Anonops #11: Stop ACTA

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Kazakhstan upgrades censorship to deep packet inspection

In December 2011 we were aware of Kazakhstan increasing Internet censorship in response to some unrest and protests in Zhanaozen in the west. The censorship was then deployed around the country, in many cases with the full support of the populace. The initial invesitgation showed simple IP address blocking coupled with basic dns censorship. Tor continued to work without incident until this week.

JSC KazTransCom, AS35104, has deployed or begun testing deep packet inspection (dpi) of all Internet traffic. They specifically target SSL-based protocols for blocking. This includes Tor, IPsec, and PPTP-based technologies, as well as some SSL-based VPNs. Business and private users of these technologies are equally affected.

An example of the censorship, as recorded by volunteers in country, can be found in this network flow diagram. Kazakhstan is identifying and blocking the SSL client key exchange during the setup of an SSL connection. This graph shows the effects of this deployment of censorship based on dpi.

Luckily, due to our recent experience with Iran we have an answer for people: use obfsproxy. Obfsproxy continues to work in Kazakhstan, as well as Iran. In fact, it works in any country where dpi is used to censor citizens' access to the Internet.

Thank you to the volunteers for spending their Valentine's Day collecting and analyzing data.

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Tor gaat dataverkeer maskeren om filters te omzeilen

De ontwikkelaars van Tor werken aan de mogelijkheid om dataverkeer zo te maskeren dat deze afkomstig lijkt van een ander protocol. Hierdoor moet Tor-verkeer minder last krijgen van agressieve internetfilters.

De methode wordt door Tor omschreven als obfsproxy, oftewel een obfuscated proxy. Via een dergelijke Tor-proxy is het mogelijk om de datastroom te manipuleren. Aan Forbes geeft Tor-ontwikkelaar Andrew Lewman het voorbeeld van een obfsproxy die een met ssl versleutelde datastroom laat lijken op een chatsessie volgens het xmpp-protocol. Hierdoor zouden agressieve filtermethoden als deep packet inspection omzeild kunnen worden.

De obsproxy-methode in Tor is nog experimenteel en zou een stream nog onvoldoende kunnen aanpassen om deze op een betrouwbare manier geheel onherkenbaar te houden. Ook worden alleen verbindingen die gebruik maken van het tls-, ssl- en socks-protocol ondersteund, maar de ontwikkelaars streven er naar om ook http en andere veelgebruikte protocollen te gaan ondersteunen.

Ondanks de alpha-status van obfsproxy, krijgen de Tor-ontwikkelaars positieve reacties vanuit onder andere Iran. In dit land heeft het regime niet alleen ip-blokkades ingesteld, maar sinds kort ook een blokkade op al het ssl- en tls-verkeer doorgevoerd. Door obfsproxy te activeren kunnen Iraanse internetgebruikers alsnog websites als Gmail en Hotmail bereiken doordat het versleutelde dataverkeer gemaskeerd wordt.

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http://translate.google.c(...)F%3Faid%3D1231182589

Athens
An 18 year old arrested in the process of a crime, and two other Greek high school students, 16 and 17 years, accused by the Electronic Crime to participate in the falsification of the website of the Greek Ministry of Justice on February 2.

The three hackers allegedly belonging to the group Greek Hacking Scene (GHS) and declared members of the wider, international organization Anonymous.

"Justice is coming," wrote English invaders in the first page of the site, and upload and video message is also fluent in English, which said: "What is happening in your country is unacceptable. Came to power to express the wishes of your people and you have failed utterly. Kill the most sacred thing for your country is the Republic. "

The three accused students now illegal access to computer systems in accordance with Article 370 of the Penal Code.

During surveys conducted in the homes of the accused seized three laptops and 12 hard drives.

Police are now continuing investigations to identify and other team members

No reference to other objectives

The police statement says, according to online postings, these defendants "have committed dozens of digital attacks." The objectives, however, not specified.

In the evening Sunday, February 13, shortly before the crucial vote in parliament on the new memorandum, Anonymous announced that had set off the sites of ELAS, the Ministry of Citizen Protection, the Greek Prime Minister and the Greek Parliament.

The fact this website was not accessible at that time. The same happened later on the websites of PASOK, New Democracy, the Ministry of Finance and Evangelos Venizelos, but it is not clear whether this was associated with Anonymous.

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Anonymous Invades the Spanish Academy Awards Ceremony For Real



Rather than just crashing web pages, Spanish anonymous members had the balls to crash the equivalent of the Oscars ceremony in Madrid today. Three members of Anonymous sneaked past extreme police and private security controls to jump onto the stage as the event was at one of its highest points, as this image shows.

Pedro Almodovar, Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek were among those who assisted the awards ceremony, called the Goyas in honor of famous Spanish painter Francisco de Goya. While the award for best director was being presented, three Anonymous members wearing Guy Fawkes' masks tried to jump onto the stage from the orchestra seats. Private security caught them before they could actually made it.

Meanwhile, the Spanish film academy web page was under attack. Anonymous also published contact information of actors, actresses and directors who supported the so-called Ley Sinde, a SOPA-like law designed to kill any kind of web pages without a court order.

I wonder if some Guy Fawkes would have the courage to slip through security the same at Hollywood's Academy Awards. [El Mundo]

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'Britse regering wil internetgebruik realtime kunnen monitoren'

Op initiatief van de veiligheidsdiensten werkt de Britse regering aan wetgeving die het mogelijk moet maken om realtime telefoon- en internetverkeer te monitoren. Privacybeschermers kwalificeren de voorstellen als onacceptabel en gevaarlijk.


Dat meldt The Telegraph op basis van niet nader genoemde bronnen. Volgens de krant wordt er in het kader van nieuwe antiterrorismewetgeving gewerkt aan voorstellen voor het Communications Capabilities Development Programme. Daarin worden internetproviders en telecombedrijven verplicht om onder andere gegevens over telefonie- en dataverkeer een jaar lang in databases op te slaan. De inhoud van telefoongesprekken of e-mailberichten zou niet worden bewaard, maar in de databases moeten wel contactgegevens als telefoonnummers, ip-adressen en e-mailadressen zijn terug te vinden.

De databases zouden door inlichtingendiensten als MI5, MI6 en de politie realtime doorzocht moeten kunnen worden. Zo zou bijvoorbeeld een verdacht persoon die mobiele telefoongesprekken voert razendsnel opgespoord kunnen worden. De voorstellen zouden echter nog verder gaan: ook gebruikers van sociale-netwerksites zouden in kaart gebracht moeten worden. Zo willen de voorstanders inzicht krijgen in berichten die gebruikers van onder andere Facebook en Twitter naar elkaar sturen, terwijl zelfs communicatie tussen de spelers van multiplayergames te volgen zou moeten zijn.

Het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken zou al twee maanden onderhandelingen zijn aangegaan met bedrijven als O2, BT, Vodafone en Virgin Media, terwijl de wetsvoorstellen in mei door de Britse regering openbaar gemaakt kunnen worden. Hoewel de Conservatieve premier Cameron bij zijn aantreden nog beloofde de privacy hoog in het vaandel te hebben, lijken de inlichtingendiensten met succes druk te hebben uitgeoefend om een eerder gesneuveld wetsvoorstel van de regering Blair nieuw leven in te blazen.

Britse voorvechters voor de privacy hebben al afwijzend gereageerd op de plannen voor een 'spionagewet'. Zo spreekt de Open Rights Group van een onacceptabele 'systematische methode' om alle digitale communicatie van burgers af te tappen. Naast de vraag of de voorstellen technisch haalbaar zijn, stelt de organisatie dat de opgeslagen informatie hoogst aantrekkelijk is voor hackers. Ook zouden internetproviders misbruik kunnen maken van de verzamelde data van hun gebruikers, bijvoorbeeld voor gerichte reclame. Vanuit de organisatie Privacy International klinken soortgelijke geluiden, maar een regeringswoordvoerder laat in een reactie aan de Britse krant weten dat de wetgeving nodig is om criminaliteit en terrorisme effectief te kunnen bestrijden.

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s3rver.exe exposed SQLi vulnerability in Chinese Police website

A Hacker known as s3rver.exe break into a Chinese police website and exposed the vulnerability details. In twitter , he announced that "Chinese police owned" and tweet a link to pastebin.

Hacker exploit the SQL Injection vulnerability in the Panjin City Public Security Bureau website(http://gaj.panjin.gov.cn). He published the vulnerable link and a code to extract the database details.

In past , hacker hacked The ICT Specific Council (ICTSC) website, Tongcheng Environmental Protection Agency website(tchjbh.gov.cn)

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Op maandag 20 februari 2012 17:01 schreef Ronnie_bravo het volgende:
Is dat nou leuk zo'n monoloog met knip en plakwerk??

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Op maandag 20 februari 2012 21:40 schreef princem het volgende:
Op welk forum zitten die anonymous heren.wil ff kijken of zitten ze verstopt?

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Viewpoint: The internet is broken - we need to start over
^{By Prof Alan Woodward Department of Computing, University of Surrey}

Last year, the level and ferocity of cyber-attacks on the internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: to let the internet wither on the vine and start up a new more robust one instead.

On being asked if we should start again, many - maybe most - immediately argue that the internet is such an integral part of our social and economic fabric that even considering a change in its fundamental structure is inconceivable and rather frivolous.

I was one of those. However, recently the evidence suggests that our efforts to secure the internet are becoming less and less effective, and so the idea of a radical alternative suddenly starts to look less laughable.

One example of struggling security comes from Neira Jones, head of payment security at Barclaycard. She told me that in the UK alone, identity fraud costs more than £2.7bn every year and affects over 1.8 million people.

We also increasingly have other forms of cyber-attacks from political activists (so called 'hacktivists'), and cyber-espionage and warfare, where the internet has become another stage for global conflict between nations.
Prof Alan Woodward Prof Alan Woodward is a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey

We need to understand the root of the problem.

In essence, the internet was never intended to be a secure network. The concept was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) as a means of allowing a distributed computer system to survive a nuclear attack on the US.

Those who designed the Internet Protocol (IP) did not expect that someone might try to intercept or manipulate information sent across it.

As we expanded our use of the internet from large, centralised computers to personal computers and mobile devices, its underlying technology stayed the same.

The internet is no longer a single entity but a collection of 'things' unified by only one item - IP - which is now so pervasive that it is used to connect devices as wide-ranging as cars and medical devices.

Many technologies were then built upon this foundation. The best known was HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML) which is what allows web pages such as this to be displayed in the way you view it now.

And, yes, many of these technologies included the ability to secure the data that is being transmitted over the internet. All will have used one of these 'secure' technologies, most usually when buying something over the internet.

Technology to serve

But, stop and ask yourself this, if it is 'secure', why are there so many successful attacks?

Some argue that humans are the weak link and hence changing the internet's underlying technology would not really solve the problem. I take issue with that. Technology serves people not vice versa.

It is unreasonable to expect users in general to understand complex technologies to the degree necessary to ensure they operate securely over the internet.

It's analogous to a house. By default a house should be built to allow it to be occupied safely.

If you chose to start knocking down walls then it is your fault if the house collapses. But if the foundations of any structure are unsound, no matter how strong or unmodified the building on top, there is always a significant risk of safety being undermined through no fault of yours.

Of course, some argue that you can simply underpin structures with shaky foundations. There are other, more secure technologies that could be substituted for the current 'IP'.

