Anonops #11: Stop ACTA

Its Over 9000!!! [Original Video and Audio]

LOLPRAH: OVER 9000 PENISES!

Tom Cruise Scientology Video - ( Original UNCUT )

Message to Scientology

Operation Payback - Anonymous Message About ACTA Laws, Internet Censorship and Copyright

Anonymous Hacks Westboro Baptist Church Website During Live Confrontation

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http://www.thinq.co.uk/20(...)persecute-anonymous/
NATO leaders have been warned that WikiLeaks-loving 'hacktivist' collective Anonymous could pose a threat to member states' security, following recent attacks on the US Chamber of Commerce and defence contractor HBGary - and promise to 'persecute' its members.

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From a single hashtag, a protest circled the world

(Reuters) - It all started innocuously enough with a July 13 blog post urging people to #OccupyWallStreet, as though such a thing (Twitter hashtag and all) were possible.

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Gabriella Coleman Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication

Trained as an anthropologist, Gabriella (Biella) Coleman examines the ethics of online collaboration/institutions as well as the role of the law and digital media in sustaining various forms of political activism. Between 2001-2003 she conducted ethnographic research on computer hackers primarily in San Francisco, the Netherlands, as well as those hackers who work on the largest free software project, Debian. Her first book, "Coding Freedom: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Hacking" is forthcoming with Princeton University Press and she is currently working on a new book on Anonymous and digital activism. She is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and awards, including ones from the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council and the Institute for Advanced Study.

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Anonymous: From the Lulz to Collective Action

^{Gabriella Coleman, April 6 2011}

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Our Weirdness Is Free

The logic of Anonymous—online army, agent of chaos, and seeker of justice.

_{by Gabriella Coleman, [01.13.2012]}

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Anonymous And The War Over The Internet

This article is the first in a two-part series tracing the development of the amorphous online community known as Anonymous, pranksters who have become a force in global affairs.

^{The Huffington Post, Saki Knafo. Posted: 1/30/12 12:20 PM ET | Updated: 2/1/12 07:36 PM ET}

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Anonymous And The War Over The Internet

This article is the first in a two-part series tracing the development of the amorphous online community known as Anonymous, pranksters who have become a force in global affairs.

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Op maandag 30 januari 2012 20:28 schreef picodealion het volgende:
Nog maar eens een bedankje voor dit topic, ik volg het al een tijd met plezier .

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Op maandag 30 januari 2012 20:26 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
The Huffington Post:

[..]

TIMELINE: The Evolution Of The 'Anonymous' Internet Hacktivist Group

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Sometimes the jokes went to harsh extremes, and that hasn't changed. In 2010, an 11-year-old girl nicknamed Jessi Slaughter issued a YouTube threat against "haters" who had started an Internet rumor about her. She said she'd "pop a Glock in your mouth and make a brain slushy." As a Gawker account put it, "Ha ha."

Unfortunately, as Gawker went on to note, the response went beyond "ha ha." People found her real name, address and phone number. They passed the information around. A bomb squad showed up to her school after a suspicious package arrived in the mail. Encyclopaedia Dramatica, a website that chronicles the lore and pranks of the Internet in the fuck-you-it's-funny style of the Internet itself, published an item on how to troll her. "Tell her dad that we are going to beat her up." "Tell her to kill herself."

Jessi responded with another video. In this one, she was seen crying and whimpering while her father crouched in the background, screaming at the camera and shaking his fist. His awkward threats would become memes. A year later, he was arrested for punching Jessi in the mouth, and six months after that, she posted a video saying she'd been institutionalized and was living in foster care. Last summer, her mother wrote on Facebook that the father had died of a massive heart attack. Someone posted a screenshot of the message on FunnyJunk.com.

twitter:

ArturasCEO twitterde op maandag 30-01-2012 om 22:38:30 #Anonymous - Fucking Dumbasses - Get A Life - Get A Job - Show Success http://t.co/3xNeu1Ku reageer retweet

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Op dinsdag 31 januari 2012 00:07 schreef viagraap het volgende:

[..]

