Anonops #10: Stop SOPA

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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:

Anonymous Warns Dutch TV: NOS, RTL & SBS ( + Dutch Subs )

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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BlackBerry, Nokia and Apple have provided the Indian Military with backdoor access to cellular surveillance

On January 6th reports of Symantec (makers of Norton Anitvirus) being hacked surfaced. The group of hackers behind the attack behind the attack were from India. In a statement issued by a member from the Lords of Dharamraja group (badass name!), the guys said:

. As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme (sic) and CBI

Ignoring the typing error, gaining access to Indian Military’s Intelligence servers is pretty damning for the agency. The hack got covered since the hackers claimed to have acces to Norton’s source code. Earlier today I came across scans of a set of documents that are internal communications between the Indian Military. The documents claim the existence of a system known as RINOA SUR. While I did not find what SUR stands for but RINOA is RIM, NOkia and Apple. And this is where things start to get very interesting, according to the set of documents, the RINOA SUR platform was used to spy on the USCC—the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Let’s take a moment for that to digest. Here’s an image from the documents underlining the relevant part:

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Internet - Israel: Israel droht internationalen Hackern mit Vergeltung

Tel Aviv (dpa) - Israel hat internationalen Hackern wegen der Veröffentlichung geheimer Informationen von Kreditkarten mit einem Gegenschlag gedroht.

«Wer Israel im Cyberspace Schaden zufügt, ist nicht immun gegen Vergeltungsmaßnahmen», sagte der stellvertretende Außenminister Danny Ajalon am Samstag in Beerscheva. Ein Mitarbeiter Ajalons bezeichnete Angriffe von Hackern als Terrorismus.

Internationale Hacker hatten im Netz geheime Informationen zu tausenden israelischer Kreditkarten veröffentlicht. Nach Medienberichten wurden Namen, Adressen, Telefonnummern sowie Identitätsnummern von 26 000 Israelis preisgegeben.

Die Identität der Hacker ist bislang noch nicht gelüftet. Zuerst hieß es, die Spuren wiesen nach Saudi-Arabien. Dann erklärte eine Person mit dem Namen OxOmar, er sei Mitglied der internationalen Hackerorganisation «Anonymous».

Ein israelischer Student behauptete dann am Freitag, er wisse, wer hinter OxOmar stecke. Der Hacker stamme nicht aus Saudi-Arabien, sondern sei in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten (VAE) geboren worden. Er lebe jetzt in Mexiko. Die israelische Nachrichtenseite «ynet.com» berichtete daraufhin, in der Redaktion habe sich ein Mann gemeldet, der behauptet habe, er sei OxOmar und seine Identität sei noch nicht gelüftet worden.

Erst im November war es in Israel zu einer schweren Computerpanne gekommen. Die Websites mehrerer Regierungs- und Sicherheitsorganisationen waren nach einem Totalabsturz stundenlang lahmgelegt. «Anonymous» hatte der israelischen Regierung vorher mit einem Angriff gedroht. Die israelischen Behörden dementierten jedoch damals Berichte über eine Hacker-Attacke und erklärten den Vorfall mit einem technischen Fehler.

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Hackers expose defence and intelligence officials in US and UK

Security breach by Anonymous 'hacktivists' reveals email addresses of 221 British military staff and 242 Nato officials

Thousands of British email addresses and encrypted passwords, including those of defence, intelligence and police officials as well as politicians and Nato advisers, have been revealed on the internet following a security breach by hackers.

Among the huge database of private information exposed by self-styled "hacktivists" are the details of 221 British military officials and 242 Nato staff. Civil servants working at the heart of the UK government – including several in the Cabinet Office as well as advisers to the Joint Intelligence Organisation that acts as the prime minister's eyes and ears on sensitive information – have also been exposed.

The exposure of the database came after hackers – who are believed to be part of the Anonymous group – gained unauthorised access over Christmas to the account information of Stratfor, a consultancy based in Texas that specialises in foreign affairs and security issues. The database had recorded in spreadsheets the user IDs – usually email addresses – and encrypted passwords of about 850,000 individuals who had subscribed to Stratfor's website.

Some 75,000 paying subscribers also had their credit card numbers and addresses exposed, including 462 British accounts.

John Bumgarner, an expert in cyber-security at US Cyber Consequences Unit, a research body in Washington, has carried out an analysis of the Stratfor breach on behalf of the Guardian. He has identified within the data posted by the hackers the details of hundreds of UK government officials, some of whom work in highly sensitive areas. Many of the email addresses listed are not routinely made public, and the passwords are all encrypted in code that can quickly and easily be cracked using off-the-shelf software.

Among the leaked email addresses are 221 Ministry of Defence officials identified by Bumgarner, including army and air force personnel. The breach echoes a much larger group of military personnel contained in the database from the US armed forces, where some 19,000 email addresses ending in the .mil domain for the US military were posted.

In the US case, Bumgarner has found, 173 individuals deployed in Afghanistan and 170 in Iraq can be identified. Personal data from the former vice-president Dan Quayle and Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state, were also released.

Other UK government departments have been affected: seven officials in the Cabinet Office have had their details exposed, 45 Foreign Office officials, 14 from the Home Office , 67 Scotland Yard and other police officials, and two employees with the royal household.

There are also 23 people listed who work in the houses of parliament, including Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North, Lady Nicholson and Lord Roper. Corbyn said that he had been unaware of the breach, adding that, although his email address was very public, he was disturbed by the idea that his password could be cracked and used to delete or write emails in a way that "could be very damaging".

Nicholson, speaking on a phone from Irbil in Iraq, said that she too had no idea that her personal information had been hacked. As a politician, she said, she was used to her privacy being sacrificed and she "rolled with the punches".

But she was very unhappy that private individuals had had their fundamental right to privacy violated. "To expose civil servants is monstrously unfair," she said. "Officials in sensitive areas like defence and the military could even be exposed to threats. Guarding data like this is extremely difficult, but it's not impossible, and we should do a great deal more."

The hacking into Stratfor has had a big impact because the consultancy offers expert analysis of international affairs, including security issues, and attracts subscribers from sensitive government departments. The British victims include officials with the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) responsible for assessing intelligence from all sources, including MI6 secret agents.

A former deputy head of Whitehall's strategic horizons unit is listed. The unit is part of the JIO based in the Cabinet Office and was set up four years ago to give early warning of potential serious problems that might have an impact on the country's security or environment.

Other email addresses point to employees of the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre, a UK agency responsible for training all military personnel in intelligence, security and information support. Among the civil servants listed are a political adviser in the British embassy in Azerbaijan, an adviser to the House of Commons defence committee and an official serving the parliamentary intelligence and security committee.

The extent of the security risk posed by the breach is not known. Bumgarner said that officials who did not take extra precautions in securing passwords through dual authentication or other protection systems could find email and other databases they used being compromised. "Any foreign intelligence service targeting Britain could find these emails useful in identifying individuals connected to sensitive government activities," he said.

British officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were aware of the hacking, but that it did not pose a risk to national security. Passwords for their communications within Whitehall would be different from any of those used to access the Stratfor sites. Whitehall communications would also be protected by extra security walls, officials said.

However, they added that their personal communications could be at risk if individuals used the same password as they used to access Stratfor for their bank accounts and other personal communications.

Unusually, Whitehall spokesmen declined to comment at all on the record about the hacking and any impact it had on the British government. This suggests that the issue is particularly sensitive and that UK security and intelligence agencies are as yet unsure about its full significance.

Stratfor has removed its website from the internet while it investigates the security breach. The company says it is "working diligently to prevent it from ever happening again".

