Anonops #12: Spy on the Spyers

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Will the internet kill copyright? Here’s hoping …

IDEAS AND OWNERSHIP: The concept of protecting ideas and innovation by legal means dates back to antiquity. But many of our existing laws are under strain, their suitability and ultimate purpose called into question.

Here, Philip Soos considers the faults that plague existing copyright laws and suggests that, in an increasingly online world, we need to find more realistic options.

In the past few months, there’s been substantial media interest in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill in the US, introduced ostensibly as an attempt to crack down on intellectual property rights (IPR) violations.

If adopted, this bill would give the US government even more power to deal with those found infringing IPRs than currently exists under the existing legislation – the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

SOPA has spawned a great deal of debate over the merits and demerits of further expanding protection for IPRs. Some claim SOPA would help protect jobs and profit – hence innovation; while many argue SOPA would impinge upon citizens’ right to privacy.

Opposition to SOPA prompted many websites, including Wikipedia, to close down temporarily in protest.

But this debate leaves much to be desired. It consists of arguing IPR protection should be strengthened, weakened or left alone. Few, if any, are critical of the reigning assumption that IPR is a necessary intervention in the economy.

The question that needs to be asked is: why is a 16th century medieval government monopoly being used to spur innovation and creative art in the technologically-advanced 21st century?

The usual story trotted out is that markets will produce a less than optimal level of research and development and creative works without some form of government intervention. We are told that without such intervention, many of the technologies and modes of entertainment we enjoy today would simply not exist.

Thus the need for copyrights to provide the stimulus for firms to invest to meet consumer wants and needs.

The state-driven tech revolution of the late 1990s has seen an explosion of IPR-protected content being shared over the internet. Evolving technology (such as peer-to-peer networking) has made it easy for almost anyone with a decent internet connection to continuously download and upload files, whether that’s video games, music, books, magazines, comics, TV episodes, films, documentaries, or programs.

Anything that can be converted into electronic data and stored on a computer can be shared. It has been estimated that the sharing of content through the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol accounts for one-third of internet traffic today.

Given authorities across the world have often had to catch up to the evolving uses of the internet via legislation, it is difficult for individuals and firms to simultaneously enforce their state-granted rights in many countries, all with differing laws in regards to IPRs.

(That said, the World Trade Organization has attempted to standardise international and national law through its Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).)

Industry and governments have certainly tried hard in this respect. Every iteration of copyright protection law appears to be more draconian than the last. It is unsurprising that the US is in the lead of protecting IPR, as its industries are the largest and often most profitable (as in the case of pharmaceuticals and biotech).

The TRIPS and DMCA legislation have clearly done little to prevent file sharing, which appears to be ever-increasing in magnitude. Draconian laws have done little to deter users from violating copyrights and other forms of IPRs.

Online content is really no different to drugs that are currently illegal: people who want them will always get them, with entrepreneurs and cartels operating within the black market to meet demand. The sane course of action is to carefully legalise and regulate the supply of drugs/ content, not impose wildly invasive, expensive and equally ineffective government intervention against producers and consumers.

Ever more draconian legislation has not and will not prevent people from file-sharing and violating IPRs. Industry will claim IPRs, as private property, must be respected. But to claim IPR, as information, should be covered by private property rights is as nonsensical as if the government were to assign a property right to an autoworker’s job, allowing the employee the right to hold it or sell to another.

Ownership under copyright is twisted to the point where consumers do not own the software they purchase; rather, they are merely extended a license to use the software that the company owns.

The problems with copyright (and other forms of IPRs) are extensive. The most obvious flaw is the monopolistic pricing inherent to this form of intervention. Any introductory economic textbook tells us the efficiency is met when outputs are produced and sold at marginal cost – what it costs to produce the next good or service.

In the information age, electronic data or informational goods can be copied for free. Accordingly, this is what goods should be priced at: zero, instead of monopoly pricing.