Waarom hoorde ik meteen Ewan McGregor in mijn hoofd?

[..]

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Is Anonymous our future?

The enigmatic Internet-driven collective Anonymous, thank goodness, has an anthropologist in its midst. For a few years now, Gabriella Coleman has been arduously participant-observing in IRC chat rooms, watching Anonymous turn from a prankster moniker to a herd of vigilantes for global justice. In an extraordinary new essay at Triple Canopy, “Our Weirdness Is Free,” she summarizes what Anonymous is all about this way:

. Beyond a foundational commitment to anonymity and the free flow of information, Anonymous has no consistent philosophy or political program. Though Anonymous has increasingly devoted its energies to (and become known for) digital dissent and direct action around various “ops,” it has no definite trajectory. Sometimes coy and playful, sometimes macabre and sinister, often all at once, Anonymous is still animated by a collective will toward mischief—toward “lulz,” a plural bastardization of the portmanteau LOL (laugh out loud). Lulz represent an ethos as much as an objective.

The more I learn about Anonymous, especially in light of the offline, on-the-ground praxis of the Occupy movement, the more I’ve been wondering whether we’re seeing a glimpse of the future for all of us.

Here’s why.

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FDA hacked into private Gmail accounts of its own whistleblower scientist using covert spy technology

The criminal tendencies of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were on full display today when it was revealed the agency installed spy software and illegally hacked into the private Gmail accounts of at least half a dozen of its own top scientists. Those scientists, it turns out, were the very same whistleblowers who warned Congress about the FDA’s approval of dangerous medical devices that threatened the lives of patients. In response to them taking action to protect the lives of the innocent — something the FDA is supposed to do but has long since abandoned — they were instead subjected to illegal hacking and having their employment contracts with the FDA terminated.

Those six scientists and doctors have now filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court which claims that they were subjected to FDA internal harassment and unjustified job termination. The lawsuit also describes how the FDA hacked into the private email accounts of these scientists, then intercepted their “whistleblower complaints” intended to be seen only by members of Congress.

“The complaint details how the FDA targeted its employees with a covert spying campaign that lasted for two years,” reports Whistleblowers.org (http://www.whistleblowers(...)nt&task=view&&hellip. “The [FDA] installed (or activated) spyware on their workplace computers and used other technology that to monitor their password-protected Gmail-to-Gmail communications. Managers used the collected information to learn the identities of confidential whistleblowers and to obtain the details of the public health and safety concerns the whistleblowers intended to disclose to the Office of Special Counsel, Congress and the Agency’s own Inspector General.”

More importantly, documents reveal that the FDA’s own lawyers engaged in a criminal cover-up of evidence in order to obstruct justice and retaliate against the FDA scientists:

. “The managers who spearheaded the surveillance efforts were the same managers involved with the wrongdoing and corruption that the whistleblowers were seeking to report. Lawyers at the FDA and HHS Offices of General Counsel, who should have understood that the program breached the employees’ confidentiality, helped FDA managers with their obstruction and retaliation.”

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Can Reddit Write Legislation, Too? Proposes The 'Free Internet Act'

I have to admit that one of the more fun aspects of watching what has happened over the past few months with the SOPA/PIPA debate is watching the Reddit community jump on this issue... and evolve with it. The thing with the Reddit community isn't just it's sheer power as a large group of people who are more than willing to stand up for what they believe in, but their willingness to take on big challenges that most people would back away from. Not all of them work out, but as a community, they like to really jump into things and aim high. Such is the situation with the proposed plan to write a piece of legislation, The Free Internet Act, on Reddit. As an observer of these things, a reasonable first reaction is to chuckle a bit at what seems like a combination of both hubris and naivete that an online community (mostly of political novices) can create a reasonable piece of legislation. But... then you think of what else Reddit has done, and you begin to realize that if it can somehow pull this off -- or at least influence the debate in a positive way, this could be amazing (even if it's a long shot).

A specific sub-Reddit has been set up, where different people are discussing different thoughts on what such a bill might include and other issues related to the bill's central concept: guaranteeing a free internet.