This June sees the launch of what many consider to be the next generation of IP (known as IPv6 and IPSec) which is capable of securing all data transmitted over the internet.
Anti-Acta protest in Warsaw Hacktivists have helped create a new stage for global conflict, ProfWoodward says

However, availability of a better technology does not automatically lead to its adoption. Secure alternatives to IP have existed for a long time and yet none have been adopted widely.

In fact, the launch in June is more of a relaunch intended to reinvigorate interest in the next generation of IP which was developed in 1998.

I have my doubts as to its success as the internet has a momentum of its own: without someone mandating its use, or more specifically how it should be used, it is unlikely that it will be deployed to make up for the current shortcomings.
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Security afterthought

Ever since the internet first changed from an academics' toy to become a commercial tool in the 1990s, security has always been an afterthought.

Only in an environment where the providers of the underlying networks insist upon the use of a single, secure technology, can one have a set of firm foundations.

Sadly, a key characteristic of our current internet is that it is a lawless, unregulated environment. Even governmental attempts at governance have failed as the internet is global and no truly global governance body exists.

Neira Jones summed it up nicely when she said to me that while regulations are trying to address the security void, success will depend on collective responsibility and accountability as well as extensive awareness and education at all levels.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

We can have areas of the internet that are governed by a global body”

While not a popular view, I think that the current internet can only survive if adequate global governance is applied and that single, secure technology is mandated. This is obviously fraught with the much rehashed arguments about control of the internet, free speech, and so on.

Then there is the Herculean task of achieving international agreement and a recognised and empowered governance body.

However, this exists for other shared infrastructures, from aviation to telephony, so it is not impossible.

I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

We can have areas of the internet that are governed by a global body and run on technologies which are inherently secure, and we can have areas which are known to be uncontrolled.

They can coexist using the same physical networks, personal computers and user interface to access both but they would be clearly segregated such that a user would have to make a clear choice to leave the default safe zone and enter what has been described as "the seediest place on the planet".

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Updated: FTC dropped security requirements from contract for sites hit by Anonymous

Update: Fleishman-Hilliard is disputing the facts of the hack as presented by hosting provider Media Temple. Bill Pendergast, general manager of the Fleishman-Hillard DC office, told Ars Technica, ""For Media Temple to claim ignorance of hosting the FTC -- or other government -- sites is completely false. In their own words, Media Temple is deep in this area, with what they claim to be the appropriate level of compliance. It's hard to see how their fiction helps anyone get to a constructive outcome." A fully-updated story with the latest information from FTC, Fleishman-Hilliard and Media Temple will be posted shortly.

If you were looking for a recipe for creating government websites that attract defacement attacks, the acquisition process that led to the creation of a set of recently hacked Federal Trade Commission sites would be a good place to start. Despite a raft of federal security regulations and guidelines for using cloud services, smaller projects often fall through the cracks of security oversight—just as they often do with outsourced marketing projects for large corporations.

The initial language of the FTC's solicitation for the $1.49 million contract that created the sites that were hacked on January 24 and February 17 set out very specific language about the security requirements for the site. But by the time the contract for a set of consumer and business education websites and social media was awarded to public relations firm Fleishman-Hilliard in August of 2011, those requirements were dropped from the statement of work.

In part, the security requirements were dropped because the FTC planned to host the sites with someone other than the winner of the contract. But Fleishman-Hilliard ended up setting up the servers for the sites themselves—on Media Temple's unmanaged server-in-the-cloud service that was never intended for .gov sites. And it appears the FTC signed off on the move.

As a result, the servers provisioned for a number of FTC sites, including a site providing recommendations for business and consumer information security, were configured with an outdated version of the Drupal content management system that offered up a tempting target to Anonymous "antisec" hackers looking to embarrass the government.

When the FTC originally posted the solicitation for bids in May of 2011, the statement of work included strong security language for the project, stating that the servers for the project would be subject to the requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA). And as part of those requirements, the FTC's solicitation spelled out contractors' responsibilities regarding data breaches: "The contractor shall be required to prevent and remedy data breaches and to provide the FTC with all necessary information and cooperation, and to take all other reasonable and necessary steps and precautions, to enable the FTC to satisfy its data breach reporting duties under applicable law, regulation, or policy in the event, if any, that a breach occurs… The Information System Security Plan required elsewhere in this document shall include policies and procedures necessary to ensure the timely detection of and reporting to the FTC of data breaches, as well as safeguards to prevent and mitigate the risk of, as well as to remedy, such breaches, if any."

But by the time the contract was awarded, the FTC had struck any reference to security requirements from its amended statement of work. In a "Questions and Answers" document posted by the FTC's Office of Acquisitions on June 3, the office responded to a question on the nature of the security requirements of the project by stating "This information has been deleted from the statement of work." In the same Q&A document, the FTC said that the websites built under the contract "will be hosted by a third-party hosting provider to be contracted separately and directly by the FTC."

That clearly didn't happen. Media Temple, the hosting service that was used to provide the servers for the sites, wasn't contracted by the FTC; instead, the sites were set up by Fleishman-Hilliard, and the hosting provider was unaware they were being used for .gov domains, according to Media Temple chief marketing officer Kim Brubeck.

The result of the process was that a whole set of FTC domains—including business.ftc.com, OnGuardOnline.gov, and the National Consumer Protection Week blog—were left unpatched and exposed to attack, creating low-hanging fruit for attackers like Anonymous. And there are clearly many other civilian federal agencies that have the same problem. Anonymous' Antisec collective claims to have amassed a large number of similar federal sites that it has already compromised.

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ACTA is part of a multi-decade, worldwide copyright campaign

Last week, we observed that major content companies have enjoyed a steady drumbeat of victories in Congress and the courts over the last two decades. The lobbying and litigation campaigns that produced these results have a counterpart in the executive branch. At the urging of major copyright holders, the Obama administration has been working to export restrictive American copyright laws abroad. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is just the most visible component of this ambitious and long-running project.

Ars Technica recently talked to Michael Geist, a legal scholar at the University of Ottawa, about this effort. He told us that rather than making their arguments at the World Intellectual Property Organization, where they would be subject to serious public scrutiny, the US and other supporters of more restrictive copyright law have increasingly focused on pushing their agenda in alternative venues, such as pending trade deals, where negotiations are secret and critics are excluded.

The growing opposition to ACTA in Europe suggests this strategy of secrecy may have backfired. But the US is not giving up. It has already begun work on its next secret agreement, ealled the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Geist told Ars that restoring balance to copyright law will require reformers to be as determined as their opponents have been. He said that donating to public interest groups that focus on international copyright issues is the best way to make sure that the public interest is well-represented.

Exporting copyright law

Countries have been negotiating international copyright treaties for more than a century, but the passage of two treaties in the 1990s represented a turning point in international copyright law.

The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, signed in 1994, made protection of copyrights a requirement of membership in the World Trade Organization. Countries that failed to meet international copyright standards could face trade sanctions. The 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty further ratcheted up the minimum requirements for copyright protection—requiring, for example, that signing countries regulate the circumvention of digital rights management schemes.

WIPO's relatively open structure meant that major copyright holders didn't get everything they wanted in the 1996 treaty. For example, Geist said, the United States was unable to get the strong anti-circumvention language it preferred into the WIPO treaty.

"WIPO is a place that's more open than it used to be," Geist told Ars. "Because of the consensus-based approach, there is a necessity to engage in negotiating." Indeed, in recent years reformers have begun to make headway themselves. Treaties to liberalize copyright in ways that benefit libraries and the blind are now under consideration at WIPO.

So, Geist said, the US has increasingly engaged in forum-shopping, bypassing WIPO and pushing for stronger copyright protection in a wide variety of other venues. For example, the United States has negotiated a series of bilateral trade agreements with nations such as South Korea, Australia, and Chile. While they're branded as free-trade deals, they also require the other country to adopt the more punitive copyright regime favored by the United States.

The negotiations over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement were part of this trend. In contrast to the relatively open WIPO process, ACTA was negotiated in secret by a relatively small number of mostly wealthy countries. The developing nations who would be the most likely to object weren't invited to participate. The plan was to present the finished treaty to the world on a "take it or leave it" basis.

Unfortunately, the plan didn't work as well as its backers had hoped. Early drafts of the treaty leaked, giving opponents time to organize against the most extreme provisions in the treaty. And the secretive and non-representative nature of the negotiation process created a bad taste in the mouths of many stakeholders. Concerns over ACTA's secretive drafting process may have been as important as any of the treaty's substantive provisions in generating European opposition. If Europe fails to ratify ACTA, it will dramatically weaken the treaty.

Try, try again

But the US isn't giving up. To the contrary, the US and its industry backers seem to have concluded the problem with ACTA was that they didn't try hard enough to lock down the negotiating process. So they're now plowing forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This time, the US has cut the leak-prone Europeans out of the process, limiting negotiations to eight countries such as New Zealand and Peru that are much easier for the United States to intimidate. Presumably, the goal is to enshrine the US's preferred copyright policies in the TPP and then use the TPP as a template for future agreements.

Once the US gets a critical mass of countries to sign a deal, it can then use other carrots and sticks to pressure additional countries to sign on. Geist said one important tool is the so-called "Special 301" list, an annual watchlist of countries Washington considers to have insufficiently strict copyright laws. Not only will countries be pressured to sign onto ACTA, the US may also press them to implement even those provisions of ACTA that the agreement itself labels as optional.

Geist believes that the interests behind SOPA and ACTA are likely to view recent defeats as temporary setbacks. "They're not playing for next year," he said. "They're playing for 10 years and 20 years in the future."

He said that reformers can resist their agenda, but only if they play the same "long game" as their opponents. Ordinarily, the most important thing a citizen of a democracy can do to stop bad public policies is to call their legislators. But in this case, most of the action is occurring in international organizations where individual legislators have little influence.

To fight agreements like ACTA requires organizations with the sophistication and resources to navigate the complex world of international diplomacy. Geist pointed to Knowledge Ecology International, Public Knowledge, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation as examples of organizations with a track record of resisting the drive toward ever-stronger copyright protection.These organizations are "WIPO regulars" well positioned to stay in the trenches and ensure the public interest is well-represented regardless of the venue. Geist said that donating to these organizations is the most effective way for ordinary voters to help resist the worldwide trend toward ever-more-extreme copyright laws.

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Interview: With the 15yo hacker who hacked 5 Australian Government sites and Harvard / #list #rls #legion

^{Published February 19th, 2012}

Over the past 30 hours or so there has been two fairly big story’s that have both come from attacks carried out by the same hacker, first Harvard got exposed and hacked and had emails leaked and then today 5 Australian government websites got hacked.

We had the chance to interview the hacker who is just 15yo and goes by the name PrOtOn and is part of D157UR83D Crew

So here is the main interview raw pasted. as you will see PrOtOn has more plans for the Australian government that involves the AFP ( Australian federal police).

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PrOtOn my first hack was in primary school, i think i was 11

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Interview: With 13yo hacker @s3rverexe who hacked UFC and other high profile sites

Over the past few months there has been a fair few high profile government and non government sites hacked by an anonymous hacker named @s3rverexe .

Well CWN has had a chance to one on one interview them about the recent hacks and to help the public get to know them better as well.

To our surprise, s3rver is just a young kid raging havoc across the Internet at just the age of 13. Some of the sites they have hacked are usa.gov, 80 Brazilian Government Sites in the name of #OpBrazil and of coarse the well know very public attacks on the UFC websites.

