit card information of many CSLEA members.

On Tuesday, the Peace Officers of California, a rival subset of the CSLEA, sent a letter to lawmakers. They want a full investigation into the security breach.

"We want to know why we weren't notified if this was going on since April," said Victor Sanchez, a CSLEA member and president of the Peace Officers of California.

On Tuesday CSLEA's president Alan Barcelona did not answer phone calls made by News10.

A letter sent to members Tuesday from the CSLEA explains why its board didn't notify all members of a previous hack in November.

"It was decided no generalized publication of the hack would be made in order to prevent any anxiety on the part of the those who had not had their personal information compromised," the letter stated.

CSLEA also stated it doesn't appear that any additional breach of information has occurred.

Read the whole letter from the CSLEA below:

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Vlak voor Kerstmis nam Kammarkollegiet beslissing om de missionaire Kopimistsamfundet als een religieuze gemeenschap te registreren. Dit betekent dat Zweden het eerste land ter wereld dat kopimismen herkent als een religie.

De zendeling Kopimistamfundet hebben geprobeerd om te worden erkend door de staat door de Administratieve Services Agency voor meer dan een jaar.

- We moesten er drie verzoeken aan de Administratieve Services Agency is voorzichtig geweest met de formaliteiten, zei vandaag een gelukkige Gustav Nipe, voorzitter van de gemeenschap. Ik denk dat het zou kunnen zijn omdat het in het openbaar bestuur geïnfiltreerd een sterke copyright extremisme, met een scheve uitzicht op het kopiëren, Gustav verder.

Informatie is heilig voor de missionaris Kopimistsamfundet, en kopieer het avondmaal. Informatie heeft waarde, zowel op zichzelf en in de inhoud ervan, en deze waarde stijgt met het kopiëren. Zo, het kopiëren van de kern van alles in de gemeenschap.

- Er is een grote stap voor kopimismen dat ons geloof is erkend door de Zweedse staat. Hopelijk betekent dit dat we eindelijk kunnen beginnen met ons geloof te oefenen, zonder dreiging van represailles, zei Gerson Isaac missie manager en chief spiritueel leider van de gemeenschap.

De zendeling Kopimistsamfundet is een kerkgenootschap opgericht in de 2010e Kopimistsamfundet formaliseert een gemeenschap die vandaag de dag goed is verspreid in de gemeenschap. De kopimistiska Gemeenschap vereist geen lidmaatschap. Het is voldoende dat men een roeping om de heiligste van alle aanbidding voelt: informatie. Voor dit doel, op voorwaarde dat religieuze diensten geregeld binnen de gemeenschap kader, waarin de gelovigen te delen informatie met elkaar en ook verfijnt deze informatie.

Gekopieerd en gedistribueerd.

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File-Sharing Recognized as Official Religion in Sweden

Since 2010 a group of self-confessed pirates have tried to get their beliefs recognized as an official religion in Sweden. After their request was denied several times, the Church of Kopimism – which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols – is now approved by the authorities as an official religion. The Church hopes that its official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing.

All around the world file-sharers are being chased by anti-piracy outfits and the authorities, and the situation in Sweden is no different. While copyright holders are often quick to label file-sharers as pirates, there is a large group of people who actually consider copying to be a sacred act.

Philosophy student Isak Gerson is such a religious file-sharer, and in an attempt to protect his unique belief system he founded The Missionary Church of Kopimism in 2010. In the hope that they could help prevent persecution for their beliefs, the Church then filed a request to be officially accepted by the authorities.

After two failed attempts, where the Church was asked to formalize its way of praying or meditation, the authorities finally recognized the organization as an official religion. The Church’s founder is ecstatic about this news, and hopes that it will motivate more people to come forward as ‘Kopimists’.

“I think that more people will have the courage to step out as Kopimists. Maybe not in the public, but at least to their close ones,” Isak tells TorrentFreak. “There’s still a legal stigma around copying for many. A lot of people still worry about going to jail when copying and remixing. I hope in the name of Kopimi that this will change.”

Although the formal status of the Church doesn’t mean that copyright infringement is now permitted, the Church’s founder hopes that their beliefs will be considered in future lawmaking.

During the last half year the Missionary Church of Kopimism tripled its members from 1,000 to 3,000 and it’s expected that the recent news will cause another surge in followers. Official member or not, Gerson encourages everyone with an Internet connection to keep on sharing.

“We confessional Kopimists have not only depended on each other in this struggle, but on everyone who is copying information. To everyone with an internet connection: Keep copying. Maintain hardline Kopimi,” Gerson concludes.