Again, there's a big hill to climb here to make this into any sort of reality, but there's something really amazing and compelling about this self-forming group taking the initiative to try to not just drive the debate, but to actually craft legislation that would protect internet freedom. As much as I've been impressed by the process of the Wyden/Issa proposed OPEN bill, in which they put it up on a platform that allowed the public to crowdsource thoughts on a bill, they still started with a bill suggested in Congress. What happens when a bill is crowdsourced from scratch? Possibly nothing at all, but as an experiment, it will be fascinating to watch...

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New York prosecutors ask Twitter to reveal Occupy Wall Street man's tweets

Twitter agrees not to comply with subpoena from district attorney's office while protester's lawyer prepares rebuttal

Prosecutors have subpoenaed the Twitter records of an Occupy Wall Street protester who was arrested in October during a mass protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The 26 January subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney's office seeks "user information, including email address," along with three months' worth of tweets from @destructuremal, the Twitter handle for Malcolm Harris.

Harris, 23, a freelance writer and editor who lives in Brooklyn, said on Tuesday that Twitter sent a copy of the subpoena to him on Monday. He posted it on Twitter.

"When you get an email from Twitter Legal, you assume it's a phishing scam, trying to get your password," he said. "It turned out that it is a phishing scam, but it's from the prosecutors."

It is not clear what specific evidence prosecutors are after. But the subpoena is an example of posts on social media sites posing potential legal problems for authors.

Harris said his lawyer, Martin Stolar, would file a motion to quash the subpoena. Twitter has agreed not to comply with the subpoena while Stolar prepares the motion, Harris said.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office declined to comment.

The subpoena seeks Harris's tweets from 15 September – two days before the Occupy Wall Street movement began – to 15 December.

Harris is not sure what tweets could be fodder for prosecutors; Twitter's interface does not allow him to review all of his old tweets. Stolar was not available for comment.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the case but confirmed that the San Francisco-based company's policy is "to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so", in order to protect users' rights.

Harris is one of hundreds of Occupy-related defendants whose cases are still winding their way through American courts.

A special courtroom has been set up to handle more than 1,800 cases in New York, the vast majority involving misdemeanour charges.

He was charged with disorderly conduct and is due back in court on 29 February.

Like a number of Occupy protesters, he has vowed to take the case to trial rather than accept a deal from prosecutors.

The National Lawyers Guild is representing many of the arrested protesters.

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Union of Arab Banks hacked by #TeamAnarchyhttp://www.pastebay.org/306750 #Anonymous #AntiSec

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YOUR PERSONAL AND LOGIN INFORMATION IS CLEARLY NOT SECURE….
MAKES ME WONDER HOW SECURE YOUR BANKS ARE….

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'Anonymous' hacker speaks about SLC PD website takedown

SALT LAKE CITY—
A hacker believed to be part of the online collective known as "Anonymous" said in comments to FOX 13 that it has obtained more information than what Salt Lake City police previously said was accessed during a hack attack on their website.

"Contact info for job applications, details into drug operations with names addresses license plate numbers, supplier names, locations times," the hacker known as @ItsKahuna said in an interview with FOX 13's Ben Winslow over Twitter.

"We entered their admin control panel which linked to a lot of revealing confidential information, this was a poorly designed site," @ItsKahuna wrote.

Police had previously said e-mail addresses for press releases were accessed. Then they said tips from the public for potential crimes had been taken. Late Wednesday, the police department urged members of the public who submitted information over slcpd.com should change their passwords for their personal e-mails, etc.

@ItsKahuna, who alongside @CabinCr3w have claimed responsibility for the hacking, provided FOX 13 with a sample report of a drug crime that included a redacted e-mail address. The Salt Lake City Police Department confirmed its legitimacy and other things that the hacker had claimed were accessed.

The hacker told FOX 13 it would not be releasing any other information that had been accessed. A massive e-mail list and the redacted drug report were posted on a website.

Anonymous has expressed displeasure at a bill currently in the Utah State Legislature that would make possessing graffiti tools, such as spray paint cans, a potential crime. The bill is being sponsored by Sen. Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City. Mayne's bill died on the Senate floor Thursday morning after an 11-17 vote. Mayne said she will bring the bill back in the 2013 legislative session.