Well here is the raw interview that we had with them.

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Attracties van zwembad door hackers te beheren

Door een blunder van de Gemeente Stichtse Vecht kon iedereen een subtropisch zwembad beheren. Van glijbaan tot de temperatuur van het water, alles stond wijd open. Het lek is inmiddels gedicht.

Het lek werd gevonden door twee beveiligingsonderzoekers, die zich op voorwaarde van anonimiteit meldden bij Webwereld. Zij waren vooral bezorgd over het welzijn van kinderen. Het SCADA-systeem van zwembad ' t Kikkerfort stond weken open en bloot op internet. Daardoor konden zaken als de temperatuur van het water en het aan en uit zetten van attracties door iedereen van afstand worden geregeld.

Bezorgd

Aanvankelijk dachten de onderzoekers dat ook de chloortoevoer kon worden geregeld. "Ik heb zelf kinderen en toen ik zag dat het ook om chloor ging, wilde ik dat er meteen iets gebeurde", vertelt een van de onderzoekers tegen Webwereld. "Het is mijn nachtmerrie dat er iets met kinderen gebeurt omdat iemand in een of ander vreemd land een 'grapje' wil uithalen. Als je aan de kassa komt van een zwembad vraag je niet of er een SCADA-systeem in gebruik is."

Webwereld heeft na de melding onmiddellijk contact gezocht met het verantwoordelijke installatiebedrijf, medewerkers van het zwembad en het National Cyber Security Center. Hierop is het systeem van internet ontkoppelt. Pas daarna werd duidelijk dat de hoeveelheid chloor niet kon worden ingesteld. "Dat durfden wij niet te bekijken, want dan ga je een grens over", zeggen de onderzoekers.

Onderhoud

De verantwoordelijke gemeente Stichtse Vecht erkent het probleem en legt uit dat de verbinding naar het systeem wordt opgezet voor onderhoud door de installateur als een probleem niet door medewerkers van het zwembad kan worden opgelost. "Onlangs is dit systeem na onderhoudswerkzaamheden van de installateur niet gesloten, waardoor het - langer dan normaal het geval is - heeft open gestaan", vertelt voorlichter Pieter Doesburg aan Webwereld.

"De gemeente beaamt dat deze werkwijze in het systeem niet veilig is en heeft direct actie ondernomen door de verbinding te beveiligen voor derden. Hierdoor is het in de toekomst niet meer mogelijk om op het systeem te komen", stelt Doesburg. Hij benadrukt dat het niet mogelijk was de gezondheid in gevaar te brengen, maar begrijpt de bezorgdheid wel. "Nogmaals, de gemeente betreurt de gang van zaken en is blij dat - dankzij deze onderzoeksjournalist - ons bewustzijn en handelen op het gebied van veiligheid van IT-systemen is aangescherpt."

VPN-optie

Ook Hollander Techniek, die het systeem heeft geleverd, erkent de situatie en de lezing van de gemeente. Omdat Webwereld meerdere systemen van dit bedrijf heeft aangemeld, hebben zij na melding direct een scan uitgevoerd bij al hun klanten en die gewaarschuwd.

"We bieden de mogelijkheid om de verbinding te beveiligen met een VPN en bieden dat ook altijd aan. Maar ja, dat kost wel geld en niet iedere klant wil dan de extra beveiliging", vertelt Jacob Brobbel, commercieel manager van het bedrijf. Hij wijst erop dat zwembaden moeten rondkomen van een klein budget. "Zwembaden zitten al krap. Ze zien dat [misbruik van SCADA - redactie] niet als een risico, dus daar wordt niet in geïnvesteerd. Het is onwetendheid. Het komt gewoon omdat het [hacken - redactie] ze zelf niet lukt."

In de standaard procedure wordt bij onderhoud eerst met de klant gebeld, waarna die het systeem aansluit op internet. Als het onderhoudswerk klaar is, wordt de klant opnieuw gebeld om dat aan de klant te melden. "Dan staat de verbinding kort open."

Toch is de recente media-aandacht voor SCADA-problemen voor het bedrijf wel reden om te kijken of er toch aanvullende maatregelen in het standaard product kunnen worden opgenomen.

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Scared of Anonymous? NSA chief says you should be

Anonymous has so far plied its trade in "hactivist" exploits. But according to the director of the National Security Agency, it might soon turn its focus to U.S. infrastructure.

According to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources, Gen. Keith Alexander has said in private meetings at the White House and elsewhere that the U.S. must keep a close eye on Anonymous' growth. He reportedly warned that if the organization continues to gain power, it might even take down a part of the U.S. power grid within the next couple of years.

How serious might such an attack on the power grid be? An industry official speaking to the Journal said that the U.S. grid has backups in place to safeguard against attacks. For a limited period of time, however, it could cause trouble.

The NSA's concerns about Anonymous underscore the power the loosely affiliated group of individuals has secured in recent months. The organization played a role in the scandal surrounding WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, retaliating after Assange's bank accounts were frozen and methods of donations cut off by credit card companies and payment services like PayPal. Anonymous has continued to target individuals and organizations, all with the goal of embarrassing them or revealing what it believes is are injustices.

Anonymous has made no indication that it plans to attack the power grid. And its hacks, while decried by government officials, are celebrated by others who say the group is acting on the average citizen's behalf.

Lately, however, Anonymous has turned its attention toward governments. Earlier this month, the hacking collective claimed to have taken down the CIA's Web site, as well as sites for the Mexican Senate and Interior Ministry. The group also revealed that it accessed identifying information, including Social Security numbers and criminal records, of 46,000 Alabama residents.

Those hacks came just days after Anonymous released hundreds of e-mails purported to come from Syrian President Bashar al Assad's office.

Securing the electrical grid from both hackers and other governments has been a concern for years. So far, however, the U.S. government can't quite decide which agency should be charged with managing its security.

In December, MIT researchers issued a report saying that a single federal agency should be safeguarding the electrical grid. The Obama Administration has argued that the Department of Homeland Security should handle the task, while members of Congress have called on the Department of Energy or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take over.

Regardless, MIT isn't convinced that the threats to the electrical grid are something to be too concerned about. The researchers said that only complacency could lead to its downfall.

"Between now and 2030, the electric grid will confront significant new challenges and inevitably undergo major changes," the researchers said. "Despite alarmist rhetoric, there is no crisis here. But we do not advise complacency."

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The Pirate Bay Faces UK ISP Block After High Court Ruling

In a case brought by major recording labels including Sony, EMI and Warner, today a judge in the High Court ruled that The Pirate Bay and its users breach copyright on a major scale. The ruling means that it is almost inevitable that The Pirate Bay will face a nationwide UK ISP blockade in the coming months.

After the MPA won its blocking case against the Newzbin2 Usenet indexing site last year, it became clear that the entertainment industries would seek further injunctions against similar sites.

Predictions pointing towards The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest BitTorrent site, were spot on. This time Hollywood would step aside and leave it to the recording industry to obtain an injunction which would force ISPs to block the infamous torrent site.

Nine labels including EMI , Polydor, Sony, Virgin and Warner, say that The Pirate Bay infringes their copyrights and that several ISPs including BSkyB, BT, TalkTalk, Telefonica and Virgin Media, should implement a blockade under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

Section 97A of the Act gives courts the power to order an injunction against an ISP if it can be proven that it had knowledge that its services were being used to infringe copyright.

In the High Court today Mr Justice Arnold drew parallels with the Newzbin2 case but actually went further by stating that the case against The Pirate Bay and its users was actually somewhat stronger.

He said that the operators of TPB have the power to prevent copyright infringement and noted that the site is prepared to remove torrents if they are mislabeled, child porn, malware or spam.

“As a matter of policy, however, the rights of copyright owners are excluded from the criteria by which the operators of TPB choose to exercise this power,” he said, noting that the site’s owners had treated previous rulings against them with contempt.

“Indeed, according to a statement on the website, the reason for its recent adoption of Magnet links as the default option is that ‘it’s not as easy to block as .torrent files’. This confirms the operators’ determination to do whatever they can to provide users with unrestricted access to torrent files and thereby enable the users to continue to infringe,” Justice Arnold noted.

“In my judgment, the operators of TPB do authorize its users’ infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting. On any view, they ‘sanction, approve and countenance’ the infringements of copyright committed by its users. But in my view they also purport to grant users the right to do the acts complained of.

“It is no defense that they openly defy the rights of the copyright owners. I would add that I consider the present case to be indistinguishable from 20C Fox v Newzbin in this respect. If anything, it is a stronger case,” he concluded.

According to Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry, today’s ruling is a clear indication that The Pirate Bay operates illegally.

“The ruling helps clarify the law on website blocking and we will now proceed with our application to have the site blocked to protect the UK’s creative industries from further harm,” Taylor said.

If things go smoothly for the labels, a nationwide blockade of The Pirate Bay could be in place in a matter of months. We’ll update this post later today with comment from the site’s operators.

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Anonymous Accuse NSA of Fear Mongering

Anonymous hackers have lashed out at NSA comments suggesting it would soon be able to bring about limited power outages using cyber attacks.

Responding to comments allegedly made by the director of the National Security Agency (NSA) General Keith Alexander to The Wall Street Journal, numerous Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous tweeted messages accusing the agency of fear mongering.

"Why would Anons shut off a power grid? There are ppl on life support / other vital services that rely on it. Try again NSA. #FearMongering." read one tweet from YourAnonNews.

Citing people familiar with the matter as its source, The Wall Street Journal reported that Alexander had made the comments during meetings at the White House and a number of other private sessions.

The publication claimed that Alexander had expressed concerns that Anonymous would be able to disrupt power supplies. Alexander had previously publicly expressed concerns about cyber criminals' abilities to disable or even damage computer networks.

The concerns expressed by Alexander refer to the numerous high profile cyber attacks Anonymous has mounted across the world. On multiple occasions the hacktivist collective has successfully breached high-profile companies, law enforcement and military organisations including the FBI, Soca and numerous military contractors.

Alexander's comments come just after Anonymous promised to make a "massive" announcement by the end of the week. The statement was made on Tuesday, stemming from the YourAnonNews Twitter account. While remaining vague about the details, the account posted an ominous tweet promising a large announcement was coming.

"Stay tuned for a MASSIVE announcement from #Anonymous, coming later this week," read YourAnonNews's tweet. Following the message numerous other Anons - the name Anonymous members use to refer to themselves - retweeted the message.

The NSA has not responded to the International Business Times UK's requests for comment on The Wall Street Journal's article.

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/(...)sa.htm#ixzz1n3Y7jybl

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The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom

Top-down, international regulation is antithetical to the Net, which has flourished under its current governance model.

On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish "international control over the Internet" through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.

If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet's flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.

Since the Net's inception, engineers, academics, user groups and others have convened in bottom-up nongovernmental organizations to keep it operating and thriving through what is known as a "multi-stakeholder" governance model. This consensus-driven private-sector approach has been the key to the Net's phenomenal success.

In 1995, shortly after it was privatized, only 16 million people used the Internet world-wide. By 2011, more than two billion were online—and that number is growing by as much as half a million every day. This explosive growth is the direct result of governments generally keeping their hands off the Internet sphere.

Net access, especially through mobile devices, is improving the human condition more quickly—and more fundamentally—than any other technology in history. Nowhere is this more true than in the developing world, where unfettered Internet technologies are expanding economies and raising living standards.