Prospective followers who embrace the same calling are of course welcome to join the movement, free of charge.

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Iran clamps down on internet use

Restrictions on cybercafes and plans to launch national internet prompt fears users could be cut off from world wide web

Iran is clamping down heavily on web users before parliamentary elections in March with draconian rules on cybercafes and preparations to launch a national internet.

Tests for a countrywide network aimed at substituting services run through the world wide web have been carried out by Iran's ministry of information and communication technology, according to a newspaper report. The move has prompted fears among its online community that Iran intends to withdraw from the global internet.

The police this week imposed tighter regulations on internet cafes. Cafe owners have been given a two-week ultimatum to adopt rules requiring them to check the identity cards of their customers before providing services.

"Internet cafes are required to write down the forename, surname, name of the father, national identification number, postcode and telephone number of each customer," said an Iranian police statement, according to the news website Tabnak.

"Besides the personal information, they must maintain other information of the customer such as the date and the time of using the internet and the IP address, and the addresses of the websites visited. They should keep these informations for each individuals for at least six months."

In recent weeks, users in Iran have complained of a significant reduction in internet speed, reported the reformist newspaper, Roozegar, which has recently resumed publication after months of closure. The newspaper said it appeared to be the result of testing the national internet.

"According to some of the people in charge of the communication industry, attempts to launch a national internet network are the cause of disruption in internet and its speed reduction in recent weeks," Roozegar reported.

Some government websites, however, cited other reasons for the drop in speed.

"If the national internet comes into effect, the internet in the country will act like an internal network and therefore visiting the websites needs permission from the people in charge. Users outside Iran also need permission to visit websites running from inside the country," Roozegar's report said.

Speaking to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, an Iranian IT expert with close knowledge of the national internet project, which he described as a corporate-style intranet, said: "Despite what others think, intranet is not primarily aimed at curbing the global internet but Iran is creating it to secure its own military, banking and sensitive data from the outside world.

"Iran has fears of an outside cyber-attack like that of the Stuxnet, and is trying to protect its sensitive data from being accessible on the world wide web."

Stuxnet, a computer worm designed to sabotage Iran's uranium enrichment project, hit the country's nuclear facilities in 2010. Iranian authorities initially played down the impact of the Stuxnet but eventually admitted the nuclear programme had been damaged by the malware.

"At the same time, Iran is working on software robots to analyse exchanging emails and chats, attempting to find more effective ways of controlling user's online activities," said the expert.

A blogger in Tehran said recent news was of significant concern to the country's online community. "I'm addicted to the internet and can't imagine a day without the global internet," said the blogger. "But Iranians have always found ways to bypass the regime's censorship, for example by using illegal satellite dishes to watch banned television channels, and I'm sure in the 21st century we should be able to find alternatives should they opt to pull out of the world wide web."

The authorities have said for some years that Iran should have a parallel network which would conform to Islamic values and provide "appropriate" services. In April, a senior official, Ali Agha-Mohammadi announced government plans to launch "halal internet".

For Iranian officials, the need for such a network became more evident after the disputed presidential elections in 2009, when many protesters used social networks.

Less than two months before the parliamentary elections,- Iran's first national election since 2009, the regime warned against any online efforts to organise a boycott of the vote and said they would be considered a crime. Iran's bloggers have been prohibited from publishing any satirical materials about the elections or encouraging others to participate in a boycott.

In June, the US was reported to be funding plans to facilitate internet access and mobile phone communications in countries with tight controls on freedom of speech, such as Iran, through a project called "shadow internet" or "internet in a suitcase". Iran responded to the move by stepping up its online censorship by upgrading its filtering system.

Iran is suspected to have sought the support of China for its online censorship campaign but Huawei, a leading Chinese telecoms company, which has been accused of supplying Iran with equipment to enable censorship, denied any wrongdoing. More than 5m websites are filtered in Iran, but many Iranians access blocked addresses with help from proxy websites or virtual private network services. An Iranian official said last year that more than 17 million Iranians have Facebook accounts, although the site remains blocked in Iran.

twitter:

Anarchymous twitterde op donderdag 05-01-2012 om 20:25:40 Theres a trust fund established for the daughter of a fallen #anonymous comrade. Please consider donating #anonFamily https://t.co/4pyvufHY reageer retweet

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Symantec Confirms Norton AV Source Code Exposed

Infosec Island was provided with a file by an unidentified hacker going by the handle YamaTough which after preliminary analysis appeared to contain source code for the 2006 version of Symantec's Norton antivirus product.