"Has your Senator Karen Mayne watched 'Minority Report' too many times?" Anonymous said in a posting. "A law prohibiting ownership and use of purchased products based on suspected intent? Is she kidding? The purpose of the law is not to prevent crime, but to manage it. The public gets the benefit of the doubt. A little too zealous wethinks."

Why the Salt Lake City Police Department's website?

"The police are the foot soldiers of this government controlled police state, this op will target them and spread that we will not stand and let this oppression continue," @ItsKahuna wrote to FOX 13's Ben Winslow.

The hacker said that no other website, including the Utah State Legislature's, had been attempted as part of the ongoing "#OpPiggyBank."

The FBI confirmed to FOX 13 it has begun investigating the attack on slcpd.com, which was still down as of Thursday afternoon.

Asked if Anonymous wished to say something to Sen. Mayne, @ItsKahuna replied: "Tell her that this won't be the last she hears from us if this legislation passes. We don't support crime based on "assumption" and our Voices will be heard, she can expect us."

twitter:

AnonymousIRC twitterde op vrijdag 03-02-2012 om 09:22:32 #Anonymous #AntiSec intercepts #FBI comms. Conference call [mp3] http://t.co/FcXNYb5Y #LulzSec #OWS #FFF reageer retweet

FBI Conference Call - #FFF.

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China cut off internet in area of Tibetan unrest

Internet connections and mobile phone signals were cut for 30 miles around scene of clashes in Sichuan, state media reports

Chinese officials cut off mobile phone and internet connections to areas where Tibetans were shot dead amid unrest last month, state media has reported.

Officials say security forces fired in self-defence after mobs of rioters attacked police and official buildings in the south-western province of Sichuan, resulting in two deaths.

Tibetan exiles and campaign groups say police fired at peaceful protesters and killed at least three people.

It has been impossible to verify accounts of the unrest. Foreign reporters attempting to visit the region have been turned back, with officials blaming bad weather and the state of the roads.

Friday's English-language edition of the Global Times newspaper published a report from the region titled Monks Run Amok. The police chief of Luhuo in Ganzi – a county known to Tibetans as Drango – said police first tried to disperse rioters with high-power water guns and rubber bullets, but failed.

"Rioters continued to attack and tried to grab the guns from the police," he told the paper. "[Officers] first shot in the air as a warning, but it was completely ignored, so we had no other choice but to open fire."

The newspaper said the incident began with a protest that became violent. It said other Tibetan-populated counties had quickly tightened security, allowing police to quickly control the next day's unrest in Seda, known to Tibetans as Serthar, where another Tibetan was shot dead.

"After the riots, internet connections and mobile phone signals were cut off for over 50km [30 miles] around the riot areas. Police believe external forces played a part in the riots," the newspaper said.

In 2009, China cut off internet and text messaging services across the north-western region of Xinjiang after ethnic riots in the capital, Urumqi, left almost 200 dead.

Officials blamed "trained separatists" for instigating the events in Ganzi. They have also sought to blame outsiders for a string of self-immolations by Tibetan clergy and laypeople over the last year, mostly in Sichuan.

China appears to have stepped up security across other Tibetan areas, with the top party official in Lhasa urging security forces to increase surveillance of monasteries and main roads in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Qi Zhala ordered all people entering Tibet to carry identification cards from March, the state news agency Xinhua reported. He urged officials to strive for "no big incidents, no medium incidents and not even a small incident".