This is just the latest action to hit the headlines by hackers associated with Anonymous. The group, whose loose collection of members are scattered around the world and linked through internet chatrooms, has previously targeted Visa, MasterCard and PayPal in protest at the companies' refusal to accept donations for the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

Suspected members of the collective have been arrested in the UK, US and several other countries.

twitter:

AnonOpsSweden twitterde op maandag 09-01-2012 om 15:17:12 @anon_finland is not alone, you have #anonymous by your side, and we are just getting started. Expect Us! #antisec #antipiracyfi #elisagate reageer retweet

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Elisagate: Anonymous Hackers Launch Finland Cyber War

Hackers synonymous with the Anonymous collective have begun a campaign of cyber attacks against the Finnish government to protest against its decision to block access to the PirateBay website.

Elisa, one of Finland's largest internet providers, has been ordered to block access to the PirateBay website. According to the service provider's press release, it had been ordered to instigate the ban by the local district court in Helsinki. Elisa said it would attempt to overturn the decision in supreme court.

Numerous Twitter accounts linked with the Anonymous collective erupted with messages of discontent and - at times - threats of action against the Finnish government.

"Do you not find it f**king ridiculous that FINLAND of all places is going hard with censorship? bit.ly/yqdrpr," read a tweet from Sabu, one of the most prominent members of Anonymous. "We will not sit idle and allow our governments to censor us. F**k that! Next they will tell us what to eat and think. Cliche? Reality."

Later adding, "To the Finnish government: Stop censorship or deal with the consequences."

The sentiment was later mirrored on the collective's main AnonymousIRC Twitter feed, when it reiterated Sabu's sentiment tweeting, "sexually deviant #Antisec terrorist hackers readying The Flying Dutchman, set to sail to #Finland. #ExpectUs #Anonymous #TPB."

Since the call to arms, a tweet went up from Twitter user Killmwithlazers publicising a distributed denial of service attack on the ifpi.fi website. The message was subsequently re-tweeted by Sabu with a follow-up tweet following from AnonymousIRC.

"TANGO DOWN the mind behind the block of thepiratebay in finland! #finland #elisa" read the original tweet. "Let's help our fellow Finns against censorship! Target: ifpi.fi #Anonymous @Anon_Finland" AnonymousIRC soon followed up.

Anonymous' anger towards the block comes as a part of the collective's ongoing insistence in absolute online freedom. One of the few common aspects recorded between every cell of the collective, Anonymous has consistently threatened and enacted attacks on governments or organisations seeking to censor the internet.

As well as its activities in Finland, Anonymous is also actively combating the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act. Designed to combat online piracy, since being announced the SOPA bill has come under wide-spread criticism, with numerous groups voicing concerns about the new powers the act could grant U.S. law enforcement. A common concern is the suggestion that the act will allow police to arrest, fine and potentially jail individuals for seemingly minor offences, such as uploading a copyrighted video onto YouTube.

Anonymous initially issued threats of possible "retribution" against companies supporting the bill in December when it announced "OpBlackOut" - a website defacement campaign that would see it target law enforcement agencies and companies vocally supporting SOPA. The collective has since continued to issue threats to any group or company actively supporting the bill.

At the time of writing the ifpi.fi site was still down.

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: a.stevenson@ibtimes.co.uk

To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.co.uk

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Blitzkrieg tegen Duitse neo-nazi’s

Onder de titel “Operation Blitzkrieg’ hebben Duitse hackers van Anonymous de aanval geopend op een aantal extreem-rechtse sites. Op een speciale website, nazi-leaks, hebben ze een hele reeks gegevens gepubliceerd die afkomstig zijn van gehackte sites en op de een of andere manier te maken hebben met (voornamelijk Duits) extreem-rechts. Dat kunnen de e-mails van mensen zijn die bij Thor Steinar kleren hebben gekocht die populair zijn bij neonazistische groepen, contactinformatie van het rechtse weekblad Junge Freiheit, of e-mails van de site van de Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschland.

Net als bij WikiLeaks, duidelijk een bron van inspiratie, is het resultaat een enorme hoeveelheid gegevens, met rijp en groen door elkaar heen. Soms zijn naam, adres en telefoonnummer van mensen op het web gezet. Ook medestanders in de strijd tegen neo-nazi’s hebben daar kritiek op, constateert de Deutsche Welle, de Duitse BBC:

. Simone Rafael from the anti-Nazi Web forum, netz-gegen-nazis.de, said it was good “to remove the (Nazi) filth from the Net for few days.” But he criticized the move to publish personal data on the Internet without permission. “If some extreme right-winger were do to this, we’d be furious, too”.

Sommige rechtse sites hebben meteen gereageerd. Zoals het rechtse forum Altermedia. De site was de afgelopen dagen regelmatig offline, maar volgens de Frankfurter Rundschau heeft de site de jacht geopend op de hackers. Beloning voor tips: een paar afgehakte vingers.

. Wie linke Websites berichten, befindet sich auf Altermedia ein Kommentar, “daß Hinweise auf die Identität der Pseudo-Anonymus-Zecken dankend entgegen genommen werden und gerne mit Prämien wie z.B. abgeschnittenen Fingern belohnt werden”. Ob der Kommentar authentisch ist, ließ sich nicht nachprüfen, da Altermedia zum Zeitpunkt der Recherche offline war.

De actie was deze zomer al aangekondigd – zie bijvoorbeeld deze video in het Engels, waarin hard wordt uitgehaald naar neonazi”s.

. You intimidate people that go on the streets protest for their ideals, and attack your political opponents, thus you deny them the right of free speech. Yet you hypocriticaly demand this exact same right of free speech for yourself, and throw the dirt in the form of agitations and “art around you “. You attack journalists and the media in general, you attack members of the opposing parties and equally you attack refugees and immigrants, who live and work in your “home country”. This people simply had to leave their native countries because of suppression and misery. This behaviour can no longer be tolerated.

Anonymous - Operation Blitzkrieg

Al eerder heeft een Finse Anonymous groep een vergelijkbare actie uitgevoerd. Op 31 oktober werd de website gehackt van Suomen Kansallinen Vastarinta (SKV, de extreem-rechtse Beweging van Nationaal Verzet). De namen van alle sympathisanten die van de site konden worden gehaald, werden op het internet gezet. In een verklaring schreef Anonymous Finland:

. We have seen a massive increase of racism among large layers of the population and national politics, as well as of violent verbal and physical actions towards foreigners. We have seen the birth of groups and political movements and apparition of political figures who support racist ideologies and foster and encourage racial hatred through flamboyant rhetoric, people and movements who – and We are absolutely sure of it – would switch from words to extreme violent action towards foreigners if they had the means to do so and a massive support at their back. As history has showed too many times, the step from words to horrible crimes is very easy and can happen any time and anywhere.

De actie had een bescheiden succes. Een paar dagen later moest een medewerker van een parlementslid van de Ware Finnen aftreden omdat haar naam op de lijst van sympathisanten stond.

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Elisagate: Anonymous Sabu in Flame War with Finnish Security Expert Mikko Hypponen

Following the Anonymous collective's declaration of war against Finnish online censorship, prominent Anon Sabu has entered into a flame war with F-Secure's Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen.

The flamewar began on Twitter after Sabu directly tweeted Mikko asking him what he was doing to combat a recent court ruling blocking access to the PirateBay website in Finland. Initially reasoned, the twos' interactions took a turn for the worse after Mikko declined a request by Sabu to work with him to combat the country's online censorship.

"@mikko Message me on IRC. Perhaps we can help each other with this situation in .fi. #elisagate #f[**]kcensorship #anonymous" read Sabu's tweet. Mikko soon replied; "@anonymouSabu I'll pass thanks."

Following the comments the conversation turned hostile with Sabu tweeting back attacking Mikko's alleged disinterest in "serving the people." Specifically Sabu charged Mikko of caring more about selling his company's products than stopping online censorship.

"@Mikko has in interest in feeding his pockets, not serving the people. His connections to the government of Finland come before his people" read one of Sabu's tweets. "@TPB_Stun @mikko Same s[**]t with every other whitehat. They are cowards. And have to watch every word they say as it affects their contracts," added another.