Farmers who live far from markets are now able to find buyers for their crops through their Internet-connected mobile devices without assuming the risks and expenses of traveling with their goods. Worried parents are able to go online to locate medicine for their sick children. And proponents of political freedom are better able to share information and organize support to break down the walls of tyranny.

The Internet has also been a net job creator. A recent McKinsey study found that for every job disrupted by Internet connectivity, 2.6 new jobs are created. It is no coincidence that these wonderful developments blossomed as the Internet migrated further away from government control.

Today, however, Russia, China and their allies within the 193 member states of the ITU want to renegotiate the 1988 treaty to expand its reach into previously unregulated areas. Reading even a partial list of proposals that could be codified into international law next December at a conference in Dubai is chilling:

• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;

• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;

• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."

• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;

• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;

• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.

Many countries in the developing world, including India and Brazil, are particularly intrigued by these ideas. Even though Internet-based technologies are improving billions of lives everywhere, some governments feel excluded and want more control.

And let's face it, strong-arm regimes are threatened by popular outcries for political freedom that are empowered by unfettered Internet connectivity. They have formed impressive coalitions, and their efforts have progressed significantly.

Merely saying "no" to any changes to the current structure of Internet governance is likely to be a losing proposition. A more successful strategy would be for proponents of Internet freedom and prosperity within every nation to encourage a dialogue among all interested parties, including governments and the ITU, to broaden the multi-stakeholder umbrella with the goal of reaching consensus to address reasonable concerns. As part of this conversation, we should underscore the tremendous benefits that the Internet has yielded for the developing world through the multi-stakeholder model.

Upending this model with a new regulatory treaty is likely to partition the Internet as some countries would inevitably choose to opt out. A balkanized Internet would be devastating to global free trade and national sovereignty. It would impair Internet growth most severely in the developing world but also globally as technologists are forced to seek bureaucratic permission to innovate and invest. This would also undermine the proliferation of new cross-border technologies, such as cloud computing.

A top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders. No government, let alone an intergovernmental body, can make engineering and economic decisions in lightning-fast Internet time. Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body.

Any attempts to expand intergovernmental powers over the Internet—no matter how incremental or seemingly innocuous—should be turned back. Modernization and reform can be constructive, but not if the end result is a new global bureaucracy that departs from the multi-stakeholder model. Enlightened nations should draw a line in the sand against new regulations while welcoming reform that could include a nonregulatory role for the ITU.

Pro-regulation forces are, thus far, much more energized and organized than those who favor the multi-stakeholder approach. Regulation proponents only need to secure a simple majority of the 193 member states to codify their radical and counterproductive agenda. Unlike the U.N. Security Council, no country can wield a veto in ITU proceedings. With this in mind, some estimate that approximately 90 countries could be supporting intergovernmental Net regulation—a mere seven short of a majority.

While precious time ticks away, the U.S. has not named a leader for the treaty negotiation. We must awake from our slumber and engage before it is too late. Not only do these developments have the potential to affect the daily lives of all Americans, they also threaten freedom and prosperity across the globe.

quote:

Op dinsdag 21 februari 2012 23:07 schreef n00b13 het volgende:
Leest iemand al die artikelen?

quote:

Op dinsdag 21 februari 2012 23:28 schreef n00b13 het volgende:

[..]

ik wilde je ook niet aanvallen ofzo hoor (lees het net terug en denk: hm..), het was meer dat het zoveel was.

twitter:

anonymouSabu twitterde op dinsdag 21-02-2012 om 23:50:17 Read the story of the 3 greek teenagers arrested for hacking the ministryofjustice.gr? We just showed the world the Greek feds got it wrong reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousIRC twitterde op dinsdag 21-02-2012 om 23:54:09 ministryofjustice.gr HACKED BY #ANTISEC. DONT PUT IN JAIL POLITICAL DISSIDENTS #Anonymous #ALLYOURBASEAREBELONGTOUS reageer retweet

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Op woensdag 22 februari 2012 15:08 schreef YazooW het volgende:
Niet helemaal gevolgd over de Grieken, wat hebben ze gedaan nu anon boos is op ze?

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Anonymous Hacks Greek Ministry Website, Demands IMF Withdrawal, Threatens It Will Wipe Away All Citizen Debts

If there is one war that Greece could not afford to join, that is with the global computer hacking collective known as Anonymous. Yet as of minutes ago, that is precisley what happened, after Anonymous, as part of what it now calls Operation Greece, took down the Greek Ministry of Justice (http://www.ministryofjustice.gr/). While the pretext for the hacking appears to have been an arrest of the wrong people, is seems to have angered Anonymous to the point where they have left an extended message of demands on the Greek website, warning that unless the IMF withdraws from the country and the government resigns, all debts of Greek citizens will be wiped clean.

Translated from the Greek:

Citizens of Greece

We are Anonymous.
We watch every day your government abolishes the constitution and institutions of the country.
We see them leading you closer and closer to poverty.
We see them pass laws that deprive you of any right to dignity.
We see them and deliver the country to the IMF and the bankers.
We know about the soup kitchens in schools,
for people who are left jobless and now wait in queues for a plate of food.
We know that your country voted ACTA in your effort to silence and other Greeks.
We know everything ...
The Republic in Greece has died.
He died while a government that has not been elected by the people.
And for this reason that the time for discussion came and went.
Not negotiating anything with any of those who murdered him.
Can you hunt as you like, you can even capture some of us,
When you attempt to silence us ...
But for every one that will capture 3 others will spring up. There are 5 or 10 or 100.
Now the Greeks are all Anonymous.
We are millions against you and the 300 in this war tear gas will not help you.

Occupying Government of Greece
These days are going to vote for a bill that will be the last nail in the coffin of the Greek.
A bill to return the country to a totalitarian rule.
To bring the country and its people in absolute poverty.
We will not allow another misery to the Greek people.
We demand your resignation immediately, and elections.
We demand not paid a cent to moneylenders 'friends' you.
We demand the immediate withdrawal of the IMF from Greece.
The Justice Department was only a small sample of what we're capable of doing
Even you have not seen the full wrath of Anonymous.
For each article of a bill that would shame the vote,
we will shut the system and deleting an Inland Revenue debts of Greek citizens
Debts which requires them to fascist pay.
Can the demonstrations of the Greeks to their encounter with incredible violence,
anexelekta hitting, but the internet is our field. And I love this war.
We are many and we will be brief.

Citizens of Greece, Anonymous is now fighting on your side ...

Government of Greece, let us wait ...

E X P E C T U S !

J U S T I C E I S C O M I N G !

quote:

Statement by Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission
and EU Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship,
on freedom of expression and information via the Internet, attempts to
block websites, "three-strikes-laws", and ACTA

quote:

The European Commission has therefore decided today to ask the
European Court of Justice for a legal opinion to clarify that the ACTA
agreement and its implementation must be fully compatible with
freedom of expression and freedom of the Internet.

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Database Nationale Theaterkassa gehackt, creditcardgegevens gelekt

Een van de databases van concertkaartensite Nationale Theaterkassa is gehackt. Daardoor zijn adres- en creditkaartgegevens van bijna honderdduizend mensen op straat komen te liggen. De hacker heeft de database, die ook transacties en correspondentie bevat, volledig opengezet.

Dat meldt nu.nl, die de informatie van een andere hacker toegespeeld heeft gekregen. Die hacker kwam erachter dat de database zonder wachtwoord te benaderen was. Onder de gegevens bevinden zich ook 2100 creditcardnummers met vervaldatum, waarvan er nog 226 actief zijn.

De Nationale Theaterkassa heeft de gegevens inmiddels weer ontoegankelijk gemaakt. Ze werden alleen nog gebruikt voor het versturen van een nieuwsbrief.

Ticketsysteem
In een verklaring aan Nu.nl benadrukt de Nationale Theaterkassa dat het huidige ticketsysteem niet betrokken is geweest bij de hack, en dat de gegevens daarvan dus niet inzichtelijk zijn geweest. De gehackte database is sinds 2009 niet meer in gebruik.

Het bedrijf heeft de gegevensdiefstal gemeld bij het Openbaar Ministerie en het Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum. De gebruikers worden geïnformeerd over de hack.

Uit intern onderzoek is gebleken dat de gegevens van 226 creditcards waarvan de geldigheid actueel is, zijn gestolen. De dader heeft alleen het het nummer van deze creditcards kunnen inzien, aldus de Nationale Theaterkassa.

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Jacob Appelbaum is an independent computer security researcher and hacker. He is currently employed by the University of Washington,[1] and is a core member of the Tor project. Appelbaum is known for representing Wikileaks at the 2010 Hope conference.[5] He has subsequently been repeatedly targeted by US law enforcement agencies, who obtained a court order for his Twitter account data, detained him 12[6] times at the US border after trips abroad, and seized a laptop and several mobile phones.

transmediale 2k12: Jacob Appelbaum calls for political action with Anonymous!

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Anonymous reveals Cybersecurity Act of 2012

This week it appears that the NSA has brought forth warnings of the hacker group Anonymous’ ability to take down the power grid at a most opportune time, according to none other than Anonymous. While earlier this week it was warned by the NSA that Anonymous might be targeting the US power grid, the hacker group has noted that they’d do no such thing, as “there are ppl on life support/other vital services that rely on it.” In addition, the group has brought attention today to a new bill that’s looking to get passed in the first part of the year: the Cybersecurity Act of 2012.

You can download and read this bill in its entirety here: Senate Committee Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, downloading files here: The Cybersecurity Act of 2012, S. 2105 and here: Cybersecurity Support Letter: Reid in PDF form. This bill calls upon the Senate and the House to ratify a bill that would, and I quote, guard against the following:

quote:

Nederland en VS pakken cybercrime gezamenlijk aan

quote:

Nederland en de Verenigde Staten gaan samenwerken bij het aanpakken van cybercriminaliteit. Minister van Veiligheid en Justitie Ivo Opstelten (VVD) heeft daartoe gisteravond plaatselijke tijd in Washington een verdrag getekend.

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Croatian President Invites Anonymous for Consultation over Controversial ACTA Law

quote:

Mr Ivo Josipović, president of Croatia became a hot item in regional media after he supported ACTA and openly attacked those who are opposing the ACTA agreement, using typical RIAA and MPAA "copying music is equal stealing bread from the store" rhetoric. According to a MPAA executive, ACTA is just SOPA/PIPA in a different shape.

quote:

Faced with a decaying image problem (his public support tumbled down in a matter of days), President Josipovic decided to turn things around and gave the official statement in which Anonymous is invited to consult on the subject of ACTA, Internet freedom, Content protection, Content Distribution.

quote:

This is a first time we've heard a head of any sovereign state, or a politician is actually inviting a hacking movement to express their views on how the governmental policy on content distribution and global trade agreement (ACTA) should be implemented, and if abolished - what is the alternative.

quote:

Anonymous Replies to Croatian President: Enough with Political Semantics

quote:

Anonymous came back and released the following statement (translated from Croatian):

. "We noticed that President Ivo Josipovic invited Anonymous for discussions on ACTA. We believe this is a cheap attempt of political manipulation with the name Anonymous to gain points with its citizens and improve the President's image in general public."