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1:42 p.m.: Anonymous's next target: A law firm representing Frank Wuterich, whose name you may recognize as the only Marine convicted of a crime in the Haditha massacre in Iraq in 2005, and who didn't get any prison time. The website for the law firm Puckett and Faraj now looks a lot like that of the Boston Police Department, with red writing on a black background and KRS-One's Sound of the Police playing incessantly. But this attack also includes a massive data dump, with a link to a torrent containing "nearly 3 gigabytes of email correspondence belonging to his attorneys," Russia Today reports. In its screed on the Puckett and Faraj site, Anonymous promises more releases having to do with that recent awful video of Marines urinating on Afghan corpses:

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10:17 a.m.: The hackers at Anonymous promised a big release of hacked information on Friday, and at least part of it is a recording of FBI agents on a conference call with Scotland Yard talking about their mutual investigation into Anonymous. The audio recording (below) contains about 16 minutes of agents chatting about what evidence they've got on already-arrested hackers including Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis (aka Topiary) and Kayla. They also talk about their investigation into a guy named Tehwongz, who apparently hacked into the servers of the gaming platform Steam and got about 30,000 logins.

The call's release means Anonymous has access to the emails of somebody in the FBI involved with the Anonymous investigation, and in the spirit of thumbing their noses at the agency, the hackers also posted to Pastebin the email with login data from the call. A clearly annoyed FBI says it's hunting down those responsible for breaking into the call, but from the sound of things so far, the hackers are a step ahead.

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Door Peter Rietveld, Senior Security consultant bij Traxion - The Identity Management Specialists -

twitter:

BarrettBrownLOL twitterde op zaterdag 04-02-2012 om 06:31:10 The #Haditha leak goes way, way beyond that massacre, touching upon every aspect of the military/industrial complex. #FFF #Anonymous reageer retweet

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Syracuse PD site hacked, Anonymous claims attack

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse police say the department's website has been hacked in an attack claimed by the online collective Anonymous, one of a number this week targeting police.

Sgt. Tom Connellan, the department spokesman, says names and passwords of people authorized to alter the site were lifted Wednesday and posted on Twitter.

He says the site featuring public news is maintained by an outside company and wasn't linked to department systems with private information about officers or citizens.

It remains shut down Friday while the FBI and state police investigate. An online posting attributed to Anonymous says it hit the department in part because of what is says was a failure to aggressively pursue child abuse allegations against formed Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine.

Also hacked this week were police in Boston and Salt Lake City.

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Gabriella Coleman Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication

Trained as an anthropologist, Gabriella (Biella) Coleman examines the ethics of online collaboration/institutions as well as the role of the law and digital media in sustaining various forms of political activism. Between 2001-2003 she conducted ethnographic research on computer hackers primarily in San Francisco, the Netherlands, as well as those hackers who work on the largest free software project, Debian. Her first book, "Coding Freedom: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Hacking" is forthcoming with Princeton University Press and she is currently working on a new book on Anonymous and digital activism. She is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and awards, including ones from the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council and the Institute for Advanced Study.

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Anonymous: From the Lulz to Collective Action

^{Gabriella Coleman, April 6 2011}

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Our Weirdness Is Free

The logic of Anonymous—online army, agent of chaos, and seeker of justice.

_{by Gabriella Coleman, [01.13.2012]}

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Anonymous And The War Over The Internet

This article is the first in a two-part series tracing the development of the amorphous online community known as Anonymous, pranksters who have become a force in global affairs.

^{The Huffington Post, Saki Knafo. Posted: 1/30/12 12:20 PM ET | Updated: 2/1/12 07:36 PM ET}

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Op zaterdag 4 februari 2012 21:20 schreef sp3c het volgende:
goed??

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ZionOps

The following are brief profiles of some of the hackers involved. They were identifiedby press reports or by the content of hacker websites as being the most active or highprofile hackers in the anti-Israel campaign.

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Anonymous’ Latest Release Includes Private Info About Sexual Assault Victims and Guantanamo Lawyers

Earlier today, Anonymous announced what sounded like an awesome caper: The group had compromised the email of a law firm that represented Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, the Marine squad leader who got a slap on the wrist for his role in the Haditha massacre. Trouble is, the hack had a lot of collateral victims, including people that Anonymous might normally be aligned with. Like a lawyer for Guantanamo detainees.

In announcing the hack, Anonymous stressed that it was attempting to expose and combat the failures of the military justice system, which let a murderer off the hook. Included in the release are "detailed records, transcripts, testimony, trial evidence, and legal defense donation records pertaining to not only Frank Wuterich but also many other marines they have represented."