Sabu later called for a boycott of F-Secure claiming the company supported online censorship. "Anyone using F-Secure products should boycott immediately. They are in accordance with the Finnish government to censor their web. @mikko."

Mikko subsequently challenged Sabu's accusations reporting that he and F-Secure in no way supported the Finnish block clarifying: "Despite what Mr. @anonymouSabu tries to tell people, F-Secure does NOT support online censorship. Quite the contrary."

Since tweeting his response at 4.40pm Mikko's account has gone silent, though Sabu has continued tweeting against Mikko and as a result several other Twitter users have also weighed-into the debate.

F-Secure is a Finnish online security company with 18 offices and a presence in more than 100 countries. Mikko Hyppönen has worked with F-Secure since 1991 and is currently the company's Chief Research Officer. He has a track record of assisting law enforcement across the world deal with cyber-criminality and has advised several governments on cyber-policy.

Living up to the collective's namesake, little is known about Sabu past that he is a prominent member of Anonymous. In the past, despite there being several groups claiming to have discovered his identity, there is next to no official data on Sabu. His recent flame war with Mikko is not the first he has publicly had on Twitter. Earlier in 2011 Sabu had a similarly heated exchange with the UK Guardian's Technology Editor Charles Arther after he requested the Anon explain certain details regarding data he was claiming to possess.

At the time of writing the debate between Mikko and Sabu supporters was ongoing.

AMENDMENT: This article was changed 8:04am 10/01/2012 After Guardian Technology Editor Charles Arthur contacted the International Business Times UK clarifying he had not requested an interview from Sabu.

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: a.stevenson@ibtimes.co.uk

quote:

HACKER GROUP ANONYMOUS TAKES DOWN OVER 40 CHILD PORN SITES

(NATIONAL) -- The group of computer hackers known as Anonymous has turned its attention from corporations long enough to attack and take down over 40 child porn websites run by pedophiles.

Included in the takedowns was one of the largest known such sites, "with account details of its 1589 users being posted online as evidence,” said Time.com and another report in artstechnica.com.

The attacks on the websites were reportedly an operation the group is calling “Operation Darknet,” a move by the hackers to eliminate child pornography on the Tor network.

Tor, which was originally developed as a way of protecting government communications by the U.S. Navy, now describes itself as “a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet.”

But according to Anonymous, the privacy and anonymity it offers has been abused by child pornographers.

In its statement about the attacks and takedowns of the porn sites, Anonymous says that the group “identified [hosting service] Freedom Hosting as the host of the largest collection of child pornography on the internet…(and) by taking down Freedom Hosting, we are eliminating 40+ child pornography websites, among these is Lolita City, one of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100GB of child pornography. We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting’s server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child pornography.”

The group’s statement also demands of web hosting services that they “Remove all child pornography content from your servers. Refuse to provide hosting services to any website dealing with child pornography. This statement is not just aimed at Freedom Hosting, but everyone on the internet. It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or supporting child pornography, you will become a target.”

Tor is based on a secure networking technology originally developed by the US Navy. It routes traffic through a collection of volunteer servers scattered across the Internet, making monitoring of what is being viewed or where communications are coming from very difficult.

Because of its anonymity, Tor is widely used by individuals and groups seeking to communicate without being surveilled by authorities, employers, or “eavesdroppers watching packets on public WiFi networks,” as well as those wishing to visit websites anonymously without having their IP address recorded.

quote:

Bewaarplicht dreigt ook voor sociale media

Sociale netwerken krijgen mogelijk een bewaarplicht, zodat opsporingsdiensten toegang kunnen krijgen tot data die in het verleden via die netwerken is uitgewisseld.

De Europese Commissie maakt op dit moment plannen om het Data Retention Directive te herzien, de Europese richtlijn voor de bewaarplicht. Providers zijn verplicht gegevens van hun klanten, zoals ip-adressen en andere metadata, voor een bepaalde tijd op te slaan. Die data is bedoeld voor opsporingsdiensten. En diezelfde opsporingsdiensten blijken nog veel meer wensen te hebben.

In het kader van de herziening van de bewaarplicht heeft de Europese Commissie de meningen gevraagd van lidstaten en opsporingsdiensten over de tot nu toe geldende richtlijnen. Dat leverde onder meer het verwijt op dat de bewaarplicht zo moeilijk is te verklaren en te rechtvaardigen door lokale politici en opsporingsdiensten. Aan de Europese Commissie is gevraagd met betere argumentatie te komen om de bewaarplicht beter te beargumenteren.

Intern stuk gelekt

Dat wil de EC wel, zo blijkt uit een intern stuk dat gelekt is en in handen is van de Oostenrijkse tegenhanger van Bits of Freedom: q/uintessenz. Daarnaast leverde de respons van de opsporingsdiensten op dat zij zich belemmerd voelen doordat zij geen wettelijke basis hebben om toegang te krijgen tot historische en metadata van sociale netwerken. De Europese Commissie lijkt in het interne document begrip te tonen voor de behoefte van de opsporingsdiensten en gaat onderzoeken of zij die wens kan faciliteren.

De opsporingsdiensten zeggen "technologische neutraliteit" te willen hebben om te weten te komen wie met wie, wanneer, waar en hoe communiceert. Die term betekent dat het niet moet uitmaken of dat via e-mail, videoconferencing (skype), telefoon, WhatsApp, Twitter, sms of Facebook gebeurt.

Ook voor illegaal downloaden

Niet alleen willen de opsporingsdiensten dat de bewaarplicht voor meer communicatievormen wordt gebruikt, ook zou het voor meer soorten van criminaliteit moeten gelden. Nu mag het grazen in de historische data alleen in geval van zwaardere criminaliteit en terrorismebestrijding. Maar er is grote druk vanuit sommige lidstaten om dat uit te breiden naar opsporing van mensen die zich bezig houden met piraterij en illegale downloads, en in de speurotcht naar cybercrime, bijvoorbeeld naar hackers.

Bits of Freedom heeft de gelekte memo onder de loep genomen en zegt dat de Europese Commissie zonder enige vraagtekens de mening van de opsporingsdiensten lijkt te volgen. "Als het aan de opsporingsdiensten ligt wordt de bewaarplicht zelfs uitgebreid. Die vragen om het bizarre concept "technological neutrality", zo blijkt uit het document. "

Politie neust in krabbels

"Dat zou betekenen dat niet alleen je telefoongesprekken, maar ook al je Facebook updates, je Gmail e-mails, je Hyves krabbels en je up- en downloads een half jaar of langer bewaard moeten worden", schrijft Rejo Zenger namens BoF. Om over de uitbreiding naar copyrightschendingen op te merken: "Function creep to the max!"

Zenger vervolgt: "De Europese Commissie kan nog altijd niet bewijzen dat de bewaarplicht écht nodig is. Laat staan dat het deze enorme inbreuk op onze privacy rechtvaardigt. Hoogste tijd dat de Commissie stopt met het grootschalig bespieden van onverdachte Europese burgers."

Het onderzoek naar de voorstellen van de opsporingsdiensten moet in mei zijn afgerond. Waarna ze in juli besproken worden door de Europese Commissie.

quote:

SOPA becoming election liability for backers

To the ranks of same-sex marriage, tax cuts and illegal immigration, add this to the list of polarizing political issues of Election 2012: the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The hot-button anti-piracy legislation that sparked a revolt online is starting to become a political liability for some of SOPA’s major backers. Fueled by Web activists and online fundraising tools, challengers are using the bill to tag its congressional supporters as backers of Big Government — and raise campaign cash while they’re at it.

Among the fattest targets: SOPA’s lead author, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and two of its most vocal co-sponsors, Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has also felt the wrath of SOPA opponents.

Even GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were asked by voters recently to weigh in on the bill (neither gave definitive answers, though activists have interpreted Santorum’s response as more sympathetic to SOPA than Romney’s).