Ironically, pirates are acting as conventional economists claim people should – that is, they are rational agents seeking to maximise their utility (happiness) by obtaining copies of informational goods at marginal cost.

Other costs include those associated with the court system and patents offices, which have effectively become a joke. People and firms are endlessly suing each other over potential and real copyright infringements, with these legal expenses essentially acting as a tax on innovation that is passed on to consumers.

Bureaucrats at the patent office are under a difficult burden to ensure that software patents are truly innovative and do not violate previously-granted patents.

Under SOPA, citizens’ online activities would be watched and recorded in ever-greater detail, in a futile attempt to crack down on piracy. What industry is calling for is an ever-stronger police state to ensure legislative compliance, despite what the evidence may say about the loss of sales pertaining to piracy.

It should be obvious by now that a new form of funding research, development and creative works needs to be implemented. The cornerstone of any new system should ensure goods are sold at the cost of production: either free on the internet or a few dollars for the physical product. Creative Commons and free software licenses should become the new mode.

The extremes of wealth also need to be avoided: there is no natural law that says Bill Gates should become a billionaire via government monopoly while many creative artists just scrape by.

It is imperative that the wastes and inefficiencies of the IPR system be eliminated and not reproduced under alternative systems.

It is time for some creative thinking on the part of the public (industry isn’t going to help) to design alternate models of financing. Otherwise, the nanny state that operates on behalf of the rich is going to become ever more authoritarian.

This is part five of Ideas and Ownership. To read the other instalments, click on the links below:

. Part One: IP, patents, copyright, you
. Part Two: Do patents promote innovation?
. Part Three: The art of war: know your enemys patents, and your own
. Part Four: Evergreening patents: playing monopoly with solar fuels and medicine innovations

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Well, my concern would be then stealing our credit card data from
customers somehow. If that happens, it would bury us. Not a lot of people
look at our website in hits.

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Anonymous Campaign to Feed the Homeless

One of the most significant activist groups of the 21st century looks to provide food for those living on the streets.

There is no doubt about the pulling power of Anonymous, as a force to mobilise people around the world.

It was this idea made cyber-reality which initially came up with the hash-tag #OccupyWallStreet. Other groups were involved; but it was the behemoth of the Anonymous publicity machine, which named the entire Occupy Movement.

The denizens of Reddit might have been the ones to think of an internet strike against SOPA and PIPA. It was arguably the support of Anonymous, which made that initiative huge. At least members of the Polish government judged that to be the case, when they donned Guy Fawkes masks in the aftermath.

These are just two examples from a whole back catalogue of social issue activism. So what will happen now the collective takes up the cause of the starving homeless?

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 15:33 schreef YazooW het volgende:

[..]

owned

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Hector Xavier Monsegur

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mikko twitterde op dinsdag 06-03-2012 om 15:18:44 Big news about LulzSec and @anonymouSabu: "Infamous international hacking group LulzSec brought down by own leader" http://t.co/LdfVv7jN reageer retweet

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Alleged LulzSec Hackers Arrested as Leader Turns Snitch

Lulz Security, a hacking group that stole data from law enforcement, defaced the websites of major publications and published troves of user names and passwords from online services, has suffered a critical blow at the hands of law enforcement.

Agents across two continents arrested two of LulzSec‘s alleged top hackers on Tuesday morning, along with a member of the larger hacking collective Anonymous. Law enforcement also slapped new charges on two LulzSec members who were already behind bars, Fox News reports.

(MORE: ‘We Do It for the Lulz’: What Makes LulzSec Tick?)

In a story that sounds like movie fodder, LulzSec’s informal leader reportedly turned against his former hacking buddies, secretly helping the FBI in the months leading up to the arrests.

The group’s alleged leader is Hector Xavier Monsegur, an unemployed, 28-year-old father of two who used the alias “Sabu.” The FBI reportedly arrested him last June, and he pleaded guilty in August to a dozen hacking-related charges. Monsegur then started working with the FBI to bring down the rest of LulzSec’s top-ranking hackers.