Well, yes. But a very cursory examination—we've only been able to peruse a tiny percentage of the data released—has turned up a wealth of information about, for instance, sexual assault victims. Puckett and Faraj, the targeted law firm, represented a Marine accused of rape in 2007. So among partner Haytham Faraj's emails are witness statements from the victims—whose names have not been reported in the context of the sexual assault—recounting how one awoke from a drunken stupor to realize "her tampon was pushed deep inside her." Another recalls only "flashes": "My next flash is I am lying on my back on the bed near the bathroom...and there is a man in boxer-like shorts straddling me." It's hard to see how the public release of that information accords with Anonymous' self-described "ongoing effort to expose the corruption of the court systems and the brutality of US imperialism."

One of Puckett and Faraj's former partners is Eric Montalvo, a lawyer who represented Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamed Jawad. Jawad was accused of attempted murder for throwing a grenade at U.S. forces in 2002. Depending on who you ask, he was either 12 or 17 years old at the time. He spent nine years without a trial in Guantanamo before Montalvo succeeded in getting him a habeas corpus hearing.

Among the hacked emails is an attachment with 9 months' worth of Montalvo's cell phone records. Every call, in or out. It's an unlikely reward for taking on a case like Jawad's. There's a wealth of data in the release that absolutely should become public, and I will eagerly pore over it. But there are unintended consequences to the approach.

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more puckett & faraj lulz

"This may completely destroy the Law Firm."
The information contained in this electronic message is confidential, and is intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, you are hereby notified that any use, distribution, copying of disclosure of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you received this communication in error, please notify Puckett & Faraj, PLLC at 703-706-9566 or via a return the e-mail to sender. You are required to purge this E-mail immediately without reading or making any copy or distribution.

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From: Micah Johnson <info@chiefingredient.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2012 10:55:08
Cc: MARCY Atwood <marcy@puckettfaraj.com>,
Haytham Faraj <haytham@puckettfaraj.com>
To: "Neal A. Puckett" <neal@puckettfaraj.com>

Hi Neal,

This was done by someone who clearly knows what they are doing. Anonymous is one of the largest, if not THE largest group of hackers in the world at this time. They've taken down Sony, DoD and many others in recent months.
I've replaced their hacked version with a blank screen for right now (it's the quickest thing to get theirs off of there). I've also updated the FTP password.
This isn't like the previous hack where one file was replaced and it redirected. In this case Anon was able to gain FTP access directly to the server and remove ALL files to your site. We're working on restoring the backups now, and looking to see how far this attack went.
At this time, it only looks like the web files were removed, but the database was left intact and untouched.
We're going to have to lock down not only the front end (as done previously), but we are going to have to limit the IP addresses that can access anything to do with the server.
Unfortunately, there are a couple things to consider with this one:
- This was clearly not a random attack.
- If this truly is anon, it may not be limited to just your site or just this one attack. Currently, your domain is on a web server that hosts some of our other sites and clients as well. It may be a good idea to host your site on a fully secured private web server. This can run from $400 - $2,000 per month. On a shared server, the other domains could be vectors for possible access to your site as well.
- Anonymous is a little out of my league. Since you are being targeted, I would suggest hiring a specialist for this type of matter. I'd be more than happy to help you select one, but it seems that someone dedicated to ensuring the security on an ongoing basis and can have 100% control over the server and site may be the direction needed at this point. RackSpace and similar companies offer managed solutions that may cover what is required.
As far as reporting this, and to who, I must admit that I'm not exactly sure. I believe it would be the FBI. Here's a government resource I was able to find on the matter: http://www.cybercrime.gov/reporting.htm

Please feel free to give me a call on my cell phone to discuss further.
619-618-9994.

With Best Regards,
Micah

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How did Anonymous hack the FBI?

The latest, astonishing feat has put the internet hackers back in the public eye - and the authorities on the back foot.

In the last twelve months it has attacked government websites in Syria, declared cyber war on a brutal Mexican drug cartel, and exposed an anti-WikiLeaks "dirty tricks campaign" allegedly plotted by a prominent US security firm. But on Friday, Anonymous, a diffuse network of internet hackers, reached a new level when it intercepted and leaked a conference call between FBI agents and Scotland Yard detectives.