Infosec Island provided Symantec with the file for analysis, which has now been completed.

Cris Paden, Sr. Manager for Corporate Communications at Symantec emailed Infosec Island editors with the following statement concerning the exposure of source code for the company's Norton antivirus product:

"Symantec can confirm that a segment of its source code has been accessed. Symantec’s own network was not breached, but rather that of a third party entity."

"We are still gathering information on the details and are not in a position to provide specifics on the third party involved."

"Presently, we have no indication that the code disclosure impacts the functionality or security of Symantec’s solutions. Furthermore, there are no indications that customer information has been impacted or exposed at this time."

"However, Symantec is working to develop remediation process to ensure long-term protection for our customers’ information. We will communicate that process once the steps have been finalized."

"Given the early stages of the investigation, we have no further details to disclose at this time but will provide updates as we confirm additional facts."

Though the code is for an older version of the Norton antivirus product, the impact of the exposure is still as of yet undetermined, and several questions remain:

. As the file provided to Infosec Island and passed on to Symantec was merely a sample of the material YamTough claimed to be in possession of, does that mean that code for more recent editions have not been compromised as well?
. What was the "third party" - presumably some entity related to the Indian government - doing in possession of the source code for the Symantec product?
. How much information would source code from 2006 provide to malware authors assuming that the entire product has not been reinvented from scratch since the time this code was produced?

Symantec officials have indicated they will be providing more information as they continue their investigation, and certainly more will be known if the entirety of the compromised data YamaTough claims to be in possession of is finally released to the public as has been threatened.

Stay tuned for more as this story develops into what could be one of the biggest data loss events of 2012, and just less than one week into the new year.

Previous coverage:

https://www.infosecisland(...)AV-Code-Exposed.html
https://www.infosecisland(...)rus-Source-Code.html

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Twitter, Facebook, Google endorse alternate online piracy bill

^{By Gautham Nagesh - 01/05/12 03:50 PM ET}

Eight of the largest Web companies have endorsed an online piracy bill offered by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as an alternative to the unpopular Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, Protect IP.

The OPEN Act would direct online patent infringement claims against foreign websites to the International Trade Commission (ITC), which would be authorized to order online ad networks and payment processors to sever ties with the rogue foreign sites.

That approach drew praise from the Web firms, many of which oppose the provisions in SOPA that would require search engines and other sites to delete links to sites deemed to be "dedicated" to copyright infringement. The online community argues such a requirement would result in censorship online.

"[The OPEN Act's] approach targets foreign rogue sites without inflicting collateral damage on legitimate, law-abiding U.S. Internet companies by bringing well-established international trade remedies to bear on this problem," wrote AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga in a letter to Issa and Wyden last month.

The OPEN Act has attracted strong support from Silicon Valley, but criticism from the entertainment industry, which claims it wouldn't effectively prevent piracy. The content industries have argued the ITC moves too slowly and its rulings often favor tech companies over content providers.

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Sony hacked again by Anonymous

Sony has once again fallen victim to hacker collective Anonymous, which has this time targeted Sony Pictures. The move comes just months after Sony recovered from a devastating series of attacks that shut down much of its online network for months in 2011.

The attack is believed to be in retaliation against Sony's support for the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act.

A hacker by the name of s3verver.exe claimed responsibility for the attack.

Videos showing how the attack was accomplished appeared briefly on YouTube and Facebook but have been removed.

It is understood the hacker boasted that while the hack wasn't big, the servers were vulnerable and they were able to access server admin.

The biggest coup for hackers in 2011 was the devastating attack on Sony's PlayStation Network and its Online Entertainment network, which saw the online services shut down for weeks and hackers compromise the accounts of millions of gamers.

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Anonymous Spoofs Stratfor Head George Friedman, Sends Blast Email To All Clients

Looks like the Anonymous hackers continue having fun at the expense of Stratfor's George Friedman... and its clients. In an mass email sent out earlier spoofing the account of Friedman and blasted to all the Stratfor clients, the hacked account stated that going forward all Stratfor premium content would be free, and further, would "like to hear from our loyal client base as to our handling of the recent intrusion by those deranged, sexually deviant criminal hacker terrorist masterminds." Unfortunately, now that the email addresses of thousands of highly placed individuals are out in the open, we believe this is merely the start of comparable spoofing, which will likely end up with disturbing results. In the meantime, Stratfor's website continues to be down.

Full email below: