Anonops #12: Spy on the Spyers

quote:

Evgeny Morozov: 'I'm all for elite models when it comes to digital activism' - video

quote:

Evgeny Morozov explains his theory of cyber utopianism and why he believes the web does little for democratisation around the world. He presents a critique of online hactivism groups, including LulzSec and Anonymous, and suggests digital activism more broadly would benefit from an elitist reworking

quote:

Hacktivists in the frontline battle for the internet

Amid the power struggle between hacktivism and officialdom, Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow explains why he is working on a system to fund online activists hit by corporate blockades

If there is a battle over the future shape of the internet – and society as a whole - then hacktivist groups such as Anonymous and Lulzsec, Wikileaks and the file-sharing site Megaupload.com are among the frontline battalions.

While the individual incidents and clashes involving these groups may seem disparate and unconnected, those at the core of online activism say all these organisations, plus relatively mainstream movements such as Occupy and the Pirate Party, are linked.

John Perry Barlow, lyricist for the Grateful Dead and co-founder of the well-known advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF), says the over-arching motivation of such efforts, whatever tactics are used, was to shift the nature of society.

"What unites these groups is the belief that the future is not about vertical, hierarchical government, but horizontal [peer-to-peer] government," he said. "This pits the forces of the information age against those of the industrial age, as we move from scarcity of information to abundance. The last year has established our ability to have revolutions, but not to govern in their wake – but that's coming.

"Different groups are on a spectrum. Organisations like the EFF would be on the conservative end. Along the way is WikiLeaks and the Pirate party, with Anonymous at the more radical end."

Though ties between the groups are often tenuous, a broadly shared ideology of a libertarian distrust of government, belief in networks of free citizens, mistrust of copyright and intellectual property laws, and a drive for self-determination appear to unite the hacktivist fringe of the internet.

Barlow believes the US government has started aggressively pursuing political hackers such as Anonymous and Lulzsec. The groups mounted attacks taking US and UK government websites offline, targeted News International, allegedly taking a tranche of emails belong to staff of the Sun, and took the full email archives of US intelligence firm Stratfor and passed them to WikiLeaks.

"The government targets Anonymous for the same reason it targets al-Qaida – because they're the enemy. And in a way, they are. The shit is starting to hit the fan, but we haven't started to see the effects of that yet. The internet is the most liberating tool for humanity ever invented, and also the best for surveillance. It's not one or the other. It's both."

Barlow is working on a system to oppose the financial blockade imposed against WikiLeaks. In the wake of WikiLeaks' publication of US diplomatic cables, Senator Joe Lieberman called on US companies to cut off the site. Payment providers Visa, Mastercard and Paypal acceded to the request, despite no order or request coming from government, starving the site of funding.

Barlow is planning the establishment of a foundation aimed at funding any organisations affected by corporate blockades with first amendment implications.

"We hope it makes a moral argument against these sorts of actions," he says. "But it could also be the basis of a legal challenge. We now have private organisations with the ability to stifle free expression. These companies have no bill of rights that applies to their action – they only have terms of service."

As a result, battles over the future of the internet are becoming increasingly politicised as opposing sides try to set the legal framework. A huge network of grassroots organisations coalesced in the US to fight the stop online piracy act (Sopa). The bill was eventually stopped in its tracks as opposition mounted, but similar efforts in the EU and elsewhere have had more success proceeding through the legislature.

On other fronts, cyber-surveillance is increasing, with the UK government proposing a law to allow the monitoring of information on emails, social network and Skype traffic on all users in real-time. To fight such efforts, hacktivists are getting political.

The best known movement of this sort is the Pirate party, which was founded in Sweden by Rickard Falkvinge in 2006 and is marginal in the UK but is building up substantial influence across the world. The party has two MEPs in the European parliament, and recently took 7.4% of the vote in recent elections in the Saarland region of Germany – and according to recent polls it is now the third biggest in the country.

The party has even briefly had a cabinet minister, Slim Amamou, a Tunisian activist who served as sports and youth minister in his country for a brief period last year before resigning in protest over web censorship imposed by Tunisia's army.

Amelia Andersdotter, one of the party's two MEPs, thinks authorities tend to ignore the political element of hacking attacks by groups such as Anonymous.

"Some of these hacking attacks are misconstrued. Many are clearly politically targeted, attempts to register protest at something a government or organisation is doing," she says. "There is a lack of understanding in cyber-security. Things are seen as big and intimidating when they are often not.

"Suddenly, denial of service attacks [an attack which floods a site with fake traffic, preventing people visiting] which used to be legal in many member states, are being prosecuted. Most of these used to be for bad reasons, attacks by rivals, but now more than half are political and there are more prosecutions."

Andersdotter's priorities are looking into how public authorities' security efforts are regulated and held to account, attempting to reform the EU's intellectual property laws, and helping to spread fibre internet – faster broadband speeds – across the EU.

Others aren't content merely to lobby politicians for a free internet. Instead, they have built tools designed to make regulating the internet an impossible task. One of the most widely used is Tor, short for "the onion router".

Tor, when used properly, anonymises all internet traffic coming from a machine by bouncing it around dozens of other computers around the world, taking a different path each time. This means an individual will only be identifiable when he or she chooses to log into a given site.

The system is not infallible, as it can be blocked – temporarily – by authoritarian governments, but provides a huge degree of protection, whether to activists working in oppressive regimes, or to those using the internet to smuggle drugs or share child pornography.

This dilemma has not gone unnoticed by the people behind the tools.

"Criminals will always be opportunists and will see new prospects before everyone else does," says the Tor project's executive director, Andrew Lewman. "Old-fashioned police work still works incredibly well against such people. Almost every transaction in the UK uses EFT [card payment], there is CCTV on every street, and monitoring of online communications – but you still have trafficking and other crimes.

"The benefits of the open internet work much the same as motorways or interstates: they outweigh the costs. In the US, police opposed the building of interstate roads, saying they would help criminals circumvent the law. But the police adapted, and the benefits of highways clearly outweigh the costs."