It’s a stretch to think SOPA will cost any of the longtime incumbents backing the bill their seats. The legislation would give government new powers to shutter websites that peddle counterfeit products and pirated copies of movies and music.

But there are signs the issue, long the domain of think tanks and intellectual property lawyers, could become a real factor in some races.

Prominent conservative blogger Erick Erickson, for one, has promised to make life miserable for any GOP lawmaker who gets behind the bill. His first target: Blackburn.

“I love Marsha Blackburn. She is a delightful lady and a solidly conservative member of Congress,” Erickson wrote on his widely read blog, Red State. But “I am pledging right now that I will do everything in my power to defeat her in her 2012 re-election bid.”

Erickson went on to implore the left and right to “unite and pledge to defeat in primaries every person named as a sponsor” of SOPA and suggested that both sides create a fund dedicated to supporting challengers running against SOPA supporters.

“Killing SOPA is that important,” Erickson wrote.

In Ryan’s case, critics pounced after the powerful congressman issued a vague statement that they interpreted as supportive of the bill. Using the social news site Reddit, they launched an online campaign— dubbed “Operation Pull Ryan” — to unseat him.

Ryan’s Democratic opponent, Rob Zerban, seized on the uproar. After lambasting the bill during an interview on Reddit, Zerban raked in about $15,000 in campaign donations, according to campaign manager Lisa Tanner.

The uproar wasn’t lost on Ryan. On Monday, he issued a statement opposing SOPA in no uncertain terms. While the bill “attempts to address a legitimate problem,” Ryan said, it would open the door to “undue regulation, censorship and legal abuse.”

SOPA is making waves in other House races, too.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/n(...)4.html#ixzz1j5hRDo9Z

quote:

Anon threatens to bomb anti-piracy group

The anti-piracy group CIAPC (Copyright, Information and Anti-Piracy Centre) on Tuesday asked police to investigate a bomb threat it received via email signed by the hacker group Anonymous. The threat follows a recent court-ordered ban on access to The Pirate Bay torrent site by Elisa and Saunalahti internet customers.

The email detailed how a bomb attack would be made on CIAPC’s office this week.

Antti Kotilainen, who heads up the association, said he takes the threat seriously.

CIAPC and the Finnish branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI Finland, have also asked police to investigate denial-of-service attacks on their websites.

On Monday, Helsinki District Court ordered internet service providers Elisa and Saunalahti to block access to The Pirate Bay, where users exchange computer files, including copyrighted films and music.

The music industry is now seeking similar Pirate Bay blocks for Sonera and DNA internet customers.

"If IFPI gets to block access for TeliaSonera & DNA, We'll tear it down. We'll make it crumble," tweeted AnonFinland, Finnish activists of the group Anonymous early Wednesday.

quote:

Hackers 'Anonymous' nemen Brein op de korrel: 'Te wapen!'

De internetgroep Anonymous roept op om de auteursrechtenorganisatie Brein massaal te gaan faxen, of anders van binnenuit te infiltreren. 'Ze zoeken nog een sofware-ontwikkelaar'. Volgens Anonymous is Brein verwikkeld in een 'groot auteursrechtenschandaal' in Nederland.

Anonymous doelt op het feit dat Brein vindt dat internetproviders Ziggo en XS4ALL de toegang tot de downloadsite moeten blokkeren. De stichting kreeg daarin vandaag gelijk van de rechtbank in Den Haag. 'Na censuur in België en onlangs nog in Finland, kan nu de anti-piraterijlobby in Nederland domeinen en IP-adressen van The Pirate Bay blokkeren', aldus de hackers. 'Brein kan zelfs kiezen welke IP-adressen gecensureerd moeten worden. Anonymous zal niet stilzitten terwijl Brein delen van ons internet platlegt. Te wapen!'

Brein lijkt nog niet direct te hoeven vrezen voor een fax-bombardement. Want in plaats van het faxadres van de Stichting Brein in Hoofddorp, hebben de hackers per abuis het faxnummer van het bedrijf Brein BV in Haaksbergen geplaatst.

Finland
Twee Finse auteursrechtenorganisaties werden gisteren al het slachtoffer van hackers van Anonymous, nadat een rechter op hun verzoek The Pirate Bay liet blokkeren bij de providers Elisa en Saunalahti. Die hebben naar schatting gezamelijk 2,2 miljoen klanten.

In een reactie op het vonnis had Anonymous een zogenoemde distributed denial-of-service (ddos)-aanval gelanceerd, waarbij het netwerk wordt platgelegd doordat er met veel computers tegelijk informatie naartoe wordt gestuurd.

Serieus
Hoe serieus het dreigement aan Brein moet worden genomen, is echter moeilijk te zeggen. Achter anonymous schuilt namelijk geen vaste hackersgroep, maar doorgaans juist losstaande groepen van internetactivisten.

Het is overigens niet de eerste keer dat Anonymous Brein op de korrel neemt. In mei vorig jaar claimden leden van Anonymous de verantwoordelijkheid voor een ddos-aanval op de website van de stichting Brein.

quote:

Stratfor back online after cyberhack

LONDON (AP) — Global intelligence analysis firm Stratfor has relaunched its website after hackers brought down its servers and stole thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to its customers.

Chief Executive George Friedman acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that the company had not encrypted customer information and said this decision had embarrassed the company.

Loose-knit hacking collective Anonymous, which claimed responsibility for the attack over the Christmas holidays, had said it was able to get the details in part because Stratfor didn't bother encrypting them.

"It was a truly unforgivable failure and I feel awful about it," Friedman told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Sometimes in rapid growth, you make a mistake. That's not an excuse, that's not a justification ... It's an explanation."

Stratfor had previously declined to say if the information was left unencrypted. Members of Anonymous have said it was targeting companies "that play fast and loose with their customers' private and sensitive information."

The company said Wednesday that it was moving its entire e-commerce process to a third-party system, which will eliminate the need to store credit information.

Friedman also revealed that the company was targeted more than once by hackers and had known for some time about a data breach.

He said he was first alerted to a website hack in early December — weeks before Anonymous took to Twitter to boast of bringing down the website and stealing a stash of credit card numbers, emails and other data from the company.

The hackers said then that their goal was to use the stolen credit information to donate to charities at Christmas, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions were made from their credit accounts.

Austin, Texas-based Stratfor is a subscription-based publisher providing political, economic and military analysis to help customers reduce risk. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos.

On Tuesday, Friedman said he had met with an FBI agent in early December after being informed by the company's vice president of intelligence that customers' credit card numbers had been stolen.

He said he had felt torn over the need to protect and personally inform customers at the time, but that the FBI was setting the rules and wanted to conduct its investigation without tipping the hackers off.

"It was very important to them that the criminals not know the extent to which we had knowledge of the damage," Friedman explained, saying the FBI had assured him that it had informed credit card companies about compromised cards.

"We were caught between a very difficult situation where the FBI had control of the investigation and expected certain care in that investigation — and the need to protect our customers," said Friedman. "What little we could do, we did."

Still, he said he was under "no illusion" that the breach would be exposed.

"We knew our reputation would be damaged by the revelation, all the more so because we had not encrypted the credit card files," Friedman said in a note to subscribers announcing the website's relaunch.

But he told the AP that subscribers have stood by the company and subscriptions have held up in light of the attack.

"Our customers are primarily focused on the criminals," he said. "Some customers have been critical, but the primary theme isn't that 'you didn't know how to lock the door,' but 'locked or not, what are these people doing coming in?'"

While dismayed over stolen emails in the previous breach, Friedman said he was "stunned" to learn that the company's servers were "effectively destroyed" in another hack on Dec. 24.

"I was absolutely unprepared for their attempt to destroy us," Friedman said, describing how hackers took full control of the servers, overrode the systems and made recovery "just about impossible."

"Our systems were shredded," he explained. "The destruction of our servers and our backups... was clearly intended to take us offline and silence us."

Stratfor said it was continuing to cooperate with an FBI investigation into the attack.

Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at: http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

quote:

Mohamed Bouazizi was a produce vendor in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. He was always meant to be a little person in the world, whose life and death could never matter. You were never meant to hear of him. But for no explicable reason, that changed on Dec. 17, 2010. His produce cart was seized by police, and he was beaten. Less than an hour later, he stood on the street doused in paint thinner, screamed “How do you expect me to make a living?” and let a lit match drop.

Bouazizi was at the end of his ability to endure, silently, the pain and abuse that had been the way life worked. But it turned out so was Tunisia, and the whole Middle East.

Within hours protests against the systemic corruption that had driven Bouazizi to self-immolation filled the streets of Sidi Bouzid, and over the next two weeks spread like fire over Tunisia.

It was Jan. 2, 2011. Ben Ali would leave power in 12 days, but no one knew that.

“There were two different posts in channel #operationpayback. First one about some law about to pass in Hungary, second one about a Tunisia problem. For some reason I paid attention to the Tunisian one, and it seems other people did too,” said an anon who participated in OpTunisia. It was a claim that Tunisian dictator Ben Ali was censoring Wikileaks cables related to Tunisia. Rumors emerged about Bouazizi as well, that he was a computer science student (he wasn’t), that he had immolated himself to protest police corruption (he had), and so on.

A few people formed #optunisia on IRC and started talking about what to do. The OpTunisia anon who spoke with Wired.com didn’t think either the op or the revolution had a chance.

“I saw nobody cared about those people, because it wasn’t a big country. It was like, ‘Fuck this is impossible…. Let’s fucking do it!’” the anon wrote in an online chat.

Over the next couple of weeks the small group DDoSed and defaced Tunisian government websites and passed media and news reports about the Tunisian uprising in and out of the country.

“We also distributed a care package containing stuff to workaround privacy (restrictions in Tunisia), including a Greasemonkey script to avoid proxy interception by the Tunisian government on Facebook users,” said the anon. (Greasemonkey scripts are powerful browser plug-ins).

Within that digital care package was a message to the people of Tunisia from Anonymous: “This is *your* revolution. It will neither be Twittered nor televised or [sic] IRC’ed. You *must* hit the streets or you *will* loose [sic] the fight. Always stay safe, once you got [sic] arrested you cannot do anything for yourself or your people. Your government *is* watching you.”

quote:

Nederland maakt zich klaar voor totale Internet Censuur

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.

quote:

SOPA protest re-ignited with Reddit blackout, Wikipedia may join

(CBS) - The popular link-sharing community Reddit plans a site black out on Jan. 18 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sister bill the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

Reddit's co-founder Alexis Ohanian has been one of the most outspoken leaders of the movement against SOPA and PIPA.

"Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action," the site admin's wrote in a blog post.

Along with the protest message, the site will stream Ohanian testifying at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Shutting down the Reddit for 12-hours will no doubt send users into withdrawals. The site has a reputation for being highly engaging and addictive. Users have lamented over spending hours a day on the site. Not that we would know.

While Reddit hasn't hit the mainstream, like Facebook or Twitter, its influence is nothing to scoff at. The site recently reported hitting over 2 billion page views and more than 34 million unique visitors at the close of 2011.

Ohanian and his Reddit army aren't the only ones fighting SOPA and PIPA. Tech heavyweights, like Google, Facebook and Twitter have banned together and put out a joint statement in opposition of SOPA.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales says he's behind Reddit's efforts and would like to coordinate with them.

"I'm all in favor of it, and I think it would be great if we could act quickly to coordinate with Reddit," Wales posted in a discussion today on his personal Wikipedia page. "I'd like to talk to our government affairs advisor to see if they agree on this as useful timing, but assuming that's a greenlight, I think that matching what Reddit does (but in our own way of course) per the emerging consensus on how to do it, is a good idea."

This isn't the first time Wales has made moves against SOPA. After a Reddit thread pointed out that domain registrar GoDaddy was not only for the bill, but exempt from it, Wales announced that all Wikipedia sites would be switching registrars in protest.

Forbes is claiming that Facebook and Google must join the protest for greater impact.

"Facebook and Google going offline would undoubtedly be the biggest tech story of the day, week, month, or possibly the year," claims Forbes contributor Paul Tassi.

He's right. It would be a jaw-dropping day in tech if all of the sites we rely on went dark in solidarity against these bills.

SOPA is intended to curb the illegal download of copyrighted materials from foreign "rogue" sites, like The Pirate Bay. There is already legislation that provides some protection for copyrighted material, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires companies to remove copyrighted content "in good faith."

Worst-case scenarios are being debated. The Electronic Frontier Foundation speculates, "Instead of complying with the DMCA, a copyright owner may now be able to use these new provisions to effectively shut down a site by cutting off access to its domain name, its search engine hits, its ads, and its other financing even if the safe harbors would apply."

quote:

Hackers willen lekken anoniem kunnen melden

Nederlandse hackers werken aan de oprichting van een eigen platform dat hun de mogelijkheid moet bieden anoniem lekken te melden aan bedrijven en overheden. Het platform, met de werktitel Hacker-leaks, is volgens hen nodig omdat hackers die te goeder trouw lekken opsporen en melden nu nog vaak vervolgd worden voor computervredebreuk.

Dat zegt Koen Martens, woordvoerder van een een groot aantal hackers in Nederland. Om beveiligingslekken te kunnen aantonen, moeten hackers vaak inbreken op computers en daarmee overtreden ze de wet. Onlangs nog deed het Utrechtse poppodium Tivoli aangifte tegen de hacker die zich meldde nadat hij een lek in de website van Tivoli had blootgelegd. 'Zolang dat zo is, moeten wij een andere manier verzinnen om anoniem te kunnen werken', aldus Martens.

Vorig jaar deed de PvdA al een voorstel om een klokkenluidersregeling in het leven te roepen voor zogenaamde white hat-hackers. Dat zijn hackers die te goeder trouw lekken aantonen.

Hoewel het erop leek dat er een Kamermeerderheid voor zo'n regeling was, is er sindsdien op dat vlak niets meer gebeurd. Volgens kenners zitten er erg veel haken en ogen aan een dergelijke regeling.

Zelf initiatief
Mede om die reden nemen de hackers nu het initiatief in eigen hand. Volgens Martens willen ze de nieuwe organisatie 'los van de overheid oprichten maar uiteindelijk wel in samenwerking met hen.'

De Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTv), Erik Akerboom, ziet wel iets in dat soort samenwerking. Akerboom, die vandaag het Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum (NCSC) opent, zegt daarover: 'We moeten hackers geen vrijbrief geven om lekker aan de slag te gaan, maar als zij op verantwoorde wijze proberen problemen aan de kaak te stellen, vind ik dat wij hen daarin moeten ondersteunen.'

Ook hoogleraar computerbeveiliging Bart Jacobs van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen denkt dat de overheid meer gebruik moet gaan maken van de kennis en kunde van hackers dan tot nu toe gebeurt.

'Hoe je het precies invult, is best lastig, maar ik denk dat het Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum een goede buffer zou kunnen vormen tussen die mensen en de overheid. Ik denk dat zij veel waardevolle informatie kunnen verschaffen.'

quote:

Politie scant sociale media op 'verdachte info'

De KLPD heeft een systeem aangeschaft om verdachte informatie van openbare bronnen te verzamelen. De regio Twente gaat er als eerste mee aan de slag.

Het systeem CY-Humint (Cyber Human Intelligence) wordt geleverd door Athena GS3 Security Implementations Ltd in Holon Industrial Zone in Israël. Athena is onderdeel van de grote leverancier van infrastructuur- en transportsystemen Mer Group, in Nederland aanwezig met Cellular Infrastructure BV. Vragen van Webwereld worden vanuit Israël per e-mail beantwoord door Omer Laviv, chief executive officer van Athena.