The astonishing feat - confirmed as genuine by the FBI - was apparently carried out after the hackers breached email accounts belonging to the authorities. In doing so, they were able to snoop on communications being exchanged between forces involved in a joint international anti-hacking operation across England, Ireland, Holland, France, Denmark, Sweden and America. In a piece of surreal real-life theatre, the tables were embarrassingly and dramatically turned. The investigators became the investigated; the watchers became the watched.

The call in question, which lasts around 16 minutes, is one of the boldest leaks ever produced by the hackers, and it may also be one of the most revelatory. A fascinating glimpse into a highly classified world, it shows the extent to which the Metropolitan police is willing to collaborate with its foreign counterparts as part of cyber-crime investigations, even if doing so means interfering with the British judicial process. At one point during the call, for instance, one of the Scotland Yard detectives tells his FBI colleagues that they secretly delayed an ongoing court case involving two UK-based suspected hackers - Jake Davis and Ryan Cleary - at America's behest.

"Following some discussion with the New York office, we're looking to try and build some time in to allow some operational matters to fulfil on your side of the water," the Scotland Yard detective is quoted as saying. "We've got the prosecution making an application in chambers, i.e. without the defence knowing, to seek a way to try and factor some time in, that won't look suspicious." He goes on: "Hey, we're here to help. We've cocked things up in the past, we know that."

The FBI has previously declined to comment on whether it would pursue extradition of Cleary or Davis, both of whom are facing a series of charges in Britain for their alleged involvement with Anonymous and its affiliated offshoot, LulzSec .

The call suggests, however, that the US could indeed be building its own case against the hackers. Davis in particular, who stands accused of being the audacious LulzSec spokesperson known online as "Topiary", would no doubt be wanted by the Americans. Over a two-month period in 2011, LulzSec perpetrated a series of high-profile attacks on the websites of US-based multi-national corporations and state agencies - including the CIA and the US senate - making it a prime target for cyber-crime investigators within the FBI.

Prior to the leaked call, it was clear that Davis's legal team already suspected US involvement on some level. This was made apparent last month, during a short hearing at Southwark Crown Court, when Gideon Cammerman, Davis's lawyer, expressed concern about outside interference, asking prosecutors that any "letters of request from a foreign jurisdiction" are presented to him when evidence is formally exchanged on 30 March, prior to Davis and Cleary entering pleas on 11 May. (A letter of request is a method used by a foreign court to seek judicial assistance, such as to obtain information or a witness statement from a specified person.)

Responding to concerns raised by Cammerman, a source within the Crown Prosecution Service said that they could not officially comment on the matter of foreign involvement until after 30 March, but stressed both prosecution and defence had a "common interest in the case being tried here [in the UK] effectively," hinting that any possible US extradition request could hinge on the outcome of the British trial.

In the meantime, the key question is whether Anonymous is sitting on more hacked information as explosive as the conference call, which, depending on its content, could have potentially massive repercussions.

To some extent, the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have now been put on the back foot. Likely rattled and aghast that their own private conversations were hacked by the very hackers they are paid to investigate, they will be apprehensive about what could come next.

Cleary's lawyer, Karen Todner, has starkly warned that "whole cases could be blown apart" as a result of future security breaches; Anonymous, as ever, has promised more revelations are yet to come.

"You think we're done? Fuck no," tweeted one of its most prominent hackers, Sabu, on Friday. "Truth is we're still in the agents (sic) mailbox right now."

quote:

We have discovered, as a result of the passage of time and our own investigation, chilling facts about the case that will never be briefed by the prosecution team but which ought, in the best interests of the Marine Corps, to be considered at your level.

twitter:

anonymous_RSA twitterde op zondag 05-02-2012 om 23:46:41 One of our Anon Brothers @LuLzWarfare was killed at a protest in Suez #Egypt Feb 3. RIP Bro. #Anonymous..With... http://t.co/GrYJAeMD reageer retweet

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A member of the Occupy Wall Street group contacted me this weekend and notified me
that Thomas Ryan of ProvideSecurity was endangering U.S. members of Anonymous
who have had their names made public via a probable false flag operation aimed at the
Zetas Cartel.