Lewman says the main motivating factor behind the Tor project is not to overthrow government, or even to engage in activism, but rather to give users control over how they use the internet and who is able to monitor their activity. But he is not surprised that governments are trying to regulate the internet.

"Governments are starting to realise a growing share of their GDP depends on the internet. Government like stability, not rapidly shifting ground," he concludes.

But government could be circumvented entirely, as coders haven't only been building ways of circumventing legal oversight: they have built a whole new stateless currency from the ground up.

The currency is known as Bitcoin, and relies on a series of mathematical algorithms to govern the amount of money in circulation and the future inflation rate. Each Bitcoin has a unique ID and transactions are recorded in public ledgers, making fraud far more difficult than most real-world currencies – but as Bitcoins aren't backed by a government, if they're stolen, they're gone forever, as some early adopters found out to their cost.

At the time of writing, there are more than 8.7m Bitcoins in existence, worth a total of around $42.3m (£26.2m). The combination of a stateless currency and untraceable internet use is a powerful one, as one underground site highlights.

The Silk Road is a website only accessible in the "dark" section of Tor, meaning it can't be viewed or traced on the general internet, and accepts only Bitcoins for payment. The site allows the buying and selling of illegal drugs, predominantly in the US, UK and Netherlands.

Its existence isn't a secret. In 2011 two senators wrote to the US attorney general asking for action to be taken against the site, which was described as a "one-stop shop for illegal drugs that represents the most brazen attempt to peddle drugs online that we have ever seen".

Action against the site, which operates in a similar manner to eBay, linking independent buyers and sellers, has so far proved impossible, and the publicity generated for the Silk Road only boosted its – and Bitcoin's – popularity.

Promoting such enterprises is not, though, the driving motivation for most of the people behind the development of Bitcoin.

One core member of Bitcoin's development team, Amir Taaki, explains the broad motivations of the hacktivist movement from a "hackspace" in east London – a loose members' club designed to let people build, code and tinker as they wish. Even the space's door is customised: it's tailored to open when members pass their Oyster card or similar radio-frequency ID nearby, and then plays a customised greeting (one has chosen the victory theme from Final Fantasy VII, a cult 90s videogame).

The first principle of hacker culture, Taaki says that "all authority should be questioned". He stresses this doesn't mean governments or police are necessarily corrupt, or aren't needed, but that the public should always be in a position to hold such authorities to account.

This leads to the second core principle: information should, generally speaking, be free. Copyright laws, patents, government secrecy and more are a huge target for the movement.

What this would mean for industries such as pharmaceuticals, where a pill may cost pennies to make but millions to research is unclear, though – and Taaki doesn't have the answers. What he does raise is a challenge. To date, it's the entertainment industries – Hollywood, music, television and publishers – that have felt the effects of piracy and filesharing. Developments in technology mean that may not remain the case for long.

Devices known as 3D printers are able to create real-life objects based on three-dimensional plans. The technology is expensive: a cheap commercial machine costs upwards of £10,000, but a build-it-yourself open source version has already been conceived. The RepRap can be built for just over £300. Intriguingly, a RepRap can currently produce around half the parts needed to make another one. Given enough time, the devices will likely be able to print out the parts to make a whole new 3D printer – a self-replicating machine.

It's a technology with impressive potential, the ability to "print" virtually any item that can be conceived – tools, toys, even food – but the applications to date are fairly basic, and costly. At present, the printers can mainly make novelty items – though early, successful attempts to clone plastic Warhammer toys led to lawsuits and a predictable backlash.

A technology that could allow anyone to manufacture any item, given the right blueprints, heralds a huge storm for any company relying on old-world business models – and today's hackers know it.

"The battle between pirates and the music or film industries is really nothing, it's a warm-up," Taaki says. "When this technology matures, manufacturers, agriculture businesses, technology firms, any of this could be easily replicated by almost anyone, anywhere. That's when we'll see the real fight – and they don't even see it coming."

quote:

The cyber misinformation campaign against USA Today

quote:

It's not hard to find a precedent for the harassment alleged by USA Today of its staff investigating Pentagon propaganda

quote:

The report by USA Today in which two of the paper's employees became targets of a widespread and dishonest online disinformation campaign immediately after making inquiring calls to several intelligence contractors with ties to the US military might be very surprising to those of the nation's journalists who only pay attention to our intelligence and security community and its conduct when some of its members are caught with prostitutes. The other dozen or so will not be surprised at all.

In the case that the guilty party is found, and does indeed turn out to be one of the private firms that the Pentagon has hired to provide "information operations" for use in Afghanistan, what are the consequences likely to be?

To judge from the last known incident in which several government contractors were actually caught planning a far more sophisticated campaign of intimidation against yet another journalist, the consequences will not be so bad as to prevent others from doing the same thing. It's easy enough, especially for those firms that are encouraged by their government clients to produce new and better ways by which to lie and discredit. And there's money in it.

Early in 2011, four contracting firms with strong government ties – HBGary Federal, Palantir, Berico and Endgame Systems – decided to combine their capabilities and set up a high-end private info warfare unit called Team Themis. Bank of America asked them to write a proposal for a covert campaign against WikiLeaks. Aside from hacking the group's European servers, the team raised the possibility of going after Salon contributor Glenn Greenwald, a prominent WikiLeaks supporter. "These are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals," wrote HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr. He resigned with a severance package a few weeks after the affair was exposed by Anonymous; soon afterwards, he got a new job with another government contractor.

What of the others? Berico simply broke ties with HBGary Federal, as if it were merely a bad influence. Endgame Systems, whose execs explicitly noted in internal emails that their government clients didn't want its name appearing in a press release, was barely noted by the press at all – until, a few months later, Business Week discovered that their shyness may stem from the fact that they have the capability to take out West European airports via cyber attacks (if you've got a couple of million dollars to pay for that).