Openbare bronnen

Over CY-Humint zegt Laviv: "Het is bedoeld om wethandhavende instanties te voorzien van vroege waarschuwingen, die worden gebaseerd op 'deep-web' activiteiten." Het is ontwikkeld in Israëlische defensiekringen met behulp van specialisten van de geheime dienst Mossad en nu is het beschikbaar voor export. Welke landen het systeem in gebruik hebben wil Laviv niet kwijt.

De documentatie van Athena is duidelijk over de redenen van het systeem: "Gebeurtenissen als de 'Arabische Lente', de Londense rellen en de maatschappelijke onrust over de hele wereld hebben onomstotelijk aangetoond dat de cyberspace is uitgegroeid tot een favoriete plaats voor aanzetten tot en het coördineren van terrorisme en criminaliteit, maar ook in de civiele onrust."

Volgens Laviv wordt het speuren in ieder geval beperkt tot openbare bronnen, zoals blogs, microblogs, websites, forums, chatrooms en sociale netten als Facebook, Hyves en Twitter. Het systeem maakt vooral gebruik van koppeling op grond van het volgen van het gebruik van IP-nummers en het wisselen daarvan. Het is vooral krachtig vanwege analyse: "CY-Humant creëert en onderhoudt virtuele identiteiten, aangevuld met krachtige middelen voor analyse. Het systeem ondersteunt informatieanalisten online met de efficiency van het verkrijgen van informatie in de echte wereld."

Europese subsidie

Het KLPD en de Politie Twente zijn samen met diverse andere opsporingsinstanties, IT-bedrijven en onderzoeksinstellingen partner in wat nu nog een 'onderzoeksproject' heet. Ordina doet de systeemintegratie en begeleiding in Nederland. Volgens managing partner Onno Franken van Ordina moet het project officieel nog van start gaan. Er is namelijk een Europese subsidieaanvraag, maar het besluit daarover moet in de komende maanden nog vallen.

"Met een aantal Europese partijen hebben we een voorstel ingediend om dit systeem te ontwikkelen voor aan aantal politiediensten in Europa", zegt Franken. "Als je dat samen doet, dan bespaart dat onderzoekskosten en je kunt later elkaars ervaringen delen."

'Niemand hoeft bang te zijn'

Volgens hem hebben ze een 'gezamenlijke visie' opgesteld om als politie meer te gaan doen met informatie. Ze willen op grond van diepgaande analyse potentieel crimineel gedrag en de potentiële vorming van criminele organisaties eerder in beeld te krijgen. Daarmee wil de politie preventief kunnen optreden, of sneller succes boeken met opsporing na een misdaad.

"Het systeem functioneert geheel binnen de wettelijke en ethische grenzen", stelt hij op de vraag of nu iedereen op internet potentieel verdachte wordt. "Als de verkregen informatie uit openbare bronnen verder onderzoek vergt, worden de reguliere kanalen en procedures die voor elk politieonderzoek gelden gevolgd. Niemand is zomaar verdachte en niemand hoeft er bang voor te zijn."

Breder gebruikt

In het verlengde daarvan speelt de vraag of juist de kwaadwillenden voortaan het openbare internet niet gaan gebruiken in de wetenschap dat de politie daar intensief surveilleert. Maar volgens Franken tonen de ervaringen met CY-Humint elders beslist dat het effectief is in het gebruik.

Ordina is de vaste partner van Athena in de Benelux. Dat suggereert dat er al meer opdrachtgevers zijn, maar namen willen Athena en Ordina niet noemen. Wel wil Franken nog kwijt dat de Belgische politie niet deelneemt in het project.

quote:

Anonymous faction in new attack on corporate fraud

A faction within the online hacking collective Anonymous has moved into an unlikely new area – exposing corporate fraud and making money in the aftermath. A new financial research group, Anonymous Analytics, has released a report accusing Chinese firm Chaoda Modern Agriculture of “11 years of deceit and corporate fraud”. The company is one of China’s largest fruit and vegetable suppliers.

The group alleges that Chaoda’s management has funnelled more than $400 million out of the company through false accounting and payments to shell companies. Hong Kong’s government announced an investigation into the company on Monday, shortly before the release of the Anonymous report, leading its shares to fall by 26 per cent before being suspended from trading.

In a departure from illegal hacking, Anonymous Analytics claims that “all information presented in our reports is acquired through legal channels, fact-checked, and vetted thoroughly before release.” The group will however profit from Chaoda’s falling shares, stating “we have an indirect interest in these positions and stand to gain from a decline in the share price of these securities.”

The group has released the information in an encrypted insurance file and will publish the password if its members’ safety or anonymity is threatened.

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Top German cop installed spyware on his daughter's computer to monitor her Internet usage, gets hacked in retaliation

Trojans—they're not just for hackers anymore. German police, for instance, love them; a scandal erupted in Parliament last year after federal investigators were found to be using custom spyware that could potentially record far more information than allowed by law. The story made headlines, but it lacked a certain sense of the bizarre.

Fortunately for connoisseurs of the weird, Der Spiegel revealed a stranger story in its magazine yesterday. According to the report, a top German security official installed a trojan on his own daughter's computer to monitor her Internet usage. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing—well, at least until one of the daughter's friends found the installed spyware. The friend then went after the dad's personal computer as a payback and managed to get in, where he found a cache of security-related e-mails from work. The e-mails, in turn, provided the information necessary for hackers to infiltrate Germany's federal police.

That was bad, but it got worse. The hackers got into the servers for the "Patras" program, which logs location data on suspected criminals through cell phone and car GPS systems. Concerned about security breaches, the government eventually had to take the entire set of Patras servers offline.

One moral of the tale: parents, think hard before taking technical measures against your own kids. There's a better than average chance that they—or their friends—know more than you do.

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Anonymous will shut down to protest SOPA

HACKTIVIST GROUP Anonymous will turn off its lights for twelve hours in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the US.

The hackers are following Reddit's lead, and will join a communications blackout on 18 January that will begin at 8am and end at 8pm.

Reddit said this week that in protest against SOPA, which could shut web sites like it down, it will cease to operate as normal and will be showing only a message of protest, and this has gained the approval of its already supportive user base.

At Anonymous the news was taken equally well, and while the @AnonymousIRC Twitter account tried to recruit other organisations such as Wikipedia and Google into joining the protest it received tweets of support for its plans from its members.

The Reddit announcement has also caused Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales to have another think about whether it is right to turn off his web site in protest, a tactic that was mooted last year.

"Reddit recently announced that they will be blacking out the site from 0800-2000, Jan 18th," he said in a statement on his personal page on the web site. "Were Wikipedia to consider a similar measure, it might make sense to do so at the same time, to increase impact."

Wordpress is also joining the protest and has posted a strong call to arms on its website. "You are an agent of change. Has anyone ever told you that? Well, I just did, and I meant it," it says. "There's something going on in U.S. politics right now that we need to make sure you know about and understand, because it affects us all."

That something is SOPA, and Wordpress said that if it is left unchecked and unprotested it will have a terrible impact on the internet and the web sites that depend upon it.

"We are not a small group. More than 60 million people use WordPress - it's said to power about 15 per cent of the web. We can make an impact, and you can be an agent of change," it said as it called on its users to protest.

"The Senate votes in two weeks, and we need to help at least 41 more senators see reason before then. Please. Make your voice heard." µ

Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/15col)

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Gegevens politici op straat door gehackte websites

De wachtwoorden, adresgegevens en mailadressen van ambtenaren en Kamerleden zijn gelekt nadat de websites Beauy.nl en Recreatief.nl zijn gehackt.

In de bestanden zijn vertrouwelijke gegevens te vinden van onder anderen Hero Brinkman van de PVV en van werknemers van het ministerie van Defensie en het ministerie van Economische Zaken.

In totaal zijn de privégegevens van 315.000 gebruikers gelekt zijn. Dat meldt Security.nl.

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Law professors react to PIPA, SOPA legislation

Congress is expected to consider two bills when it returns from recess on Jan. 24: the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP Act or PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The legislation is of major concern to Stanford thought leaders, in addition to nationwide legal experts, online security experts, Internet activists and the founders of many of Silicon Valley’s largest companies.

“The answer is to innovate, not to pass stupid laws that are going to screw up the Internet,” said Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society (SCIS) at a Dec. 7 event hosted by SCIS called, “What’s wrong with SOPA?” The panel convened experts on Internet infrastructure and security, digital intellectual property and Silicon Valley business to articulate many of SOPA’s problems.

More than 150 people attended the Law School event, which was “not meant to give equal time to both sides,” according to Falzone. The audience did include two representatives from the Motion Picture Association of America, supporters of SOPA and PIPA, who spoke up during a question and answer session.

“There were things about this bill that people in Silicon Valley needed to know – that is lawyers, entrepreneurs and technology people,” Falzone said. “Our goal was to put together an array of people who could speak to each one of those sets of considerations.”

Professor Mark Lemley, director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology, spoke in a January interview with The Daily of the necessity of publicizing what he characterized as the incredible harm of this potential legislation.

“PIPA was introduced in the Senate in early 2011 and it went through the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously… mostly I think because people hadn’t paid attention to it,” Lemley said.

Lemley believes this unanimous action occurred because PIPA was a less extreme bill than SOPA – a conscious legislative decision to make the “lesser of two evils” look like a healthy compromise.

Both pieces of legislation are almost exclusively supported by traditional media companies like Viacom and members of Recording Industry Association of America, as well as companies heavily reliant on brands such as Nike, the NBA and Pfizer.

The founders of Google, Yahoo, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other Silicon Valley giants published an open letter warning of the dangers of SOPA and PIPA.

The letter appeared as a paid advertisement in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers. It predicted SOPA and PIPA would, “have a chilling effect on innovation” and change “the very basic structure of the Internet.”

The letter also raised the legal concern that this legislation allows the closure of websites without due process and could be used to stifle legitimate speech.

“If we just shut down the Internet there would be a lot less piracy, right?” Lemley said. “But, there is a lot of socially valuable material that we get only because of the Internet. “

In the most severe version of SOPA the Attorney General would have authority to bring action against websites accused of “committing or facilitating online piracy.”

The bill also provides for a system of notifications directly from the copyright holder to web services like Internet service providers (ISP) and search engines. These web services are then able to suspend service to specific sites and are immune from prosecution for doing so in error.

“You wouldn’t necessarily even bring anybody into court,” Lemley said. “So each individual ISP who gets this notice has now got to keep a separate black list.”

Falzone said he fears a world in which websites could be shut down, “in a completely invisible way.”

“You would have people doing these deals in the proverbial smoky backroom… picking up the phone and saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be so unpleasant if we had to go through an elaborate process and spend money on lawyers?’” Falzone said.

Of further concern is that the act of physically limiting the websites that computers can access would not only fundamentally change the way the Internet currently operates, but in so doing would negate current efforts at improved Internet security.

For Lemley, the physical blocking of websites has foreign policy ramifications as well.

“It’s awfully hard to persuade the Chinas and Irans of the world that they should open their society and Internet to things they object to when we won’t open our society to things we object to,” Lemley said.

A third bill that Congress will consider, the Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN Act) may address some of the professor’s concerns with SOPA and PIPA.

This legislation would differ from SOPA because it would not allow for the physical blocking of websites; rather it would block funding for the infringing websites. It would also be enforced by the International Trade Commission and do away with the notification system of SOPA.

Falzone predicts that what Congress will ultimately pass will be similar to the OPEN Act and not SOPA. Falzone also said he foresees a more prolonged battle.

“Silicon Valley has now really thrown their weight behind [opposing SOPA & PIPA], and it is a real fight… everybody has brought their big guns.”

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by Gabriella Coleman
“Our Weirdness Is Free” was produced by Triple Canopy as part of its Research Work project area, supported in part by the Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York Council for the Humanities.

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The question is: How and why has the anarchic hate machine been transformed into one of the most adroit and effective political operations of recent times?

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Facebook, Google, others face charges in India

Associated Press= NEW DELHI (AP) — For the first time, Indian prosecutors are taking Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other networking sites to court for refusing to remove material considered insulting to Indian leaders and major religious figures.

Government officials are upset about material insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures. Some illustrations have shown Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions and pigs running through Mecca, Islam's holiest city.

On Friday, the federal government told a New Delhi court that there was sufficient material to proceed against 21 social networking sites for offenses of "promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration," according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

The cases, which PTI said name companies including Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft, represent a new risk of doing business in the nation of more than 1 billion people, which is looking to technology to boost its economy and standard of living. The dispute highlights India's difficulty in balancing the Internet culture of freewheeling discourse with its homegrown religious and political sensitivities.

Convictions could bring fines and up to five years' imprisonment, through prosecutors have named only the companies involved rather than any executives. Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar on Friday asked India's External Affairs Ministry to serve summons to officials of foreign-based companies for court appearances March 13.

In December, Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal said he had spoken repeatedly with officials from major Internet companies over the past three months and asked them to come up with a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet. He said that the companies told him there was nothing they could do.

There was no immediate comment by the networking sites after Friday's court proceedings.

However, Facebook said last month that it would remove content that "is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity."

Google said in a December statement that it removes content that violates local law and its own standards.

"But when content is legal and doesn't violate our policies, we won't remove it just because it's controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they're legal, should be respected and protected," Google said in a statement in December.

Sibal had shown reporters Web illustrations showing Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions as well as a site showing pigs running through Islam's holy city of Mecca, a clear insult to Muslims.

Sibal said the Internet companies had told him that they were applying U.S. standards to their sites, and he objected, saying that they needed to be sensitive to Indian sensibilities.

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Comcast Accidentally Admits SOPA Would Make the Net Less Secure

Comcast announced today that it has finished the rollout of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) across its network. While patting itself on the back, Comcast’s blog post went on to essentially admit that a major element of the enforcement plan in SOPA and PIPA is incompatible with DNSSEC. Comcast is the owner of NBC-Universal, and a vocal supporter of SOPA.

The way Comcast outed itself is a little roundabout. The nation’s biggest ISP feels confident enough in DNSSEC that it shut down its internal domain Domain Helper redirect service. Domain Helper would try to redirect users that typed in commonly misspelled addresses to the right website. The important thing here is that Comcast ended support for Domain helper because it says DNS redirects are not supported by DNSSEC. SOPA and PIPA would use DNS redirects to block offending websites. Oops.

According to Comcast itself, DNS redirects are indistinguishable from malicious attacks like DNS poisoning. SOPA supporters have been brushing off claims that SOPA-mandated DNS redirects would mean a less secure Internet, but it appears that when not on Capitol Hill, Comcast believes quite the opposite to be true.

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Media Moguls Harassed By Opponents of Piracy Legislation

There has been a call to action online to show opposition to SOPA via phone calls and e-mail messages targeting companies that are pushing for SOPA and their executives.

Top entertainment executives are being targeted for harassment by activists because of their companies' support of the Stop Online Piracy Act that is being discussed in Congress.

Sources say that Jeffrey Bewkes, chairman and CEO of Time Warner, one of many Hollywood conglomerates that have publicly backed the proposed anti-piracy legislation, recently received menacing phone calls and e-mails from SOPA critics. (One source says voice-mails have been left swearing at executives, though that has not been confirmed). Bewkes' personal information also has been disseminated online among activists opposing SOPA. A Time Warner spokesman declined to comment.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that the activist group Anonymous has targeted Viacom-CBS mogul Sumner Redstone, posting a file online that ecourages members to call and e-mail him. It wasn't immediately clear if other industry players have been a target of hacking or harassment. Spokespeople for some entertainment giants said they were not aware of any cases of harassment or hacking at their companies, while others weren't available for comment.

What is clear, however, is that there has been a call to action online to show opposition to SOPA via phone calls and e-mail messages targeting companies and their executives that are pushing for SOPA.

In online forums, activists, including people associated with Anonymous, posted contact lists in recent weeks to rally SOPA critics — as is often the case with hotly discussed topics. But some of the calls to action were particularly harshly worded and included names of select executives' wives. "Attack supporting companies," says one playbook for SOPA critics that has been posted online. "Hack, leak and deface Web sites with the propaganda." The online initiatives have been given such names as Operation Hiroshima and Operation Blackout.

PiratePad.net and Pastebin.com are among the sites where executive information and suggestions for protest have shown up. Some posts on Pastebin, for instance, call SOPA "the first step limiting what you watch online and allowing the government to know what you watch online" and claims that "no one should be able to hide behind a corporation, impunity for no one."

One post on the site recently listed phone numbers for Redstone; NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke; Sony, Sony Music and Sony Pictures; Walt Disney Co. and CEO Robert Iger; Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman; and Time Warner and Bewkes. Sites have mostly listed general company phone numbers that can easily be found in the public domain, but some also have mentioned select executive's work e-mail addresses and -- at least in one case -- a private number.

“They should feel threatened,” Barrett Brown, a Dallas-based online activist who has worked with Anonymous, told the NYT. “The idea is to put pressure on the politicians and companies supporting it.”

The movement indicates how hot a topic SOPA has become. The legislation would allow the Justice Department and copyright holders to seek court orders against sites seen as enabling copyright infringement. As a result, Internet service providers could be blocked from enabling access to such sites, search engines could be blocked from linking to them, and online ad networks and payment providers could be barred from doing business with them.

Hollywood and other proponents say the legislation would help protect intellectual property and industry jobs. Critics, such as Google and many tech firms, fear a negative effect on the development of the Internet and voice free-speech concerns.

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#Anonymous to America – #Occupy #J17 #JoinUs

Greetings, we are Anonymous.

To those who wish to identify us, know this.

We are teachers and doctors.
We are lawyers and judges.
We are soldiers and firemen.
We are factory workers and sanitation workers.
We are engineers and IT specialists.
We are the desperate poor you pass on the street.
We are the millionaires who have a conscience.
We are the people you look down on in the checkout lain.
We are the police who dare to disobey illegal orders.
We are the patriots who refuse to blindly obey and look away.
We are the old grey ones and the young new bloods.
We are your mothers, daughters, sons and fathers.

To all people at all levels of government agencies military and media.
You are living under the direction of a police state ruled by corporations and contractors. Your government has been overthrown from within. The scale of the corruption is beyond the ability of any presidential election to resolve.

Governments that do not exist by the consent of the governed to serve the needs of the people have no right to exist. It is your duty to dissent against the treasonous oligarchy that has usurped the rightful power of the governed on behalf of profit interests. It is up to you to dissent, silently and publicly, in words and in actions. It is your patriotic duty to oppose the tyrannical and despotic system that greed and apathy helped to create.

Their show of force is a show of their weakness, and a show of our strength. Through nonviolent resistance we can win this. But if you do not dissent your children will inherent a police state based upon social darwinism and the absolute authority of an illegitimate oligarchy in which politicians are prostitutes and functionaries of the will of corporations. If you do not dissent the next generation will know your country as a land of hopelessness in which speech and rights are determined by wealth. If you do not dissent every soldier who has died serving your country will have died to ensure the absolute profits of corrupt and treasonous contractors who abuse agencies as the private armies of banks industries and multinational corporations.

If you do not see the reality of these statements, go back to sleep. May you rest well in your slumber, lest you awake to absolute tyranny. But if you are aware of the truth of these statements, if this is not the world you wish to leave for your family, then know this. Anyone can be Anonymous.

The corrupt fear us, the honest support us, and the brave join us.
We are not the private army of any government politician religion or cult.
We are the people, the only system.

We are the DataAngels calling on every American at every level of government and media.
Leak Harvest and Archive all evidence of wrong doing, expose all corruption.

We must Dissent.

We Are Anonymous.
We Are Legion.
We Do Not Forgive.
We Do Not Forget.
Expect us. Join us.

Tags: #Anonymous, America, #Occupy, #J17, #JoinUs, #OccupyCongress, #OWS, #DataAngels, DataAngels

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Army Uses Web Tool to Track Bradley Manning Mentions

If you’ve ever sent a tweet about Pfc. Bradley Manning you can safely assume someone working for the Army’s public affairs department took notice.

Manning, who is charged with being a source for WikiLeaks in 2010, had a hearing last month.

The public affairs department for the U.S. Army enlisted the help of Vocus, a public relations web tool that allows companies to monitor news and social media chatter by using keywords.

An Army Vocus report obtained by POLITICO says that most of the coverage of Manning is “negative,” however, “the majority of the coverage about the hearing remains balanced and factual.” The report found “1,045 social media conversations about the hearing.”

The actual daily summary report is marked as “unclassified” and can be viewed by clicking here (PDF).

Manning is accused of releasing more than 700,000 classified government documents. It was recommended that Manning receive a court martial; that decision is expected to be announced early next week.

It’s no secret that public relations professionals utilize web tools to monitor what people are saying about their organizations. There are numerous services available to companies for tracking their social media programs: Vocus, Cision, Meltwater. Google launched a tool last summer for individuals who wonder what their social media profile might look like. In addition to typing your name into Google or signing-up for Google Analytics, now anyone can also sign-up for “Me on the Web” to receive alerts if their name is mentioned online.

Do you monitor your name online? How do you feel about the Army’s public affairs department monitoring social media? Tell us in the comments.

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Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA

The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seems to have gotten so loud that even members of Congress can hear it. On Thursday we covered the news that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was expressing second thoughts about SOPA's DNS provisions. He said he changed his mind after he "heard from a number of Vermonters" on the issue.

On Friday, several Republicans started backpedaling as well.

SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced that he would be pulling the DNS-blocking provisions from his own bill. “After consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove Domain Name System blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision," Smith said in a Friday statement.

Meanwhile, six GOP senators who served on the Senate Judiciary Committee (which unanimously approved the legislation last year) wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking him to postpone a vote on PIPA to give them more time to study the legislation.

"We strongly believe that the theft of American intellectual property is a significant problem that must be addressed," they wrote. But since the Judiciary Committee last considered the legislation, "we have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights."

The current plan for the full Senate to consider the bill on January 24 "may not permit us to work through many of the concerns that have been raised," they warned.

Lest anyone doubt the signers' tough-on-piracy bona fides, they include Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who once proposed that Congress give copyright holders a special exemption allowing them to hack into the computers of those suspected of piracy. In a 2003 hearing, he suggested that damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

Another member of Congress that has been feeling the heat from voters is Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). After reddit members raised $15,000 in 48 hours for his anti-SOPA challenger, Ryan came out with a clear statement of opposition to the legislation.

"It appears that lawmakers are beginning to realize how much damage their anti-'piracy' bills could cause to the Internet and to Internet-related businesses," said Public Knowledge's Sherwin Siy in a statement. "While we are pleased that some progress is being made, we are also firm in our opposition to both bills because some very bad provisions remain."

Washington insiders hold disproportionate sway on Capitol Hill. But members of Congress are ultimately chosen by American voters. When enough of them express a strong view on an issue, members of Congress do pay attention.

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Op zaterdag 14 januari 2012 18:08 schreef rsfxrs020 het volgende:

[..]

Is het niet overzichtelijker om eens in de maand een overzicht van max. 3 regels te publiceren van wat je (in godsnaam) allemaal gepost hebt?