Furthermore, the statement contained the following message:

. "Anonymous opinion of SOPA/PIPA/ACTA and all similar agreements and laws which will launch in the future under different names and reasons is quite clear, conclusive and unchangeable and we cannot "negotiate" about it with anybody."

The release concluded with:

. "Negotiation on essential human liberties and rights in order to protect the corporations and their interest, with unsatisfiable hunger for profit is betrayal of human kind and everything that idea of Anonymous should and is presenting."

quote:

Don't Be Naïve about Anonymous or the Occupy Movement

There seems to be a great deal of naïveté surrounding Anonymous and the Occupy movement, their purpose, their mission, and current and projected capabilities.

This misperception comes from certain beliefs about this cyber group and its real life manifestation which are naively held by the "useful fools," "cannon fodder," "newfags," or "n00bs" who seriously believe that they are a grassroots movement and that both Anonymous (cyber) and Occupy (kinetic) are by Americans and for Americans.

A misperception which is encouraged by those who understand the real agenda and do not feel that it would be prudent to disclose the "bigger picture" to the uninformed masses.

The misperception is purposely continued by certain elements of the Main Stream Media MSM who are "in-the-know." These are the elements of MSM who are in direct or indirect contact with the leadership of Anonymous (more about this latter) and who hold to the same, anti-american, anti-democracy, principles that are inherent in the upper echelons of the Anonymous heirarchy.

The misperception is inadvertantly continued by many well meaning media, bloggers and others who "believe the lie" and espouse the rhetoric and enthusiasm of well-meaning youths who just want a fair deal for the 99%.

It's not the purpose of this article to debate the above propositions. I would point the reader to "The 2012 Anonymous Primer – What Anonymous is and What Anonymous is not" , which is written by the guest blogger Natter, for a better understanding of what Anonymous is and isn't.

If you want a more detailed look I would also point you to the http://owsmail.dc406.com where the emails of the leadership of occupy movement clearly show their plans and allegiances. Or you can spend years in the IRC channels and various haunts of Anonymous Now and Then to realize the truth of these statements.

The purpose of this article is to directly confront the direct opposition by Anonymous to the message delivered by General Alexander regarding a possible future capability of Anonymous to affect the power grid.

Anonymous, immediately and adamantly denied the possibility of such an action, asking rhetorically; "Why would we ever affect the power grid when lives depend upon it?" On face value, it's a great argument and presupposes that Anonymous does not want to do malice to America.

The problem is that the argument came very quickly, and there is a very definite desire by a great many members of Anonymous to do a great deal of malice toward this country that I, and millions like me, have sworn to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The body of evidence about what Occupy has tried to do In Real Life (IRL) lies before us. We have seen deaths, rapes, violence, trespass, and a total disrespect of the standards of civil decorum in our society. The very freedom that the constitution affords all of its citizens has been used against us by violent extremist bent on bringing about chaos and violent change.

But don't think that this conduct is limited to the actions IRL alone.

As someone who has proudly railed against the manipulation and hijacking of a sophmoric, well-meaning group of young people who are opposed to things like DMCA, RIAA and MPAA, I can honestly tell you that the chaos that has been purposefully perpetrated by Anonymous in the cyber realm is far greater than we have seen IRL.

Not only that, but the rhetoric, venom, chaos, and damage done in cyber already FAR surppasses that done IRL as well.

I have watched elements of anonymous use the most vile and offensive language to maliciously accuse and vehemently attack every aspect of our American society. F**k FBI Friday (#FFF), #F**kthePolice, #Pedocop, are a normal part of the rhetoric of what remains of that portion of Anonymous that is attacking American institutions and our law enforcement agencies, officers, and military personnel.

Just today I watched the members of @CabinCr3w hack into the web site of ANOTHER law enforcement related web site, dump the information out of that site, and then proceed to invade the privacy of three law enforcement officers in the LA area because they used the same password on the hacked site for their gmail accounts.

They hacked the officers' gmail accounts and proceeded to read and post all of their personnel information, to accuse one officer of being a pedophile and to post the personal intimate photos of a female officer for all the world to see.

As if this weren't enough, @ItsKahuna then proceeded to log in to the female officer's personal web site, and to deface her site by posting an embarassing intimate photo of her on the front page. After he was done, he proceeded to degrade and humiliate her via his Twitter account for all of his friends to see. Of course the tag #f**kthepolice was sewn throughout his missives.

I am the father of four daughters and the grandfather of four lovely grandaughters and I have to tell you that I cannot imagine the emotional terror and hurt that this young officer must be going through.

Why would Anonymous turn off the power? Because it would serve their selfish purposes. Because it would cause chaos and hurt that these savage individuals thrive on because of their perceived immunity from justice.

Because in their minds it would be "Lulzy" a twisted term that means funny in a sick and demented /b/ chan kind of way.

Don't fall for the "poor little us, we wouldn't hurt a fly" rhetoric. Our law enforcement and governmental agencies, financial institutions, and yes... our physical infrastructure are under direct attack, IRL by the Occupy Movement and in cyber by Anonymous.

Members of Anonymous DAILY tweet about SCADA vulnerabilities. Members of Anonymous have already BEEN IN our SCADA systems. The only reason that there has not been a major incident is because the rhetoric has not escalated to that level, yet.

If you are an American information security professional, then I urge you to quit worrying about what conferences you're going to speak at and get serious about catching the people who attacked Mechelle Thompson and her fellow officers and shoring up the defenses of EVERY computer system that you are responsible for, IMMEDIATELY.

Next time it might be your friend, wife or daughter who is violated. Next time it might be your police department, sheriff's department, or state police whose information is released for criminals to use to circumvent their investigations or do them harm.

Don't be naïve about Anonymous or the Occupy movement because they aren't naïve about what they are doing and what they are trying to achieve.

twitter:

ItsKahuna twitterde op woensdag 22-02-2012 om 19:37:21 Gotta Assume The Officer Emailed Her Nudes To Herself Because He Phone Didn't Support USB Connection. Maybe Its Time For An Upgrade.#lulz reageer retweet

quote:

Brein daagt UPC, KPN, T-Mobile en Tele2 voor blokkade The Pirate Bay

Stichting Brein daagt UPC, KPN, Tele2 en T-Mobile om de toegang tot downloadsite The Pirate Bay te blokkeren.

Dat heeft de KPN tegenover journalist Alexander Klöpping bevestigd. Patrick Mikkelsen van KPN:

. KPN wil niet blokkeren op verzoek van een private partij, en blokkeren van websites is geen taak van een ISP. Wij willen geen agent spelen, wij zijn geen opsporingsautoriteit, zo simpel ligt het.

De telecombedrijven weigerden eerder dit jaar vrijwillig de toegang van klanten tot de downloadsite te blokkeren. Ziggo en XS4All gaven wel, na daartoe door de rechter bevolen te zijn, gehoor aan de oproep van de anti-piraterij organisatie.


Blokkade The Pirate Bay komt te laat

Op 19 april daagt Brein UPC, KPN, T-Mobile en Tele2. De providers lieten eerder al weten tegen het blokkeren van sites te zijn. KPN noemde het bijvoorbeeld al een zwaar middel en bij T-Mobile zeiden ze per definitie tegen het afsluiten van sites te zijn. UPC wil een onafhankelijke rol als internetprovider hebben en is niet van plan zich een blokkade te laten voorschrijven door een private partij, wat Brein is.

Technologieredacteur Marc Hijink van NRC schreef in januari in NRC Handelsblad dat de verplichte blokkade van The Pirate Bay die Brein nastreeft eigenlijk te laat komt:

. Stap voor stap wint de entertainmentindustrie terrein op piraten. Zoals ooit Napster verboden werd en daarna Kazaa, wordt nu de bewegingsvrijheid van de torrentsites beperkt. Maar de stapjes via de rechter zijn te langzaam. The Pirate Bay mag dan notoire bron zijn, het is niet meer de voornaamste leverancier van illegale content. Het torrent-netwerk verplaatst zich continu en er zijn legio alternatieven.

quote:

Anonymous, NSA Square Off On Power Grid Attacks

quote:

Regardless, any talk of potential Anonymous attacks on power grids completely misses the point, said control system security expert Joe Weiss, who heads Applied Control Solutions, via phone. Notably, some of the industrial control systems used to manage power grids can already be hacked into using known vulnerabilities.

"This whole thing about [how] it's going to take [Anonymous] a year or two [to hack the power grid]? Well, it doesn't just have to be Anonymous. Anybody who knows enough about how to use some of these exploits can do that now. It's a scary thought. And that part is being missed."

quote:

Een samenzwering of complot is een geheime afspraak tussen een aantal personen om iets te ondernemen tegen een andere persoon of groep.

quote:

Beroemd is de samenzwering die bekend is geworden als het Buskruitverraad van Guy Fawkes en die zou uitgevoerd worden op 5 november 1605.

quote:

Anonymous retaliates after Spain arrests suspected Anon hacktivists

Spain: Anonymous attacks Official Site of the National Police after the arrests of suspected Anonymous hacktivists.

On Thursday, news of six suspected Anonymous hacktivists being arrested in Spain disturbed the hive mind of the Anonymous collective. In response, Anonymous has apparently launched a counter-attack in retaliation for the arrests.

Anonymous Iberoamerica reports that six suspected Anonymous hacktivists have been arrested in Spain in the last 48 hours. According to the report, the arrests signal a new crack down against Anonymous by Spainish authorities.

ALT1040 reports that Spanish police will neither confirm nor deny the arrests, but “the National Police confirms that they are indeed running a large operationof the Technological Investigation Brigade...”

Anonymiss Express has also been tracking news of the arrests.

In retaliation for the arrests, Anonymous hacktivists have apparently launched a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack against the Official Site of the National Policein Spain.

On Thursday, Twitter was buzzing with news of the arrests and retaliation.

quote:

This is not the first time the international Internet collective known as Anonymous has retaliated
against Spanish police after the arrest of suspected Anonymous hacktivists. Last June Anonymous launched #OpPolicia, a successful DDoS attack against the Spanish National Police website. The attack was a direct response to the arrests of three individuals alleged to be associated with acts of cyber civil disobedience attributed to Anonymous.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Anonymous retaliates after Spain arrests suspected Anon hacktivists - National Anonymous | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/a(...)ivists#ixzz1nFZgOMbD

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Internet War: Mystery DDoS Attack Hammers Website Favored by Anonymous

Pastebin, a site founded to make it easier for programmers to share code, has been under nonstop attack for the last 37 hours by a giant collection of zombie computers known as a botnet.

“So far we have been able to block about 20,000 IP’s, but this number is growing by the minute,” the site’s admin wrote in a message to users early Thursday morning. “These IPs are most likely from innocent people who have no clue that their computer is being used for this purpose. It is highly recommended that you always have up-to-date antivirus software installed, and a good firewall active.”

Pastebin plans to publish the list of IPs on a different server so that its users can check if their machines have been compromised. “If your IP is in this list you will not be able to access Pastebin at this time,” the message warned.

Initially created to help programmers, Pastebin has become a favorite place to post sensitive information, some of it purloined. Anonymous often posts its hack logs here.

In an email to Qubits, Pastebin owner Jeroen Vader said the site has been suffering from nearly daily attacks leading up to the latest siege.

“We do our best to fight off these attack by improving our server configurations, buying bigger pipes to allow for bigger traffic floods, and blocking thousands of IP’s from various bot networks,” Vader said. “These attacks are never claimed by anyone, although we do monitor Twitter all the time for such things.