Ryan has a history of subterfuge – specifically the creation of the Robin Sage persona
which invaded the privacy of many members of the intelligence community. He has also
engaged in various infiltration schemes aimed at Occupy Wall Street, which have been
reported on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.

This was a clumsy operation, in which he disclosed all his FBI and NYPD contacts, as
well as a relationship with former HBGary CEO Aaron Barr. I’ve attached a brief about
HBGary and their Team Themis project which was circulated to House and Senate
staffers last spring. It provides a quick overview of that situation.

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Google and Facebook block content in India after court warns of crackdown

Judge tells 21 companies to bar access to material deemed religiously offensive, or face China-style action

Google and Facebook have removed content from some Indian websites after a court warned that India would crack down "like China" if they did not take steps to protect religious sensibilities.

The two are among 21 companies ordered to develop a mechanism to block material considered religiously offensive after private petitioners took them to court over images deemed offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

Individuals have brought two cases against internet companies in India, fuelling fears about censorship in the world's largest democracy.

"[Our] review team has looked at the content and disabled this content from the local domains of google search, YouTube and Blogger," said a Google spokeswoman, Paroma Roy Chowdhury.

At the heart of the dispute is a law India passed last year making companies responsible for user content posted on their websites, and giving them 36 hours to take down content if there is a complaint.

Last month, the companies said it was impossible for them to block content. Roy Chowdhury declined to comment on what had since been removed, and a Facebook representative said only that the company would release a statement later.

A New Delhi lower court hearing one of the cases, a civil suit brought by an Islamic scholar, told the companies on Monday to put in writing the steps they had taken to block offensive content, and submit reports within 15 days.

"Microsoft has filed an application for rejection of the suit on the grounds that it disclosed no cause of action against Microsoft," a spokesperson for the company said. "The matter is sub judice and no further comments can be given."

That suit was brought by a scholar, Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasm, who runs a website called fatwaonline.org, which gives answers to moral questions.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft have appealed in the Delhi high court against a separate criminal case successfully brought by Vinay Rai, a journalist.

The high court has yet to rule on their appeal, but the sitting judge warned in January they were responsible for content on their websites and said he could, "like China", block sites if the company failed to put its house in order.

In the Rai case, the court ordered the companies to stand trial for offences relating to the distribution of obscene material to minors, after being shown images it said were offensive to the prophet Muhammad, Jesus and various Hindu gods and goddesses as well as several political leaders.

"If the companies have actually removed some content, they should put in place a mechanism to do it regularly, instead of waiting for a court case every time," Rai said.

Fewer than one in 10 of India's 1.2 billion population have access to the internet, but that still makes the country the third-biggest internet market after China and the US. The number of internet users in India is expected to almost triple to 300 million over the next three years.

Despite the new rules to block offensive content, India's internet access is still largely uncensored, in contrast to the tight controls in place in neighbouring China. But, like many other governments around the world, India has become increasingly nervous about the power of social media.

While civil rights groups have opposed the new laws, politicians say posting offensive images in a socially conservative country with a history of violence between religious groups presents a danger to the public.

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In other Anonymous related news, hackers operating under the auspices of the collective have reportedly compromised Syrian government networks and extracted memos, documents and emails advising President Bashar al Assad on how to handle the fallout over his bloody crackdown against protestors demanding regime change.

One alleged e-mail cited by Sky News appeared to advise Assad on how to approach his interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, who spoke with the leader late last year.

"Mentioning 'armed groups' in the interview is extremely important and we can use American and British articles to prove there are armed gangs," the adviser writes.

"American psyche can be easily manipulated when they hear that there are 'mistakes' done and now we are 'fixing it.’"

The president was also advised to emphasize how protests are sometimes handled in western countries, adding that "Syria doesn't have a policy to torture people, unlike the USA... We can use Abu Ghraib in Iraq as an example.”