The details on the arrests aren’t official yet, but Fox News has apparently spoken with FBI agents for its story. “This is devastating to the organization,” one FBI official involved with the investigation said. “We’re chopping off the head of LulzSec.”

More details should become available later today, when court documents including Monsegur’s admissions are expected to be unsealed in New York’s Southern District Court. A conspiracy indictment will reportedly name the five LulzSec members facing charges: Ryan Ackroyd, aka “Kayla” and Jake Davis, aka “Topiary,” of London; Darren Martyn, aka “pwnsauce” and Donncha O’Cearrbhail, aka “palladium,” of Ireland; and Jeremy Hammond, aka “Anarchaos,” of Chicago.

Fox News’ law enforcement sources described Hammond as a member of Anonymous who is being charged in a separate indictment. He is allegedly the main person behind Anonymous’ hacking of security think tank Stratfor in December.

LulzSec began making a name for itself last May, with attacks on Fox.com and PBS.com. The group then hacked Sony Pictures’ servers and made off with user names, passwords, addresses and dates of birth. Other high-profile hacks included a breach against Arizona law enforcement and a big takedown of popular gaming services such as Eve Online and Minecraft.

However, the group announced last June that it was disbanding, facing pressure from law enforcement and other hackers. At the time, little did we know that LulzSec’s alleged leader had been arrested. For the rest of the group, it was already too late.

Read more: http://techland.time.com/(...)nitch/#ixzz1oLtfnmcF

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BarrettBrownLOL twitterde op dinsdag 06-03-2012 om 16:51:30 My apartment was raided this morning by the FBI. Feds also came to another residence where I actually was. Sabu is a traitor. #Anonymous reageer retweet

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Anon_Central twitterde op dinsdag 06-03-2012 om 16:55:28 @BarrettBrownLOL why aren't you in jail? reageer retweet

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BarrettBrownLOL twitterde op dinsdag 06-03-2012 om 16:59:38 @Anon_Central Because they didn't arrest me. They wanted laptops. reageer retweet

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Lulzsec mastermind Sabu: an elite hacker and star FBI informant

US authorities say Hector Xavier Monsegur, a celebrity for his attacks on the US senate, was 'flipped' after his arrest

He was the self-taught "elite hacker" behind devastating attacks on the US Senate, the Zimbabwean government and a string of enemies in between.

From the New York apartment block he shared with his two children, 28-year-old Hector Xavier Monsegur led an audacious double life as the internet activist "Sabu" – something of a celebrity in the world of hackers.

But Monsegur was finally unmasked on Tuesday after it emerged that he had pleaded guilty to computer hacking charges and had acted as an informant for the FBI since August 2011, just as the international crackdown on the notorious Anonymous hacker collective gathered pace.

Monsegur was deeply involved in attacks on behalf of WikiLeaks in December 2010, according to court papers unsealed in New York on Tuesday.

The hacker acted as a "rooter", identifying weak spots in the websites of multinational firms including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal which his Anonymous group of "hacktivists" would then attempt to exploit.

The 27-page indictment of Monsegur reads like a hall of fame of online sabotage. According to the FBI, Sabu was intimately involved in the WikiLeaks "Operation Payback" attacks that managed to steal documents from the Yemen and Zimbabwe governments and deface the website of the Tunisian prime minister.

Sabu was always quick to claim responsibility for the attacks, aiming to taunt law enforcement bodies and gain respect from his peers. And although rumours of his identity began to circulate in the hacker community, his precise details remained unknown.

On 7 June last year, the act was over. FBI officials found Monsegur at his Manhattan apartment. According to the US media, the expert hacker had been foiled by his own carelessness. The FBI discovered that he had logged into an internet chatroom from his own internet address – a schoolboy error of computer hacking.

Unknown to his fellow hackers, Monsegur quietly pleaded guilty to 12 charges related to computer interception on 15 August last year. And, threatened with 124 years in prison, he agreed to become an FBI informant. The FBI took his own battered laptop and replaced it with their own – which they monitored around the clock.