Palantir, which received seed money from the CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, and shares founders with PayPal, made a public apology to the effect that the cyber-plotting did not reflect the company's values, and put one of the employees involved, Matthew Steckman, on leave. A few months later, when the press had lost interest, Palantir brought him back on. Nothing at all seems to have happened to another employee, Eli Bingham, who was also heavily involved. When Palantir throws its annual convention, it still attracts keynote speakers like former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff – who happens to be on the board of another huge contractor, BAE Systems, which, in turn, happened to have done some business with HBGary Federal, as well.

To be fair, these sorts of companies provide valuable services to the US and its allies. For instance, when US Central Command (CentCom) needed software that would allow 50 of its information warfare people to pretend to be 500 entirely fake people who don't exist outside the internet, it had the USAF put out a call for bids. A number of contractors were up for the job – including the ethically challenged HBGary Federal – but only one of them could actually win.

Perhaps the others can provide this sort of "persona management" capability to other, private clients with a need to discredit their enemies in a clandestine fashion. I can think of about a dozen journalists they might want to go after. The rest won't be a problem.

quote:

‘Anonymous’ hacker: Legalize marijuana for the cure



Heroes to some and villians to others, the “Anonymous” movement has come to symbolize much more than just a group of rogue hackers. But far from breaking into computer networks run by rogue governments or multinational corporations, as they’ve come to be known for, the online hacktivists now have their sights set on a different human rights issue entirely: marijuana prohibition.

Members of the hacking collective, who were at the epicenter of planning and promoting “Occupy Wall Street” last year, announced earlier this month that April 20, 2012 would mark the beginning of an official “Anonymous” push-back against America’s drug laws.

Speaking to Raw Story this week, a person claiming to be a member of “Anonymous,” who watched an attack on Sony’s website from behind the scenes but did not participate, claimed responsibility for the group’s new “OpCannabis” campaign, explaining that the operation is determined to throw the collective’s weight behind drug reform.

After launching a pitch for “OpCannabis” over one year ago, the hacker said that their “PR text evolved into a video,” which was “translated into German by parties unknown,” but then it fizzled.

“[S]omething was missing,” the source explained. “For some reason my inbox wasn’t blowing up and only a few hundred people seemed to show interest. This may or may not have had something to do with AnonNews deciding not to carry our press release. Thankfully this has since been resolved.”

Now that the leading “Anonymous” news account has tuned into the marijuana campaign and began circulating the latest “OpCannabis” updates, it has gone global.

Members of “Anonymous” plan to get outside and be vocal on Friday during nationwide protests against America’s drug policies. Some may even be following up with more computer hacking and website defacement. And just earlier this month, “OpCannabis” got its own website and Twitter account, connecting hundreds of “Anonymous” activists who are now sharing ideas to foster the push-back against prohibition.

But “OpCannabis” isn’t designed to be a hacking spree, Raw Story’s nameless source explained. “Anyone I’ve found that is involved with marijuana activism, I’ve told that they can e-mail any and all materials to the opcannabis@gmail.com and I’ll sort through it and get it on the site.”

“We ask you to please educate yourself on its many benefits and share these benefits with your sick or injured friends,” an “OpCannabis” press release implores. “We all know somebody that has cancer or diabetes and cannabis has helped or cured both and many other disorders! Anonymous will begin its support for the legalization of cannabis on 4/20/12. So please show your support by educating yourselves and making your profile pic or timeline banner on your social services accts green or 420 friendly.”

They’ve also asked that each chapter of the remaining “Occupy” groups around the country participate in marijuana-related events, pointing out the billions already spent just this year to incarcerate tens of thousands of marijuana prisoners around the country.

Raw Story’s source specifically pointed at the government’s hypocrisy in declaring that the plant has no medical value when pharmaceutical companies are practically begging for permits to research new marijuana-based drugs that address a whole host of ailments, including possible cures for several types of cancer.

“I think the Internet is an absolutely great medium for getting uncensored information,” Raw Story’s nameless source explained. “I’ve read countless stories of doctors outright denying that cannabis has any medical value, when the previously terminally ill cancer patients with six weeks to live are sitting in front of them cancer free two years later. I think through accurate and scientifically valid examination of cannabis and CB1/CB2 receptors, CBD and THC we can prove without a doubt what so many doctors don’t want you to know.”

“Cures don’t make money,” the “Anonymous” member concluded. “Half-assed and defective cures keep you dependent on the medical industry and its artificial products and keep you buying month after month until you die. They don’t want you cured. And that’s the sad reality.”

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op zondag 22-04-2012 om 01:24:06 Formula 1? Try Formula NONE || TANGO DOWN: http://FIA.com & http://www.interior.gov.bh || #OpBahrain #Anonymous reageer retweet

quote:

Spain Wants To Criminalise Online Organisation Of Social Protest

quote:

On April 11, 2012 the Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz called for a reform of the Spanish penal code that will include a new and peculiar criminality: “any call to participate in a violent demonstration over the Internet would be considered as offense of integration in a criminal organization “. Internet Without Borders is concerned by this new proposal of Act made by a Member State of the European Union, which undermines liberties. In two months, the governments of three European countries including France and the UK have issued draft or proposed laws that involve violations of individual freedoms. The Retweet of information on an event considered as violent would thus be liable to two years imprisonment in Spain.

Spain has witnessed a wave of unprecedented public demonstrations since May 2011. The government’s proposal that aims to qualify as criminal passive civil disobedience and certain public gatherings is singular for a Member State of the European Union. In this respect the op-ed in El PAIS of Professor Jacobo Dopico from the Chair of Criminal Law at the University Carlos 3 Madrid is eloquent. For the latter:

States that qualify as terrorists or criminals those who demonstrate or those who refuse to submit passively to the injunctions of the police [during demonstrations - editor's note] are not our European counterparts, but countries like China, Burma and the former dictatorships of South America.

The criminalisation of online sharing of information on a European territory?

The current form of the proposal of the Spanish government, which is part of a worrying political marketing, would actually criminalise the sharing of information online. So the Retweet of an event considered violent would be liable to two years imprisonment. This legislation would open the front to a legal uncertainty unusual for a rule of law: online information today is reticular. Its dissemination and sharing should not be criminalised in a disproportionate way, without taking into account the rights and freedoms of individuals, including the right to express freely on the Internet.


The determination of a violent event would violate privacy

The qualification of organizing a violent rally over the Internet can not intervene without violating the right to privacy of Internet users. Thus, this qualification would open the field to an administrative injunction without any control of an independent judge to assess the profile of the user who creates an event on a social network or calls for a demonstration on his website.
The implementation of this proposed Spanish law questions the current widespread use of emergency situations on online individual freedoms in Western democracies. The safeguarding of these rights is undermined by certain laws like the Patriot Act in the U.S. in 2001, and recently the proposal of President Sarkozy in France following the killings by an individual who claimed to be representative of the international Jihadism, slows down the building of the legal protection of individual liberties. Internet Without Borders is concerned by this Spanish bill: its disproportionate nature with regard to the goal targetted is opposite to the necessity to safeguard freedoms that found liberal democracies.

twitter:

deachterdeur twitterde op maandag 23-04-2012 om 02:37:01 @Anonijuana #Occupy420 #OpCannabis #OpCannabis420 STOP #weedpass #Anonymous Am*dam, 20 april 2012 #Ams420 #Maastricht ! http://t.co/DAInHdSO reageer retweet

quote:

Obama announces crackdown on Iran and Syria's cyber oppressors

US president signs executive order targeting people and firms that help authoritarian regimes clamp down on dissidents

President Barack Obama has signed an executive order targeting people and entities who use technology to help authoritarian regimes in Iran and Syria suppress their people.

"Technologies should be in place to empower citizens, not to oppress them," Obama said on Monday at a speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

Obama was introduced at the museum by Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel. Obama told Wiesel: "You show us the way. If you cannot give up, if you can believe, then we can believe."

The president said the White House's new "atrocities prevention board" will meet for the first time Monday. He said the board's aim was to better prevent and respond to mass atrocities and war crimes. Obama said the "seeds of hate" had too often been allowed to flourish. "Too often the world has failed to stop the massacre of innocents on a massive scale," said the president.

Obama's speech came as the US faces calls to orchestrate an international solution to the deadly crackdown on dissidents in Syria. "National sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people," Obama said.

In the executive order the president said the "malign use of technology" was facilitating human rights abuses in Iran and Syria and was a threat to the national security of the US.

The order blocks people associated with the supply and operation of these technologies from entering the US and seizes and property or assets they have in the US.

While social media and other technologies have been cited as aiding rebellions in countries including Libya and Egypt, other regimes including Bahrain, Syria and Iran have used technology to track dissidents.

Much of the technology used by oppressive regimes was supplied by US firms. Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that McAfee, part of tech giant Intel, had provided content-filtering software used in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

A White House statement said the executive order "authorises sanctions and visa bans against those who commit or facilitate grave human rights abuses via information technology related to Syrian and Iranian regime brutality."

"This tool allows us to sanction not just those oppressive governments, but the companies that enable them with technology they use for oppression, and the 'digital guns for hire' who create or operate systems used to monitor, track, and target citizens," the White House statement said.

quote:

Most IT and security professionals see Anonymous as serious threat to their companies

Bit9 survey shows that many IT professionals believe hacktivists are likely to target their organizations

April 23, 2012 IDG News Service The majority of IT and security professionals believe that Anonymous and hacktivists are among the groups that are most likely to attack their organizations during the next six months, according to the results of a survey sponsored by security vendor Bit9.

Sixty-four percent of the nearly 2,000 IT professionals who participated in Bit9's 2012 Cyber Security Survey believe that their companies will suffer a cyberattack during the next six months and sixty-one percent of them chose hacktivists as the likely attackers.

Respondents had the option to select up to three groups of attackers who they believe are most likely to target their organizations. The choices were Anonymous/hacktivists, cybercriminals, nation states, corporate competitors and disgruntled employees.

Anonymous was chosen by the largest number of IT professionals overall, but there were some differences based on the type of organization. For example, nation states was the top choice for people working in the government sector, while those working in retail selected cybercriminals as the top threat.

According to Verizon's 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report, hacktivists stole the largest quantity of data in 2011, but they were responsible for only 3 percent of the total number of breaches.

Respondents choosing hacktivists as a more likely source of cyberattacks than cybercriminals is similar to how most people fear flying more than driving, even though, statistically speaking, it's far more likely for someone to be involved in a car accident than in a plane crash, said Bit9 chief technology officer Harry Sverdlove.

The truth is that you are less likely to be attacked by Anonymous or hacktivists -- depending on what public statements you make -- than to be attacked by a cybercriminal enterprise or a nation state, he said.

Despite considering Anonymous the top threat, when selecting the method of attack they are most worried about, 45 percent of respondents chose malware, which is generally associated with cybercrime rather than hacktivism.

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and SQL injection, two attack types most commonly favored by hacktivists, worried only 11 percent and 6 percent of respondents, respectively.

Sverdlove believes that the reason why most IT professionals fear attacks from Anonymous is the bad publicity such attacks generate. If you're attacked by Anonymous the world is going to know because the announcement will be on Pastebin in 24 hours, whereas if you're attacked by cybercriminals, people might never find out, he said.

Despite this, almost 95 percent of respondents feel that data breaches should be disclosed to customers and the public. Forty-eight percent believe that companies should disclose the breach occurrence as well as what was stolen, while an additional 29 percent believe that companies should also disclose how the breach occurred.

Over half of those surveyed, 54 percent, believe that the most important machines in their business environment are the infrastructure servers. Forty-eight percent selected file and database servers, 46 percent selected Web and application servers and 45 percent chose email servers. Multiple choices were allowed.

When asked on which business machines they believe their cybersecurity protections to be most effective, the surveyed IT professionals chose them in a similar order. Forty percent believe their cybersecurity is strongest on infrastructure servers and only 26 percent believe it's strongest on endpoint machines.

Sverdlove thinks that respondents over-evaluated the strength of cybersecurity on their Web and database servers. As validated by a recent report from Hewlett-Packard, a lot of companies are far more vulnerable on their servers than IT professionals realize, he said.

HP's 2011 Top Cyber Security Risks Report, which was published on Wednesday, said that 86 percent of Web applications used by businesses are vulnerable to some type of injection attack that can be exploited by hackers to access internal databases.

More than half of IT professionals who participated in Bit9's survey believe that implementing best security practices and better security policies can have the biggest impact on the strength of an organization's cybersecurity. Only 15 percent of respondents felt that better technology will have a better impact and only 6 percent favored government regulation over other actions.

quote:

Former spy chief warns over watching social networks

quote:

A former Whitehall intelligence chief is warning that perceived fears of state surveillance are having a "chilling effect" on the use of social media.

Sir David Omand, an ex-Cabinet Office security and intelligence coordinator and former director of the GCHQ electronic eavesdropping agency, says it is vital that any legislation on digital monitoring is implemented with a firm legal footing.

Sir David co-authored a report, alongside think-tank Demos, which found that laws regarding the interception of communications by police and intelligence agencies needed to be overhauled to meet the changing face of social media and internet use.

Whilst he admitted that intelligence gathered from sites such as Facebook could be a vital source of information in identifying criminal activity or providing early warning of disorder, it said the public needed to be confident it was not being abused.

"Democratic legitimacy demands that where new methods of intelligence gathering and use are to be introduced they should be on a firm legal basis and rest on parliamentary and public understanding of what is involved, even if the operational details of the sources and methods used must sometimes remain secret," the report said.

"In respect of Socmint (evidence obtained from social media) these conditions of democratic legitimacy are presently absent."

Sir David said that proper regulation was essential to ensure public trust in the system.

"The problem with social media is that it doesn't really fit the 19th and 20th century structures we have for how you go about regulating these matters," he said.

"After Iraq, we must be sure that if people are engaged in this kind of monitoring, they are doing it for the reasons set out in the authorisation (and that) it has not been politicised."

A Home Office spokesman said: "Communications data, the who, when and where of a communication, has played a role in every major security service counter-terrorism operation over the past decade and in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime investigations, that includes cracking down on gang crime and paedophile rings.

"Interception of the content of a communication is only possible with a warrant signed by the Secretary of State and we have no plans to change this."

quote:

FBI tries to cut off yet another Anonymous tentacle, Barrett Brown: Good luck

quote:

Barrett Brown, the unofficial “spokesperson” for the hacking collective Anonymous, posted a statement yesterday on Pastebin noting that his apartment has been raided by the FBI.

The warrants allowed the Feds to search for records relating to Anonymous, LulzSec, HBGary, Infragard, Endgame Systems, IRC chats, Twitter, Brown’s website Echelon2.org and and Pastebin records, amongst other things. Basically, anything on any data-storing device owned by Brown.

Brown, of course, is not a hacker, but as a visible proponent of Anonymous, he’s an easy target for the Feds. In his Pastebin statement, however, Brown hit back at the federal government, independent security firms and big business in very interesting way—he brought up the corporate-government anti-hacking axis Team Themis. For anyone well-versed in the Greek pantheon of gods, you will remember Themis is the female goddess of law, justice and social control. It’s not for nothing that Team Themis would choose the goddess’s name for their vigilante form of justice, by which private entities—security firms and businesses—have launched an extra-judicial campaign against their enemies.

Team Themis, according to Brown, is comprised of federal contractors HBGary Federal, Palantir, Berico, and Endgame Systems. These contractors are, at bottom, hackers who work for the government. That is, hackers in it for the money. Their ideology needs no examination. Supporting the government for money is a very clear signal that they support the status quo: A corporate-political oligarchy protected by government spy agencies and private security firms.


As Brown notes:

. With the assistance of the law firm Hunton & Williams, [Team Themis] went about collecting potential clients, including two institutions which desired to go on the offensive against certain activist groups. One of these institutions, the Chamber of Commerce, provided them with the names of various individuals believed to be involved with groups that opposed their policies, and asked them to come up with a plan by which to discredit them.

The Chamber of Commerce, as you will remember, was instrumental as a lobbying mechanism in putting pro-business GOP candidates in office to retake the House majority and thus stall any effort to create economic justice for American citizens. Not a communist state, of course, but one in which big business and banks are held accountable for their criminal actions, instead of offering up sacrificial lambs like Goldman Sachs did with Fabrice Tourre.

Brown makes specific reference to one of Team Themis plans, in which a false document would be manufactured and given to Chamber Watch (a watchdog group monitoring the Chamber of Commerce). Brown quotes the document outlining the plan.

. Afterward, present explicit evidence that such transactions never occurred. Also, create a fake insider persona and generate communications with CtW. Afterward, release the actual documents at a specified time and explain the activity as a CtW contrived operation. Both instances will prove that Chamber Watch cannot be trusted with information and/or tell the truth.

The embattled Anonymous spokesperson then makes one of his most prescient points: In the eyes of the Justice Department, this sort of thing does not constitute even probable cause of criminal activity on the part of any of the individuals involved, or their companies, or the various other employees who viewed these kinds proposals. I say this because no one involved has had their apartment door knocked down and their equipment and notes seized by the FBI, as I have.

Indeed, that the Justice Department (in which the FBI is housed), and the executive who oversees it all (Obama) allows this sort of extra-judicial, vigilante campaign of false flags and espionage unfold is ethically and morally reprehensible. But the US government long ago lost any claims to morality and ethics. Everything and everyone has a price. Team Themis knows this reality quite well.

Brown, speaking of his case, told Buzzfeed in an email: I havent been charged with anything at this point, although theres a sealed affidavit to which neither I nor my attorney have access, he emailed BuzzFeed. I suspect that the FBI is working off of incorrect information.

The FBI doesnt seem to understand that, just as in the War on Drugs, there is a futility to fighting Anonymous. It is many-tentacled. It is amoeba-like. A rhizome that can be anywhere at any time. And it would be totally unnecessary if governments and businesses acted ethically. This is not the oligarchys agenda, though.

As Brown elegantly puts it, But they will not choose to investigate those sorts of things. The state has friends, and the state has enemies.

Read Browns statement in full over at Pastebin, and have a look at the court documents relating to his homes raid below.

quote:

Copyright Lobby Hires Pro-ACTA Demonstators

quote:

What if you organize a pro-copyright demonstration, but nobody wants to attend?

Well, then you can always hire some students.

This is exactly what the German copyright lobby must have thought.

They are reportedly recruiting students who are asked to attend a 2-hour demonstration for a lucrative 100 euro ($130).

The demonstration is held on World Intellectual Property Day where the students will probably have to hold up pro-ACTA signs and other propaganda.

And yes, these students are paid with money from the copyright industry, money that could have been paid to artists as well.

It doesn’t look like the demonstration is going to be a huge success though, as even one of the major industry associations backed out already because they fear bad press.

quote:

How the National Security Agency has gone rogue

quote:

The NSA, which dwarfs the CIA, is so powerful that those with oversight are too intimidated to check its incursions on liberty

quote:

Anonymous Launches Their Own Music Streaming Service

quote:

Anontune is a music service created by programmers that claim to belong to the hacker group Anonymous. The social music platform streams songs from multiple third-party Internet sources with an anonymity strategy that mitigates the risk of getting shut down by music industry lawsuits. The website itself is pretty unrefined, but the concept behind it is worth noting.

Given the decentralized nature of the web, the music industry continues to have the incredibly difficult task of controlling where music is uploaded online. Anontune takes advantage of this by scraping songs from undetected users, primarily on Youtube and Soundcloud. As Chicago Reader explains:

Instead of hosting music files that users can stream or download, which without rights holders permission would be illegal, the service simply provides users material scraped from the plethora of free, largely copyright-cleared outlets

Like most music discovery platforms, Anontune may be the beginning of a great online music service, but it completely ignores the concerns of artists. It is unfortunate that Anontunes white paper barely recognizes the importance of providing a music service solution that balances the interests of users and artists themselves.

via PSFK: http://www.psfk.com/2012/(...)s.html#ixzz1tGuvYfRd

quote:

IRL action: Anonymous takes to the streets to protest CISPA

quote:

Anonymous is taking its battle against CISPA to the streets. A video titled “Operation Defense. Phase II” calls on Americans to organize protests at the local offices of companies that supported the controversial bill recently adopted by the House.

In a video, released by “The Anonymous Message” YouTube channel, the group admits that distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) are not as effective as they were a year ago. A number of websites have upgraded their servers to withstand the assaults.

Instead, Anonymous calls on Americans concerned with losing their Internet privacy rights to take the battle to the street. In a video statement, the hacktivists urged people to organize mass demonstrations at local offices of corporations that backed CISPA.

“To the citizens of the United States of America: We are Anonymous,” a synthesized voice announces. “This is a special emergency message regarding the status of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. CISPA has passed the legislature. We are calling upon the citizens of the United States to physically protest. This includes all the Occupy movement. Our rights are being taken away.”

The video then goes on to provide exact details of the time, place and nature of the protests. The first company set to take the blow is AT&T, whose local offices will be targeted for protest between May 1 and May 5. Similar protests will follow near the offices of IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Verizon Wireless. Anonymous also invites CISPA opponents to boycott Pepsi and Coca Cola products between June 11 and June 14.

The video also reminds Americans to wear a Guy Fawkes mask at the protests and to seek support from the local Occupy movement. They also advise people to stage the rallies “across the street from the headquarters or buildings so as to not get evicted or arrested.”


Remember, you have a right to protest if you care about your freedom of speech, your right to privacy and your government censoring you. This is your time to act now. We will defend our home. Operation Defense phase two engaged. We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Supporters of CISPA, you should have expected us, the video-statement concludes.

quote:

Foto's delen op sociale media verboden tijdens Spelen

Tijdens de Olympische Spelen deze zomer in Londen is het verboden foto's te delen via sociale media. Dat blijkt uit de algemene ticketvoorwaarden van de Spelen.

In de voorwaarden staat: 'Foto's, video's en geluidsopnamen van de Olympische Spelen mogen niet worden gebruikt voor andere doeleinden dan voor privé- en huishoudelijke doeleinden. Tickethouders hebben geen toestemming om de beelden of geluiden uit te zenden of te publiceren, onder meer op social media en het internet in het algemeen.'

De reden hiervoor zijn onlangs aangenomen wetten rondom merkgebruik in Groot-Brittannië in aanloop naar de Olympische Spelen.

'Internet heeft de wereld veranderd. De realiteit is dat we in een wereld leven waar dagelijks via Facebook content wordt gedeeld, daar kunnen we vrij weinig aan doen', zegt Keith Mills, vicevoorzitter van de organisatie van de Olympische Spelen, in een toelichting aan de BBC.

Maar de organisatie ziet ook in dat het verbod op het delen van content 'niet afdwingbaar is' en dat er 'niet veel is wat de organisatoren kunnen doen. 'We proberen mensen te stoppen die de beelden gebruiken voor commerciële doeleinden.