“We are not sure if certain attacks happen because we remove pieces of content. We need to comply with certain requests from the authorities otherwise we might be shut down.”

When the site is under attack Pastebin usually displays this image.

“This little kitty has become quite famous unfortunately,” Vader said.

Photo courtesy of Pastebin.

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Communicatie Defensie eenvoudig te kraken

De beveiliging van een intern communicatiesysteem van Defensie faalt. Het systeem dat medewerkers van het ministerie dagelijks gebruiken voor videovergaderingen, is in een handomdraai te kraken waardoor er kan worden meegeluisterd.

Cybercrime-expert Rickey Gevers trof het lek aan na een tip van hackersgroep Anonymous. De inlogpagina van een topman bij de Defensie Materieel Organisatie (DMO) bleek te openen met een standaard fabriekswachtwoord dat op internet eenvoudig te vinden was in een handleiding van het bewuste Cisco-communicatiesysteem. De Volkskrant was hiervan woensdagavond getuige. Er zijn geen vergaderingen afgeluisterd.

De DMO-topman, met de rang van commandeur, heeft maandag en dinsdag zeker vijf keer vergaderd via het systeem, blijkt uit logfiles. In zijn adressenlijst staan telefoonnummers en IP-adressen van kazernes en kantoren, waaronder een van de Koninklijke Luchtmacht in Den Haag. Onder aan de contactenlijst staat 'Warroom @ Den Haag-NL', vermoedelijk het Nationaal Crisis Centrum. Gezien de afstanden tussen defensie-onderdelen is het gebruikelijk videovergaderingen te beleggen, bevestigt een bron bij Defensie.

Voor welke gesprekken het videosysteem wordt gebruikt, wil Defensie niet zeggen. Bij het ministerie is niet bekend hoeveel medewerkers er gebruik van maken. Een woordvoerder zegt dat Defensie het lek 'betreurt' en wil benadrukken dat 'het eigen netwerk nooit in gevaar is geweest'.

Defensie heeft volgens de woordvoerder zeven videoconferentiesystemen in gebruik. 'Een onderhoudsbedrijf heeft die ooit aangeschaft. Ze draaien op internet. Onze cyber-veiligheidsafdeling waarschuwt voor dergelijke systemen, omdat die makkelijk gehackt kunnen worden. En dat blijkt.'

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RUG sluit torrentverkeer af – student kan wel naar ander netwerk

De Rijksuniversiteit Groningen gaat op het eigen netwerk al het BitTorrent-verkeer blokkeren. Vanuit enkele studentenflats werd daarvan gebruik gemaakt, wat tot klachten van antipiraterijclub Stichting Brein leidde.

Vanaf 1 maart kan vanaf computers die op het bedrijfsnetwerk van de universiteit zijn aangesloten niets meer worden geüpload of gedownload via BitTorrent, een systeem dat peer-to-peer bestanden laat uitwisselen (wiki).

Woordvoerder Jos Speekman van de RUG bevestigt de aanstaande blokkade, waar Tweakers en PowNed vandaag over berichtten. Volgens Speekman klaagde Brein enkele keren per maand over uitwisseling van illegale bestanden via het bedrijfsnetwerk van de RUG.

. “Voorheen werd zo’n computer afgesloten van het netwerk als er klachten over kwamen. De student moest dan aantonen dat het programma was verwijderd, waarna hij of zij weer van het netwerk gebruik kon maken. Dat leverde veel werk op en dus hebben we besloten het hele protocol af te sluiten op het netwerk.”

In de betreffende flats, vier stuks, wonen volgens Speekman zo’n 1000 studenten. Die kunnen voortaan niet meer illegaal uploaden via BitTorrent, maar ook niet meer downloaden – wat niet illegaal is. Volgens Speekman is dat een vervelende bijkomstigheid, waar wel naar gekeken is, maar die niet makkelijk op te lossen is.

. “Er is bekeken hoe het mogelijk is downloaden wel toe te blijven staan, maar dat blijkt erg lastig. Bij het begin van een sessie met een BitTorrent-programma is namelijk altijd tweezijdig verkeer nodig, dus zowel downloaden als uploaden.”

De studenten in de flats kunnen echter gewoon een andere internetaansluiting nemen in hun studentenflat, meldt Speekman.

. “Deze maatregel geldt alleen voor ons eigen bedrijfsnetwerk, dat simpelweg voor andere doeleinden bedoeld is, zoals wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Wij zijn weliswaar niet verplicht te reageren op klachten van Brein, maar wij vinden dat we wel iets moeten doen met de klachten over auteursrechtenschendingen. Een student kan in zijn flat wel een andere internetprovider nemen. Dat zal minder snel zijn, want wij bieden supersnel glasvezelinternet, maar het is zeker mogelijk.”

Niet duidelijk is of de studenten wel blijven betalen voor het RUG-netwerk, als ze een andere provider in de arm nemen.

Kamervragen over blokkade

Het is niet ongebruikelijk dat bedrijven het gebruik van BitTorrentnetwerken blokkeren of beperken op het eigen bedrijfsnetwerk. Toch heeft het besluit tot ophef geleid. De Tweede Kamerfractie van D66 stelt namens Kees Verhoeven Kamervragen over de blokkade.

twitter:

KeesVee twitterde op vrijdag 24-02-2012 om 17:16:33 Raar dat #RUG een stuk internet blokkeert. Een universiteit moet zeker niet censureren! Minister opheldering gevraagd. http://t.co/RegidkqZ reageer retweet

Volgens D66 is het computercentrum van de RUG, het CIT, vergelijkbaar met een internetprovider, en zou het niet zonder tussenkomst van een rechter delen tot internet moeten blokkeren. Verhoeven wil ook van de minister weten of het wel wenselijk is dat “nota bene een universiteit” bepaalt “welke website zij wel en niet kunnen bezoeken”.

Pikant is dat wetenschappelijk tijdschrift Nature vorig jaar juist publiceerde over een uitwisselingsproject, gericht op wetenschappers, dat gebruikt maakt van het BitTorrent-protocol: BioTorrents. Het project, opgezet door de University of California, is bedacht omdat er voorheen geen goede manier te vinden was om zeer grote bestanden en datasets makkelijk heen en weer te sturen.

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Anonymous takes on prison industrial complex with latest hack

The prison industrial complex is the latest victim of Anonymous’ #FuckFBIFriday campaign. Hacktivists have compromised data from a massive correctional facility management firm and have defaced their website.

The website for The GEO Group, Inc., a Florida-based management firm with clients worldwide, has been targeted by operatives with the online collective Anonymous. Friday’s hack from the group is the most recent release related to the #FFF campaign that has in past weeks targeted and successfully taken down the sites of the CIA, FBI and US Department of Justice.

Various Twitter accounts affiliated with the loose-knit group confirmed the hack at around 12:30 pm EST on Friday. A statement made by the group has replaced the traditional homepage of TheGEOGroupInc.com and other sites associated with the prison management firm have been “wiped off the net,” says the group.

Additionally, the group has added an image of prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and the audio of a song about him and the prison system to the company's homepage.

The attack, reads a statement from Anonymous, is retaliation for a corrupt system that immensely profits off of the detainment of Americans across the country. As the prison industrial complex booms, management companies such as GEO have been tied to controversies. As RT reported last week, Corrections Corporation of America, the largest operator of for-profit prisons in the US, has spent millions of dollars lobbying Washington for stricter laws that would ensure that their facilities are regularly close to total capacity. As these companies spend money to make new laws and expand on others that target non-violent criminals, the companies responsible generate mass income from operating the facilities.

As the GEO Group lobbies for legislation, it boasted a companywide occupancy rate of 96.6 percent in 2008.

The CCA has been linked to lobbying for stricter immigration laws across America. Lobbyists for the GEO Group, including Austin, Texas’ Lionel “Leo” Aguirre, rake in thousands each year persuading Washington to revamp legislation that will keep prisons packed as well. According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org site, Aguirre has received more than half a million dollars from the GEO Group since 2008. To Congress, Aguirre reveals in his lobbying reports that he is compensated for lobbying issues pertinent to the development and operation of detention facilities. He’s been tied to lobbying on immigration issues as well, but is only one of many lobbyists working not just for GEO, but for the prison industrial complex.

“While most folks are suffering under the economy, many billions of dollars are being funneled into this sinister conniving alliance of capitalist and statist forces to try to build dozens upon dozens of new [p]risons across the world,” reads the Anonymous-penned statement published Friday. The GEO Group, which was founded in 1984, turned revenue of $1.27 billion in 2010, reveals the group’s annual report for that year. According to the report filed at the end of 2008 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, at that time the group has nearly 60 facilities operating under its umbrella, serving accommodations for 53,400 detainees. The group merged with competing prison operators Cornell nearly two years later.

Although the GEO Group has only expanded its operations in recent years, it continues to be marred with controversy. Eight prisoners died in just four years within the walls of a Pennsylvania facility operated by the group, and there have been at least two other reports of detainee deaths occurring after prison officials at GEO-run institutions denied them medication.

“Despite the well documented history of corruption, scandal and atrocities that companies like GEO perpetuate each and every minute our friends are locked behind their prison walls, the private prison industry is still booming,” adds Anonymous.

The Corrections Corporation of America recently appealed to 48 states across America, asking for them to consider selling off their prisons to the privately-run group. In their case, they insist that contracts will only be made if states can guarantee facilities maintain an inmate population close to capacity. Some say that this is accomplished by unjustly imprisoning many Americans.

“We are acting in solidarity with all those who have ever been wrongfully profiled, arrested, brutalized, incarcerated and have had all dignity and humanity stripped from them as they are cast into the gulags of America,” states Anonymous.

“When our comrades are locked up struggling against a repressive regime that has no concern for due process, we do not forget. When our comrades are ripped off their civil liberties and human rights, we do not forgive,” they add.

Along with a missive placed on the homepage of the GEO Group’s website, Anonymous has installed an image of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who earlier this year reached the 30-year anniversary of being in prison, despite a plethora of legal concerns waged by activists who continue to rally for his release. Anonymous has also altered the site so that visitors to TheGEOGroupInc.com are exposed to an audio recording of the track “Mumia 911,” which is performed by artists including Pharoahe Monch, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine.

In the song, one verse rapped by Slimkid 3 proclaims: “Now they were playin God just to feel the power / Not to justify that of you and I / Holdin daggers up and lettin you decide / after passin information that's falsified / Stand behind a lie? What does it cost to die? / What does is cost to live? Why do they specify? / These terms of why when they ain't the most high / What they fear the will kill but the soul will never die.”

“I say fuck the police cuz they've been killing us for years / This ain't no free country niggas get murdered for their ideas,” rhymes Dead Prez. “ Free Mumia means all Africans let go / Cuz just livin in the ghetto puts you on Death Row.”

Anonymous has also publicized logs of their hack on the GEO Group and have included a copy of “God Only Knows What Devils We Are,” a document recently released by The Institute for Experimental Freedom and CrimeThinc.com.

Anonymous adds that later this month on February 28, hacktivists and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement will wage a mass protest together against the prison system. They say they “will be marching in the streets of the US to demand an end to the suppression of the occupation movement.”

“But our solidarity does not extend only to occupiers or political prisoners,” continues the statement. “[W]e do not give any legitimacy or credibility to a justice system that look after their own prosecutors and pigs who get away with brutality and corruption, while they routinely murder innocent people on death row and locks up immigrants they deem ‘illegal’ while profiting by forcing them to labor for far less than minimum wage.”