Online, he maintained his bravura attitude. "Next thing you'll say is I work for the CIA and I'm a blackop," he snapped at a Guardian inquiry on Twitter after the Sun's website was hacked in July.

"Am I snitch/informant? Lets be real – I don't know any identities of anyone in my crew," said an online post attributed to Monsegur in October last year – weeks after he was "flipped" by US authorities. "And the last thing I'd ever do is take down my own people. I am a grown ass man I can handle my own issues. I've been to jail before – I don't fear it. In fact there is very little I am afraid of especially these days."

The post was a response to other hackers who were increasingly accusing Sabu of being a "media whore" and an informant. The rumours were rife – little more than 14 hours after he avoided imprisonment by assisting the US government, one group claimed Sabu was a "Chinese infiltrator".

"Lately I've been chilling; enjoying time off to focus on my personal life. I'm not tied to this the rest of my life," said the post linked to Sabu's Twitter account. "I've already made my impact. If I disappear now or get knocked, its already too late … Sadly people want to exonerate themselves from their responsibility – like emailing the feds for immunity."

Monsegur described himself in the post as a professional security researcher, but the computer genius had been unemployed since the closure of filesharing giant LimeWire, according to US authorities who spoke to Fox News.

The broadcaster cited Monsegur's handlers, who described him as an anti-government, anti-capitalist hacker who had a political edge. They said his now-infamous online moniker had been taken from a professional wrestler born on nearby Staten Island, known as Sabu the Elephant Boy.

The hacker clearly drew inspiration from the New York fighter. He routinely responded aggressively to police, journalists and others on social networking websites. "I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks, I also don't give a fuck if you have a beef with me," said a post attributed to him on the Pastebin website. "The end result is always going to be: You. Can. Not. Stop. Me. Deal with it."

The FBI handlers described Monsegur as brilliant but lazy. According to Fox News, US authorities found him selling stolen credit card details to others on Facebook.

It is not clear how lucrative Monsegur's brief reign of terror was. But the downfall of Sabu will continue to send reverberations through online hacker collectives for a long time to come.

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Barrett Brown, who has spoken on behalf of Anonymous in past attacks, including the attack on Stratfor in December, said that his home in Dallas had been raided and that the F.B.I. had sent three agents to his mother’s house, where he stayed last night.

“I received an advance warning of the raid and put all my laptops in very specific places where they couldn’t be found,” Mr. Brown said. He said the agents left without making an arrest.

Mr. Brown said the arrests elsewhere would not slow down the Anonymous movement. “There are lots and lots of people here that continue to work. The F.B.I. did not really cut the head off of anything. Anonymous will go forward as usual. So will I. We hired an army of lawyers last January. We are prepared for a big slug-out.”

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Speaker sides with Toews, rules hacker group Anonymous out of order

With Conservatives targeting a Liberal staffer who posted the sordid details of Vic Toews’s divorce to Twitter, the Speaker of the House has ruled that threatening videos by the hacker group Anonymous violated the Public Safety Minister’s parliamentary privilege.

Andrew Scheer told the Commons Tuesday the Anonymous videos “constitute a direct threat to the minister in particular, as well as all other members” of Parliament.

“These threats demonstrate a flagrant disregard of our traditions and a subversive attack on the most fundamental privileges of this House,” Mr. Scheer said. “As your Speaker and the guardian of those privileges, I have concluded that this aspect – the videos posted on the Internet by Anonymous – therefore constitutes a prima facie question of privilege.”

He invited Mr. Toews to move to have the matter sent to the procedures and House affairs committee. It is unclear how MPs on that committee could call Anonymous to testify, given that its members are, in fact, anonymous.

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Anonymous has threatened repeatedly to divulge more embarrassing aspects of Mr. Toews personal life in retaliation for Bill C-30, which opponents say will allow authorities to spy on Canadian Internet users. On Friday it posted allegations that cannot be proved.

The group has demanded the bill be killed and that Mr. Toews resign. And it has voiced support for Adam Carroll, the Liberal staff member who has admitted being behind the Vikileaks30 Twitter feed that published information contained in the minister’s divorce papers.

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro moved a motion later Tuesday to have Mr. Carroll appear at the Commons ethics committee. It was ruled out of order by Jean Crowder, the NDP MP who chairs committee, who determined the matter was outside the committee's mandate. But the Conservatives, who hold a majority on the committee, challenged her ruling.

New Democrat Charlie Angus said the Conservatives are simply trying to divert attention from their own problems with the allegations that telephone campaigns were used to suppress the vote during the last election. But Mr. Del Mastro argued that committees are the masters of their own destiny and may study whatever they please.

Mr. Angus said if the committee must study Vikileaks, it will have to spend time determining whether the salacious information revealed about Mr. Toews' divorce was true – something he said he would find distasteful.

"They would rather turn the lights on on this ugly divorce in order to turn the attention off the elector fraud that's rocking the Conservative party," he told reporters after the meeting. "The role of a committee in Parliament is to hold government to account. What the Conservatives are doing is they are using their majority to attack their political enemies."

Liberal MP Scott Andrews moved an amendment to Mr. Del Mastro's motion, expanding the scope of the committee's study to cover all use of Commons resources participation in social networking sites. The committee adjourned before the amendment could be put to a vote.

Mr. Andrews said his party has made it clear that it has no interest in examining the details of a politician's personal life. But "maybe we'll have to look at every tweet," said Mr. Andrews.

The Public Safety Minister had also asked the Speaker to find that the Vikileaks tweets had violated his parliamentary privilege.

But in his ruling, Mr. Scheer pointed out that Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae had already offered his “unequivocal apology” and that of the Liberal Party. As a result, he said, although Mr. Carroll’s actions constituted and unacceptable use of House of Commons resources, “I am prepared to consider this particular aspect of the question of privilege closed.”

Mr. Toews also said his office had been inundated with calls, emails and faxes that made it difficult to do his job. The Speaker ruled the minister and his staff could still communicate with constituents through other means. So he determined that he could find no breach of privilege in that regard.

But, as to the actions of Anonymous, Mr. Scheer said he found the videos troubling and the threats disturbing,

“Those who enter political life fully expect to be held accountable for their actions – to their constituents, and to those who are concerned with the issues and initiatives they may advocate,” he said. “However, when duly-elected members are personally threatened for their work in parliament – whether introducing a bill, making a statement, or casting a vote, this House must take the matter very seriously.”

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The LulzSec hacking arrests won't make it safer online

The FBI's infiltration of LulzSec is astonishing – but the group's activities are small fry in comparison to professional cyberwar

For you, LulzSec, the war is over. Maybe. In an astonishing series of revelations, the FBI on Tuesday issued charges against four individuals alleged to be principal members of the hacking collective, and another alleged to be a member of its sister group, Anonymous.

But more staggering still was how the evidence against these individuals was gathered. The LulzSec member known as Sabu, revealed to be an unemployed 28-year-old New Yorker named Hector Xavier Monsegur, had been caught by the FBI in June 2011, and by August had pleaded guilty to hacking offences with a maximum sentence of 124 years and six months.

Ever since, he had worked to provide evidence against his suspected former cohorts.

According the FBI charge sheet, the degree of Sabu's co-operation with the FBI is extraordinary. Through him, the authorities apparently had the inside track on a series of audacious hacks, including the recording of an FBI conference call and the lifting of 5m emails from a US intelligence publisher, Stratfor.

Indictments show Sabu encouraging other online aliases during attacks, and suggesting thousands of passwords publicly. On Twitter, Sabu's account continued to threaten the "Feds" and post encouragingly on new attacks.

Through Sabu, the FBI were aware of the attack on Stratfor's servers even as it was ongoing – and seemingly did not inform the company. An FBI storage server was even offered to Anonymous on which to store the hacked documents.

Many will feel unease at the FBI's nine-month penetration of LulzSec and – at the very least – parts of Anonymous. Concerns about incitement and entrapment will be raised.

Companies subject to some of the attacks by the groups may also feel aggrieved: could the authorities have stopped some of them if they'd wanted to? It seems they could.

But to focus solely on these concerns misses a wider series of problems in clamping down on hackers, and maintaining law and order, online.

It is important to note that Monsegur aside, the other individuals named in the US charge sheets are innocent unless proven guilty.

But whoever carried out the assorted hacking attacks, the nature of these groups and their motivations are known: their membership is generally young, often in the late teens, and attacks are often politically motivated. The ethos isn't fixed, but there are some creeds: anti-corporate, anti-censorship, libertarian and definitely anti-surveillance.

The damaging consequences of Anonymous and LulzSec hacks shouldn't be understated, but motivations were rarely financial: where credit cards were taken, for example in the Stratfor hack, they were used more for charitable donations or purchasing servers for Anonymous use than for financial gain.

If the theme of a young, anti-corporate group engaging in civil disobediance seems familiar, it should. The Occupy movement and Anonymous are strikingly alike in both their organisation, their tactics and their goals.

But while most Occupiers who are arrested – and even these are a minority – face relatively mild sanctions (typically non-custodial), a single count of a hacking offence in the UK or US can carry a 10-year prison sentence.

In the online realm, a single knowledgeable hacker engaging in civil disobedience can cause more trouble than a single protester. At present, this is often dealt with simply by punishing them more harshly, using laws intended to hit those engaged in industrial-scale theft or espionage.

But legal inconsistency spell trouble, too. In Germany, participating in an attack aimed at temporarily taking a website offline (known as a denial of service attack) are recognised as the online equivalent of a sit-in protest, and may not qualify as criminal offences. Elsewhere, it can lead to imprisonment.

Protesters moving online may find the laws dramatically harsher than their offline equivalents: a gradual criminalisation of dissent.

There is a wider concern. No one's computer is safer in any meaningful way as a result of the FBI's actions. Anonymous may be the most famous hacking group in the world – and may yet bounce back even from these latest developments – but even at its peak it was far from the most dangerous.

Breaking into systems and defacing sites, boasting publicly about what you've done will certainly get you noticed – but that's not what the biggest players do.

Professional hacking is big business, often operating from Russia, Africa and South America where enforcement is lax.

Breaking into systems to glean credit card details on a huge scale is a major operation – and the last thing these guys would do is inform an individual or business that they've compromised their system. The longer you can stay inside and steal information unnoticed, the better.

And then there are the growing numbers of government-sanctioned hackers used to engage in cyberwar. Accusations fly against China, Israel and the US and many others – but for obvious reasons, individuals are never brought to justice.

That the most high-profile hacking arrests of recent times comes from a group dedicated to online civil disobedience signals nothing good: at best – and it's a disturbing best – it means that these are the only suspected hackers the authorities are able to catch.

At worst, it means Anonymous are the only hackers they're chasing.

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AnonymousPress twitterde op dinsdag 06-03-2012 om 19:00:18 This will NOT deter #Anonymous in anyway shape or form... #ExpectUs reageer retweet

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LulzSec Cyber Activists Arrested With Help of Hacking Group’s Former Leader — Is Assange Next?

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Apparently, Monsegur was caught last summer and — according to the FBI — has been working as an informant ever since. He allegedly directed fellow hackers from his public housing project in New York while turning around and feeding federal investigators enough incriminating evidence to build a case against his cyber-comrades. According to The Guardian, Monsegur may have also provided an FBI-owned computer to facilitate the release of five million emails taken from the private intelligence firm Stratfor and which are now being published by WikiLeaks. This suggests the FBI has insight into the internal discussions between Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and the hacking group Anonymous. Although no motives have been confirmed, some believe this is part of a larger strategy to build a case against Julian Assange. An internal email from Stratfor recently revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice has already obtained a sealed indictment against Assange. We’re joined by Gregg Housh, a former Anonymous cyber-activist who remains is in touch with members; and Gabriella Coleman, a leading authority on digital media, hackers and the law. [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Anonymous Hacks Vatican Website In Cyber Attack On Holy See, Sources Say

A group of Italian hackers who claim to be members of the loose-knit international gang of cyber criminals known as "Anonymous" took down the Vatican's website for a number of hours Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reports.