De regels zijn zelfs zo streng, dat atleten niet op de foto mogen met een merk in beeld dat niet officiële sponsor is van het evenement. Dat komt door de strikte afspraken in de contracten met de officiële sponsors. Twitter verbiedt niet-officiële sponsors zelfs gebruik te maken van Olympische handelsmerken in hun advertenties, zoals #London2012 op Twitter

quote:

Microsoft backs away from CISPA support, citing privacy

quote:

Microsoft has been counted as a supporter of CISPA since the beginning. Now the company tells CNET any new law must allow "us to honor the privacy and security promises we make to our customers" and protect "consumer privacy."

quote:

Financial (Secret) Services

quote:

A conversation with the mysterious Anonymous analysts who are exposing fraud and corruption in Chinese companies -- and taking them down.

quote:

Anonymous Analytics (AA), a mysterious group claiming to be a faction of the global hacktivist organization Anonymous, just released its second short-selling report, this time about the multi-billion dollar Chinese company Huabao International.

quote:

The company claims it will respond to these "misleading" allegations and has suspended trading in Hong Kong. The first short-selling report AA released in September contributed to the collapse of one of China's biggest vegetable producers, Chaoda Modern Agriculture, then with a market cap of nearly half a billion dollars; trading of the company's stock remains suspended.

quote:

British ISPs will block The Pirate Bay within weeks

High court orders service providers including Sky and Virgin Media to block The Pirate Bay in the UK

Britain's internet providers have been ordered by the high court to block access to the filesharing website The Pirate Bay.

The high court on Monday told five leading internet service providers (ISPs) , including Sky and Virgin Media, to block the site in the UK after ruling that it breaches copyright laws.

The block, starting within weeks, will mean millions of Britons will no longer be able to access one of the biggest and longest-running global filesharing sites.

The high court order provoked criticism from internet advocacy groups, who likened action against illicit filesharing websites to other forms of online censorship.

Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: "Blocking The Pirate Bay is pointless and dangerous.It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for Internet censorship of many kinds, from pornography to extremism.

"Internet censorship is growing in scope and becoming easier. Yet it never has the effect desired. It simply turns criminals into heroes."

The order to block The Pirate Bay – requested by the major music groups, represented by the British Phonographic Industry – comes as authorities and courts have tightened the net on illicit downloading sites, which film studios and music majors claim are responsible for billions of pounds in lost revenue.

Robert Ashcroft, chief executive of the musicians' lobbying group PRS for Music, said: "We're delighted the high court has sent another clear signal to damaging sites like the Pirate Bay that they will be blocked."

In the order, the judge Mr Justice Arnold told Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, O2 and Everything Everywhere to begin blocking access to The Pirate Bay.

Britain's biggest ISP, BT, also received the court order but has requested further time to consider how to block the site.

According to record labels, The Pirate Bay generated up to $3m (£1.8m) from advertising last October by making 4m copies of music and films available to its 30 million users worldwide. The site has 3.7 million users in the UK, according to comScore.

Mr Justice Arnold said in a written judgment in February: "In my judgment, the operators of [The Pirate Bay] do authorise its users' infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting.

"I conclude that both users and the operators of [The Pirate Bay] infringe the copyrights of the claimants … in the UK."

The high court action follows a blocking order made against the Newzbin2 website in October, after a judge found it infringed copyright on a grand scale.

The case was seen as a green light for rights holders to force ISPs to block access to a number of high-profile filesharing sites in the UK, using the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

quote:

I Have No Words


Greetings, Anonymous

We are Anonymous.

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK.
I leave you guys for couple of months to lay low and THIS is what I come back to?

Yeah, anons get arrested, anybody with half a brain saw that coming.

So, instead of getting FUCKING PISSED OFF like you SHOULD, like you DID when it was Topiary, like you DID when it was PFC Manning, like you DID with Julian Assange, you decide to take it out on each other?

You are better than that.

I'm honestly at a loss for words. And for those of you that know me, that's FUCKING RARE.

I don't know what to tell you to make things right. I don't know what to say to YANK YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR COLLECTIVE ASSES.

I can tell you this though: while you've been fighting with each other, d0xing each other, creating senseless drama...

Those of us on the outside of the information loop see you as a fucking JOKE.

Wanna know how many times you've made headlines since the Sabu incident? NEVER. Seriously, where before for a good 5 months straight I saw an #Anonymous headline at least once a fucking week, now I get to hear all about Mitten Romney's dogs. The closest you came was with the "Lulzsec Rebirth" -AND EVEN THAT WAS OVERSHADOWED BY THE SABU STORY, A WEEK LATER.

AND THAT'S WHAT YOU'VE REDUCED YOURSELVES TO.

I'd tell you to be ashamed. But you'd just blow me off. I'd tell you to man up and get some shit done - but then you would only turn your magnifying glass at me. I'd tell you you were better than this - but your ego needs no inflation. Not today.

So this is all I'm going to say: YOU ARE LOSING SUPPORTERS. YOU ARE LOSING ANONS. And what does that mean for #Anonymous? That you're FUCKING LOSING. THAT THE FEDS FUCKING BEAT YOU.

If you're ok with that, so be it. If you are ok with needledick feds raping your collective asshole and turning you into it's bitch, congratulations. You've done what the feds could NEVER have achieved on their own, with their single-minded fanaticism.

Because that's what happened. This is what they wanted. YOU JUST HANDED THEM VICTORY ON A SILVER PLATTER.

I...I just don't know what to say. d0xing each other? For what? Cuz you think they're feds? WE'VE HAD FEDS WATCHING US LIKE HAWKS FOR NEARLY A DECADE. THIS IS NOTHING NEW.

But instead of doing what we normally do, ignoring the shit out of these dickless assholes, you've taken it upon yourself to start a fucking civil war with each other. You are d0xing each other, you are griefing each other, YOU ARE DOING THE FEDS JOB FOR THEM.

And you are all guilty of this. Those of you who have tried to keep the peace - have failed. Those of you who have tried to keep us alive and in the streets, you have failed, THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE THE 1337 HAXX0R SK1LLZ ARE ATTACKING YOUR COMRADES.

And the last group is the most suspect. Because we look up to you. We admire you. You are the change, the revolution that we #Anonymous and they, the people, need so much. And you betrayed us.

I won't name names. Because you know who you are. I won't call any of you out. You know who you are. I'd say COME AT ME BRO, but you were already thinking about it. I may have an astounding ego, but I know I'm not immune. Maybe there's nothing I can say to deviate you from such a blind path to self-destruction.

I wish I could.

I've been doing psyops since before you knew what that meant. For those of you that know me - this may surprise you.

TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO SAY. TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO TO TRY TO SALVAGE WHAT IS LEFT OF OUR LITTLE 'REVOLUTION'. TELL ME HOW I CAN GET MY FAMILY TO STOP HURTING EACH OTHER.

Because...I am at a loss.

What's left to say? I'm shocked, horrified, disappointed in the people I love most. The feds were always going to be our enemy and we knew it, but they never could have BETRAYED US. As you have.

Whatever happened to Legion? Whatever happened to family? Did you NEVER care?

Because I did. And so did countless other anons. And do you know who else cared?

The people.

You know, the same people who are out there living, breathing, and dying under the weight of an oppressive regime, the people attacked by police in the streets, the people who with their LAST DYING BREATH told you that what they needed was...you?

You betrayed them. You betrayed us all. I pity those who ever looked up to us as their heroes, their saviors, because in one blindingly stupid moment, you've shown your weakness.

And they may not see it now, but soon they will. They are already wondering what happened to you. They are already wondering why their heroes have stopped making headlines. They are already wondering "Where have all the anons gone?"

But I know. And I wish I didn't.

There is nothing more to say. My level of disappointment in you will likely mean nothing to you. But maybe, just maybe, when the people suffer, when the people are jailed and forced into servitude to feed the corporate machine, when the people lose their voice and in one heavy sigh decide to give up and just let the NWO take over...

Maybe you will hear that. I can only hope you do.

You d0xed kitteh. You ate Santa's cookies. YOU KILLED NYANCAT.

Think about that for a bit.

-Anontastic

quote:

Mozilla Slams CISPA, Breaking Silicon Valley's Silence On Cybersecurity Bill

quote:

While the Internet has been bristling with anger over the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the Internet industry has been either silent or quietly supportive of the controversial bill. With one exception.

quote:

How Call of Duty Is Making Anonymous "the Enemy"

quote:

Blink and you'll miss it. The Guy Fawkes mask flashes on the screen only for a brief instant, but it's there. Twice.

The iconic mug first entered pop culture in the graphic novel V for Vendetta, but has since been re-appropriated by internet collective Anonymous as well as Occupy Wall Street protesters.

That iconic mask, however, is now shorthand for hacker—and the enemy.

Anonymous has gained attention in the past few years for its protests and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against big business and Scientology. For many, the group has tinges of political activism, using their computer skills and savvy for "good".

The way that Anonymous stands for causes seems to impressed V for Vendetta's creators. After the mask appeared at last year's Occupy Wall Street protest, V for Vendetta's writer Alan Moore said, "When you've got a sea of V masks, I suppose it makes the protesters appear to be almost a single organism—this "99%" we hear so much about. That in itself is formidable. I can see why the protesters have taken to it."

The irony of ironies is that the rights to the mask are actually owned by Warner Bros. So for every mask legally sold, Warner Bros. gets a kickback.

However, the mask is being recast in a different light in Call of Duty: Black Ops II's promotional campaign. A series of documentary style clips tackle different elements of technology and warfare; in two of them, the Guy Fawkes mask appears on screen.

In a clip titled "Synopsis", Oliver North talks about his nightmare scenario, and when he says, "The enemy could be anywhere, and it could be anyone," an individual wearing a Guy Fawkes appears on screen. I don't worry about the guy who wants to hijack a plane," North continues. "I worry about the guy who wants to hijack all the planes."

In another clip, titled "When the Enemy Steals the Keys," the Guy Fawkes mask pops up again. The footage is slightly different—it's tighter, more of a close-up.

"You know, if there are guys out there who are smart enough to hack into our banks and people's personal information, then certainly, eventually, there's gonna be someone who's smart enough to hack into our aircraft," drone pilot Major Hercules Christopher says in the clip. "If you can hack a bank, you can hack a drone."

The moment the pilot says "gonna be someone who's smart enough", the Guy Fawkes mask once again appears on screen, seeming to insinuate indirectly that Anonymous members are going to be smart enough to hack drones—or even want to. And once again, the Guy Fawkes mask is cast as the enemy.

With in the past few years, the Guy Fawkes mask has become inseparable from Anonymous, and, in turn, from hackers. Not all hackers are good. Not all are bad. And for a group like Anonymous, free flowing and ill defined, it's difficult to pin down who is a member and who isn't. Anonymous is more of a concept than a card-carrying group per se.

Yet, that group—that idea—is now being dragged through the mud via comments directly and indirectly aimed at the Guy Fawkes mask. Those who wear the mask are the enemy. Those who wear the mask are hackers.

Oliver North is right: the enemy could be anyone. It could be me. It could be you. It could even be the folks on TV, trying to sell you a video game.

quote:

Commander X To Donate Book Royalties To Anonymous

quote:

Behind The Mask: An Inside Look At Anonymous – http://www.Behind-The-Mask.tk

Commander X has instructed his attorney and business agents that the funds are to be distributed in the following manner.

As already committed to in a prior press release, 10% of the royalties are to be given to Anonymous Nigeria for the purpose of setting up, maintaining and equipping free and open “Hacker Spaces” in the major Nigerian cities. These funds will be distributed by the Peoples Liberation Front and the Naija Cyber Hactivists, and these spaces will be maintained and managed by Anonymous Nigeria.

10% of the royalties will be given to Anonymous Paraguay, they will be distributed to them by the staff of the PLF. These funds will be used to purchase desperately needed equipment such as laptop computers and smart
phones.

And finally, 80% of all the royalties earned by “Behind The Mask: An Inside Look At Anonymous” will go directly to the organization called FreeAnons (http://www.FreeAnons.org) to be used by them to pay the legal expenses
related to those accused Anons that stand under indictment in the USA and elswhere. These funds will have no strings attached, and FreeAnons will be at liberty to disperse them as they see fit.

“Behind The Mask: An Inside Look At Anonymous” is currently due to be released in July 2012.

SIGNED — The Staff of the Peoples Liberation Front

http://www.PeoplesLiberationFront.net

http://www.CommanderX.tk

http://www.Behind-The-Mask.tk