“We will abolish their prisons in all forms, and run the pigs off of our streets. We will burn down their prison society, because only on the ashes of the old world can we hope to rebuild a new one,” adds the group.

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http://anonops.ro/ohai/index.html

Hello dear Romanians,

Today our vessel has encountered another government frigate...a chance we could NOT let pass! After defacing WWW.FMI.RO and WWW.ANCMRR.RO, we decided to take a closer look on the last one...and surprise: WWW.PS2.RO was also hosted there...so both WWW.ANCMRR.RO and WWW.PS2.RO were on the same server (a Windows based server btw). While we were sailing strong, as allways, we discovered that the actual server was using A PIRATED VERSION OF WINDOWS XP (OMFG - gov using pirate shit), so we took a nice screenshot, cuz this is epic shit:

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Cybercrime Blotter: The Biggest Hacks of 2012 — So Far

Cybercriminals and hackers had a big year in 2011, taking on everyone from Sony and the authentication-token maker RSA to the CIA and even a notorious Mexican drug cartel. During the Arab Spring, the headline-hounding hackers in the LulzSec and Anonymous groups showed just how vulnerable anyone's online presence is, even that of major governments.

What can we expect in 2012? More of the same, or a dynamic shift in what crooks want? And how will they go about getting it?

It's too early for the answers, but 2012 has already seen its share of cybercriminal incidents. Starting with the most recent targets, here's a list of hackers' most-daring exploits and the data breaches, compromises, data leaks, thefts, threats and privacy invasions that have made this a year to watch.

twitter:

Net_Anon twitterde op zaterdag 25-02-2012 om 00:32:46 The Biggest Hacks of 2012 - so far. About half of them are by #Anonymous | TechNewsDaily http://t.co/xYSCLE7i reageer retweet

Anonymous-- Warning to Vic Toews

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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Arab World: 'Either Assad stays or we do'

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Secondly, the absence of unity and a real chain of command was acutely apparent.

No one I met seemed to regard themselves as under the command or authority of the notional FSA leadership in Antakya, Turkey. In many ways, indeed, there is no single FSA. Rather, there is a collection of local militias, formed of a combination of army deserters and local men wanting to take up arms.

These militias are in contact, cooperate with one another and receive general directives. But each appears to regard itself as autonomous, and is mainly concerned with ensuring the integrity of its own area and the safety of the area’s civilian protestors.

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 15:46 schreef Yuri_Boyka het volgende:
Volgens mij zit jij ook gewoon bij anonymous. Je hebt inmiddels al een mooi dossier bij elkaar gesprokkeld.

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 15:48 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:

[..]

Begint een beetje op een ongewone interesse te lijken

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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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 16:10 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:
Dat filmpje met de westboro church eens gekeken in de OP, bewijst maar weer dat anonymous iedereen en niemand is, en elke idioot de naam kan toeëigenen. Soms zie je in media 'anonymous heeft die en die boodschap aan die en die'

Dan zie je een filmpje wat elke idioot met microsoft-sam en wat stockbeelden van een ander anonfilmpje heeft gemaakt.

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Op zondag 26 februari 2012 15:45 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:

[..]

Blanco pagina hier...

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Case Mayfield promoot Pirate Bay-download van zijn nieuwe album

Partijen als Brein, die opkomen voor de belangen van artiesten, voeren al jaren een hetze tegen downloadssites als Pirate Bay. Met resultaat, internetproviders Ziggo en XS4All moesten van de rechter de toegang tot Pirate Bay blokkeren. De Volendamse zanger Case Mayfield (24) doet hier niet aan mee, hij linkt zelf naar zijn album op Pirate Bay.

Zijn vorige week uitgekomen album, The Many Colored Beast, is ook te koop op iTunes en www.Bol.com. Vanaf vandaag staat het album ook gratis op Pirate Bay - niet ongewoon behalve dat dit meestal zorgt voor ongenoegen bij de artiesten. Kees Veerman, de echte naam van Case Mayfield, zette links naar de download op zijn Facebookpagina en Twitteraccount.

De reacties via sociale media zijn heel positief. 'Cool! Kan ik ergens je rekeningnummer vinden? Platenlabels sponsoren is zo 2010', schrijft een fan op Facebook. Andere reacties: 'Case, ik vind jou een goeie.' 'Hulde' en 'Goeie actie'. Een andere fan zegt: Haha, super actie! Muziek is gewoon om te delen', waarop Mayfield reageert: 'Precies, wat heb ik nou aan geld? Behalve om eten te kopen. Eten is zo 2006.'

Maar er wordt ook een kanttekening geplaatst: 'Ik heb hem via iTunes gedownload, ga altijd uit van het principe dat je voor kwaliteit gewoon betaalt.'

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Op zondag 26 februari 2012 19:16 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:

[..]

wikileaks voor nazi-geheimen?

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Facebook spies on phone users' text messages, report says

INTERNET giant Facebook is accessing smartphone users' personal text messages, an investigation revealed today.

Facebook admitted reading text messages belonging to smartphone users who downloaded the social-networking app and said that it was accessing the data as part of a trial to launch its own messaging service, The (London) Sunday Times reported.

Other well-known companies accessing smartphone users' personal data - such as text messages - include photo-sharing site Flickr, dating site Badoo and Yahoo Messenger, the paper said.

It claimed that some apps even allow companies to intercept phone calls - while others, such as YouTube, are capable of remotely accessing and operating users' smartphone cameras to take photographs or videos at any time.

Security app My Remote Lock and the app Tennis Juggling Game were among smaller companies' apps that may intercept users' calls, the paper said.

Emma Draper, of the Privacy International campaign group, said, "Your personal information is a precious commodity, and companies will go to great lengths to get their hands on as much of it as possible."

More than 400,000 apps can be downloaded to Android phones, and more than 500,000 are available for iPhones - with all apps downloaded from Apple's App Store covered by the same terms and conditions policy.

According to a YouGov poll for the newspaper, 70 per cent of smartphone users rarely or never read the terms and conditions policy when they download an app.

Read more at the Sunday Times.

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The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom

Top-down, international regulation is antithetical to the Net, which has flourished under its current governance model.

On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish "international control over the Internet" through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.

If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet's flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.

Since the Net's inception, engineers, academics, user groups and others have convened in bottom-up nongovernmental organizations to keep it operating and thriving through what is known as a "multi-stakeholder" governance model. This consensus-driven private-sector approach has been the key to the Net's phenomenal success.

In 1995, shortly after it was privatized, only 16 million people used the Internet world-wide. By 2011, more than two billion were online—and that number is growing by as much as half a million every day. This explosive growth is the direct result of governments generally keeping their hands off the Internet sphere.

Net access, especially through mobile devices, is improving the human condition more quickly—and more fundamentally—than any other technology in history. Nowhere is this more true than in the developing world, where unfettered Internet technologies are expanding economies and raising living standards.

Farmers who live far from markets are now able to find buyers for their crops through their Internet-connected mobile devices without assuming the risks and expenses of traveling with their goods. Worried parents are able to go online to locate medicine for their sick children. And proponents of political freedom are better able to share information and organize support to break down the walls of tyranny.

The Internet has also been a net job creator. A recent McKinsey study found that for every job disrupted by Internet connectivity, 2.6 new jobs are created. It is no coincidence that these wonderful developments blossomed as the Internet migrated further away from government control.

Today, however, Russia, China and their allies within the 193 member states of the ITU want to renegotiate the 1988 treaty to expand its reach into previously unregulated areas. Reading even a partial list of proposals that could be codified into international law next December at a conference in Dubai is chilling:

• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;

• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;

• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."

• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;

• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;

• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.

Many countries in the developing world, including India and Brazil, are particularly intrigued by these ideas. Even though Internet-based technologies are improving billions of lives everywhere, some governments feel excluded and want more control.

And let's face it, strong-arm regimes are threatened by popular outcries for political freedom that are empowered by unfettered Internet connectivity. They have formed impressive coalitions, and their efforts have progressed significantly.

Merely saying "no" to any changes to the current structure of Internet governance is likely to be a losing proposition. A more successful strategy would be for proponents of Internet freedom and prosperity within every nation to encourage a dialogue among all interested parties, including governments and the ITU, to broaden the multi-stakeholder umbrella with the goal of reaching consensus to address reasonable concerns. As part of this conversation, we should underscore the tremendous benefits that the Internet has yielded for the developing world through the multi-stakeholder model.

Upending this model with a new regulatory treaty is likely to partition the Internet as some countries would inevitably choose to opt out. A balkanized Internet would be devastating to global free trade and national sovereignty. It would impair Internet growth most severely in the developing world but also globally as technologists are forced to seek bureaucratic permission to innovate and invest. This would also undermine the proliferation of new cross-border technologies, such as cloud computing.

A top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders. No government, let alone an intergovernmental body, can make engineering and economic decisions in lightning-fast Internet time. Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body.

Any attempts to expand intergovernmental powers over the Internet—no matter how incremental or seemingly innocuous—should be turned back. Modernization and reform can be constructive, but not if the end result is a new global bureaucracy that departs from the multi-stakeholder model. Enlightened nations should draw a line in the sand against new regulations while welcoming reform that could include a nonregulatory role for the ITU.

Pro-regulation forces are, thus far, much more energized and organized than those who favor the multi-stakeholder approach. Regulation proponents only need to secure a simple majority of the 193 member states to codify their radical and counterproductive agenda. Unlike the U.N. Security Council, no country can wield a veto in ITU proceedings. With this in mind, some estimate that approximately 90 countries could be supporting intergovernmental Net regulation—a mere seven short of a majority.

While precious time ticks away, the U.S. has not named a leader for the treaty negotiation. We must awake from our slumber and engage before it is too late. Not only do these developments have the potential to affect the daily lives of all Americans, they also threaten freedom and prosperity across the globe.

Mr. McDowell is a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

twitter:

OpCensorThis_ twitterde op zondag 26-02-2012 om 22:06:45 #Anonymous has much WIN coming soon.... reageer retweet

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WikiLeaks begins publishing 5 million emails from STRATFOR

LONDON--Today WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

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"[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase" CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

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The material contains privileged information about the US government's attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor's own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks.

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"[Is it] possible for us to get some of that 'leak-focused' gravy train? This is an obvious fear sale, so that's a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don't, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet... Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused' network security that focuses on preventing one's own employees from leaking sensitive information... In fact, I'm not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution."

twitter:

AnonymousIRC twitterde op maandag 27-02-2012 om 01:13:30 We'll gladly accept the apologies of all those who claimed that no dirt would be in those mails. #Antisec reageer retweet

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Op zondag 26 februari 2012 23:28 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

twitter:

OpCensorThis_ twitterde op zondag 26-02-2012 om 22:06:45 #Anonymous has much WIN coming soon.... reageer retweet

Maandag zou er een grote mededeling komen. Een wikileaks-account riep ook zoiets, we wachten in spanning af.

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op maandag 27-02-2012 om 01:53:01 ATTENTION - We're just getting warmed up. First the WikiLeaks STRATFOR announcement. Next up? The major #Anonymous announcement. Stay tuned! reageer retweet

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Op maandag 27 februari 2012 14:40 schreef viagraap het volgende:
Maar even een vraagje: wat is Stratfor nou eigenlijk? Ik heb daar echt nog nooit van gehoord.