A statement posted on a website claiming to be the official homepage of the Italian branch of Anonymous said the takedown was orchestrated in protest of a number of alleged abuses by the Catholic Church including past execution of heretics, the selling of indulgences, and the recent child abuse scandals involving priests.

"Today, Anonymous has decided to put your site under siege in response to your doctrine, liturgy and the absurd and anachronistic rules that your profit-making organisation spreads around the world," the hackers wrote in the statement, according to Reuters. "This attack is not against the Christian religion or the faithful around the world but against the corrupt Roman Apostolic Church."

Just yesterday, five hackers in Britain, Ireland and the United States believed to members of the group LulzSec were charged in a series of cyber attacks after one member of the group turned out to be an FBI informant, according to the Agence France-Presse.

The crackdown followed a long line of hacking incidents attributed to Anonymous including attacks on Sony Pictures Entertainment, the government website of several African nations and Nintendo.

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Op woensdag 7 maart 2012 20:23 schreef roepdeman het volgende:
Dank je wel voor je antwoord. Berichten zoals deze doen me dus denken dat Sabu al voor zijn arrestatie niet 100% voor het gemeenschappelijke doel bezig was, maar meer met zichzelf en zijn groep.

De reden waarom ik naar de status van Th3 J35t3r vraag is, omdat hij kennelijk al langer wist hoe de vork in de steel zat. Natuurlijk zullen de allerbesten zich nooit zo publiekelijk uiten zoals Sabu dat deed, maar ik vraag me toch af hoe goed die anderen zijn, als niemand anders Sabu 'outte'.

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Barett Brown: On the FBI Raid

As I have noted, the FBI raided my apartment in Dallas on the morning of March 6th. I was not there at the time; I had been given a vague warning that a raid was to take place the next day, so I went to my mom's place, where she lives with her husband, who is out of town, on the 5th. On the morning of the 6th, three FBI agents came to my mom's door and asked if I was there. She woke me up and I went down to talk to them. They told me that they'd executed a search warrant at my apartment and that the door had been broken in the process, and then asked me if I had any laptops with me here at my mom's place that I wanted to give them. I responded in the negative, and they left. At that point I began taking calls and e-mails from the press regarding Sabu, whom I learned was in fact a degenerate pussy traitor who couldn't face two fucking years in prison, making him the biggest pussy in the history of mankind. There were several people who came to this conclusion early on; I was not wise enough to be one of them. As to the various stunts he pulled in the months since his arrest - including but not limited to the unnecessary release of credit card information for Stratfor customers - we may never know to what extent such things were encouraged by his "Justice Department" handlers in an effort to discredit this movement. But I digress, lol. At any rate, the Feds came back a couple of hours later with a search warrant for my mom's place - they fully intended to take a certain laptop, and did.

The documentation left with me by the FBI after the raid on my mother's home states that the evidence they were looking for pertains to "conspiracy to obstruct justice, and the obstruction of justice, i.e. tampering with a victim, witness, or informant" and "conspiracy to access without authorization protected computers, and fraud and related activity in connection with computers (aiding and abetting), in whatever form, namely:

1. Records relating to HBGary;
2. Records relating to Infragard;
3. Records relating to Endgame Systems;
4. Records relating to Anonymous;
5. Records relating to Lulzsec;
6. Records relating to IRC chat;
7. Records relating to Twitter;
8. Records relating to wiki.echelon2.org;
9. Records relating to pastebin.com;"

... and then goes on to list computers and anything relating to them as things to be seized.