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Stratfor: Inside the World of a Private CIA

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What is Stratfor?

Stratfor was founded over a decade ago in Austin, Texas by George Friedman, a former political science professor. Friedman is the companys chief intelligence officer, financial overseer, and CEO.

Presenting himself as a best selling author on the companys About Us page, Friedman has a history of working on matters of security and defense with the American military, as well as other institutions like the notorious RAND Corporation.

A self-proclaimed disciple of neo-conservative icons such as Leo Strauss, Friedman has routinely emphasized the "jihadist threat" of al-Qaeda. Indeed, the forecast report compiled by members of Stratfor for the decade between 2005 and 2015 is mainly concerned with the prominence of the United States as a global hegemonic power and its conflict with al-Qaeda [1].

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Ruim 2 miljoen handtekeningen tegen antipiraterijverdag ACTA

Wereldwijd ruim 2 miljoen burgers roepen het Europees Parlement op zich te verzetten tegen het internationale antipiraterijverdrag ACTA. Zij vinden de overeenkomst een bedreiging voor een vrij en open internet.

De klagers ondertekenden een petitie die vandaag aan het parlement in Brussel werd overhandigd. Volgens een woordvoerster van het parlement gaat het om bijna 2,5 miljoen handtekeningen van mensen uit de hele wereld.

Namaak
De Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) moet namaak bestrijden en piraterij indammen, maar tegenstanders laken het gebrek aan inspraak. De overeenkomst is al aangenomen door de Europese Commissie, maar de individuele Eurolanden en het Europarlement moeten er nog over stemmen.

De Tweede Kamer riep het kabinet op de wet voorlopig niet te ondertekenen. Eerst moet duidelijk worden gemaakt dat de wet de internetvrijheid niet beperkt. Vorige week werd de antipiraterijwet voorgelegd aan het Europees Hof van Justitie.

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Google verhoogt lat voor 'bounty hacking': 1 miljoen dollar voor hacken Chrome

Op het zogenoemde 'bounty hunting' zijn vele filmscripts gebaseerd: cowboyachtige types sporen criminelen op om de beloning op te strijken. De 'bounty hacker' is echter nog niet zo bekend, maar daar zal Google met zijn nieuwe beloningbeleid waarschijnlijk snel verandering in brengen: hackers krijgen beloningen tot 1 miljoen dollar als ze een lek weten te vinden in de browser Chrome.

Het uitloven van beloningen aan hackers is niet nieuw, onder andere Facebook zet dit middel in om kwaadaardige hackers voor te zijn. In criminele kringen wordt meestal veel geld betaald voor een beveiligingshack waarmee bijvoorbeeld virussen kunnen worden verspreid.

De afgelopen jaren beseffen steeds meer bedrijven dat ze juist kunnen profiteren van hackers, om zo hun systeem te verbeteren. Maar waar hackers eerst enkele honderden of duizenden dollars konden incasseren van de bedrijven, verhoogt Google de inzet drastisch. Dit maakt bounty hacking plotseling een lucratieve baan.

Op het Chrome-blog staat geschreven: 'We zijn trots op de prestaties van Chrome, maar hierdoor ontvangen we geen meldingen van misbruik. Dit betekent dat het moeilijker is om te leren en onze systemen te verbeteren. Om onze kans op het ontvangen van hacks te maximaliseren, hebben we de lat hoger gelegd. Ons doel is eenvoudig: hackers bieden ons de mogelijkheid om de kwetsbaarheid van ons systeem vast te stellen. Zo kunnen we onze gebruikers beter beschermen.'

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Franse privacywaakhond: nieuw Google-instellingen in strijd met regels EU

De Franse privacywaakhond CNIL zegt vandaag dat het nieuwe privacybeleid van Google waarschijnlijk in strijd is met de regels van de Europese Unie met betrekking tot internetdata. De kans dat de EU het advies overneemt is groot.

Meer informatie volgt.

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AnonymousIRC twitterde op dinsdag 28-02-2012 om 21:41:18 Stratfor:"[on anons]...These assholes should get the death sentence, along with their hero Assange." #Anonymous #OWS #Wikileaks #GiFiles reageer retweet

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Depends on what charges would stick. Bankrupt the arsehole first, ruin
his life. Give him 7-12 yrs for conspiracy.

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Competitors blamed for over half of the DDoS attacks in the US

One in three organizations (31%) has suffered one or more Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in the last 12 months, according to independent research commissioned by Corero Network Security.

The research amongst IT directors in 300 mid-to large-sized enterprises in the UK and US also found US companies were twice as likely as those in the UK to have experienced an attack: 38% of US companies versus 18% of UK companies.

The research also revealed a much greater level of concern amongst US enterprises, reflecting the increased exposure of US companies to DDoS attack. Nearly two thirds (63%) of US IT directors said they are concerned about the threat of DDoS attack against just 29% in the UK.

Retail companies in the UK are particularly worried with more than half (52%) reporting a high level of concern about DDoS attacks. This is far higher than the concern cited by financial organizations (28%), manufacturing (11%) and other commercial sectors (7%) in the UK.

US companies across all verticals showed a heightened level of awareness and concern about attacks.

Political/ideological motivation was cited as the largest source of DDoS attack among UK companies reporting attacks, with a third blaming what is known as “hacktivism”. The different vertical markets in the UK also revealed a marked variation in the motivations behind attacks. The retail sector in the UK considers financial extortion either for fraud or to extract ransom money to be the primary intention, whilst in the finance sector, political or ideological motives are the main reasons for the attacks.

In the US, however, a competitor seeking unfair business advantage was by far the leading motivation, as unscrupulous competitors were blamed for more than half (52%) of the DDoS attacks amongst the US companies that reported being victims. In contrast, only one in five victim companies in the UK said competitors were responsible.

Whilst levels of concern about the risk of DDoS attacks varied significantly between UK and US respondents, three in five (62%) IT directors claimed to have technology in place to protect their organizations against attack. However more than half (53%) of companies surveyed were still concerned about potential attacks.

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Operation Exposure leads to over 20 arrests of Anonymous activists in Latin America and Spain

It was already noted through Twitter that several accounts were warning as soon as the 12th of February1 that the Police was launching a fully fledged operation against Anonymous in Spain. At first Police forces would not “confirm neither deny it”2 and this was mostly thought to be because the operation was still on it’s feet and they feared that possible suspects would be able to clear their tracks or delete any compromising data.



But today the operation (dubbed “Operation Exposure”) came to an end and a press release3 has been published and mainstream media have reported on it456. This Operation, according to the press release, was coordinated at an international level with INTERPOL, EUROPOL and Technological Police Brigades were the arrests took place in Latin America. Specifically, 10 activists in Argentina, 6 in Chile and 5 in Colombia. Moreover two servers have been blocked in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. It was noted that access to the IRC server named “AnonWorld” was impossible since last week.



In the case of the Spanish detentions, the Police notes that two of the activists have been sent to prison by court order, another activist has been freed under a bail and lastly, one of the activists was under-aged and is therefore under parents’ custody. The Police claims these Spanish activists are allegedly responsible of “DDoS attacks […] web defacements […] of political parties, institutions and corporations, as well as the publication of data on the internet referring to, amongst others, presidential bodyguards and members of the GEO (Spanish acronym: Grupo Especial de Operaciones – Special Operations Group) from the National Police Force”7. These attacks were committed, according to the Police, roughly during the mid-term of last year8.



One of the activists arrested, nicknamed “Troy” is allegedly the author of “the publication of personal data of members of the National Police from the Royal House, bodyguards working for the Government President, Special Operations Group and from the leader of UPyD [Spanish opposition political party] Rosa Díez”9. The activists arrested in Spain are being accused of “illicit association, computer damage and discovery and revelation of secrets”10.



It remains unclear whether more Police operations will take place in Spain since recent Anonymous protests in Spain have been officially reported to the Police11. During the inauguration gala of Spanish cinema awards (known as the Goya Awards), Anonymous leaked a so-called “dox” on alleged supporters of the famous Ley Sinde which was recently approved. The “Ley Sinde” (or Sinde Act) grants an administrative commission unprecedented power that many critics have claimed that it essentially erodes the rule of law, apart from the blocking of websites that this commission may consider to be infringing intellectual property rights. In fact, an internet association has successfully presented an administrative appeal which has been accepted by the Supreme Court12. But Sinde Act is expected to come into force as soon as the 1st of March and no resolution is expected to be dictated by the court before then.



It was last year that Anonymous gained notoriety in Spain since they managed to undertake a peaceful protest during the night of the Goya Awards, but this year police presence managed to avoid that scenario again this year. Although the Police did avoid any sign of dissent at the Goya Awards’ gate, a protester managed to get all the way into the ceremony and was filmed by the cameras13



Finally, Anonymous is obviously not the only movement that has “stepped up it’s game” due to the recent approval of the Sinde Act. The Spanish group called “Hacktivistas”14 are undergoing a campaign of civil disobedience on the net. It consists of including a link to copyrighted material into peoples website, which is administered by the SGAE (a collecting association for artists), an association which has been openly criticized and investigated for money laundering activities15. For the time being there more than 200 websites that have voluntarily linked to such material, and it is assumed that what they wish to do is “be the first line of combat designed for and by an outdated industry”16. It would be expected that such websites will soon be reported to the administrative commission, therefore artificially inflating the amount of workload this body would have. By having some many websites denounced at the same time they wish to evidence “the dangers of this Act together with it’s inefficiencies”17.

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"Anonymous Shocking Apology ..."
Deze video is niet langer beschikbaar vanwege een auteursrechtclaim door STRATFORvideo.

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Anonymous Occupy Medic Service

After watching helplessly and talking on twitter to a Syrian protestor medic who couldn’t save a man because he had no help and snipers where everywhere, I decided to try to form a collective of medics from Anonymous Occupy and any other protestors out there. The purpose of this is coordination and quick reaction which in turn saves more lives. #AOMS will not be based in a sole region or area but worldwide because freedom isn’t just for one person or another.

Like #Anonymous we have no direct leadership not even myself, we all are cogs in one giant machine that keeps people in the fight. Each person or group will have a specific duty.

Go to the anonmedic website for more information

If your interested in helping out send an email to anonymedic@hotmail.com or find him on twitter @aomscentral

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Site Interpol op zwart na arrestatie hackers Anonymous

De internationale politieorganisatie Interpol heeft afgelopen maand 25 hackers van hackerscollectief Anonymous gearresteerd in vier landen in Europa en Latijns-Amerika. Dat heeft Interpol gisteren bekendgemaakt.

Na bekendmaking van de arrestaties was de site van Interpol kortstondig uit de lucht. Het euvel leek na een halfuur verholpen, al laadt de pagina nog erg traag. Verondersteld wordt dat collega-hackers van Anonymous een aanval op de website uitvoerden.

Slachtoffer
De arrestaties van de afgelopen maand volgen op een reeks cyberaanvallen die vanuit Argentinië, Chili, Colombia en Spanje zijn uitgevoerd tegen onder meer het Colombiaanse ministerie van Defensie. Ook het Chileense elektriciteitsbedrijf Endesa was slachtoffer van de hacks.

Onder de naam 'Ontmasker' ging de Interpol-operatie enkele weken geleden van start. Sindsdien zijn vier hackers in Spanje gearresteerd, tien in Argentinië, zes in Chili en vijf in Colombia.