I am happy to post this list as it contains the names of two firms - HBGary and Endgame Systems - which I will now have particular opportunity to discuss, in a more public setting, as this matter proceeds.

Barrett Brown
Project PM

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Anonymous has grown beyond LulzSec and Sabu

As reported by Fox News yesterday, LulzSec “mastermind” and Anonymous hacker Sabu (real name: Hector Xavier Monsegur) was flipped by the FBI. Big surprise. Give the FBI a cookie.

There has been a widespread belief that Sabu was a rat for quite some time within the hacking community—an August 2011 chat between Sabu and Virus, for instance. [link] Virus quite prophetically wrote in that infamous chat: “I’m absolutely positive, you already got raided, and are setting your friends up and when they’re done draining you for information and arrests they’ll sentence you and it’ll make nose.”

Beyond that, in a community wherein anyone can have a voice, it stands to reason that subversive government influences are present, whether passively watching or actively suggesting. Disinformation, false flag operations, and immunity: these are the human intelligence gathering techniques that spy agencies use to infiltrate movements.

With that in mind, one of two possibilities exist: The FBI has transformed Anonymous into one monolithic false-flag operation, or agents take down hackers the way they take down other targets—with one or multiple informants. Judging the FBI’s efforts purely on the frequency of Anonymous’ activities throughout the last year, it’s probably safe to say that the FBI hasn’t accomplished the former.

If this conclusion is wildly off-base, and the former is true, then one has to entertain the following possibilities: the Stratfor hack was socially engineered by the FBI; Stratfor maybe even allowed it; and the FBI manipulated Anonymous into a partnership with WikiLeaks in the publication of the Global Intelligence Files. Then, of course, one must wonder if WikiLeaks itself is not a false-flag operation. This scenario seems rather unlikely, especially in a world where those who attempt to regulate the Internet are always one step behind.

Where then does this leave Anonymous and its supporters?

Again, judging from Anonymous’ efforts in the last year, which included a hybridization with Occupy Wall Street, the Stratfor hack, a partnership with WikiLeaks, an infiltration of the FBI and Scotland Yard’s conference call on Anonymous, Operation ANTI-ACTA (which struck the Polish government), and the CIAPC hack (following Elisa’s blockade of The Pirate Bay), amongst other projects; it would seem that Anonymous, as a global collective, has grown far beyond LulzSec and Sabu’s influence—that it has indeed shed Sabu’s influence.

Anonymous’ efforts are truly global now and ever-shifting. Unless people believe that stool pigeon Sabu’s opera singing is evidence of some international, multi-state false flag conspiracy to nab radical hackers, Anonymous likely won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

Here’s a suggestion to the FBI: Maybe you should spend a little less time pursuing Anonymous and put more effort into bringing to justice the white-collar criminals who crashed the economy in 2008, thereby pocketing billions and evaporating middle class savings, delaying retirement, and sending families into the grip of poverty; driving individuals to suicide, or illegal and prescription drug use to numb the pain; to theft, alcoholism, and welfare that the GOP hates so much; and saddling college graduates with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from which they won’t soon liberate themselves.

Yes, one can see how a DDoS attack launched against Sony Pictures would be a priority. The FBI does work for politicians after all, who are kept in office by the campaign donations of corporations.

Indeed, the FBI, like Sabu himself, knows the following maxim all too well: you’re always somebody’s bitch.

quote:

Even Topiary Didn’t Know What He Was Getting Into

quote:

‘Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.’

So folks continue to ask me why I am ‘after’ anon/lulzsec….

Well I’d like to address this.

I am not particularly ‘after’ anon (that’s not denying that we have had our run-ins), everyone knows their roots and anyone who can google knows mine.

However… Lulzsec, hmmm different beast. Lulzsec are threatening, and inciting and RECRUITING.

While Anonymous claim to be ‘leaderless’, Lulzsec is obviously not. And Anonymous in their desperation for the world to see them as anything other than what they really are… have allowed themselves to have a ‘leader’.

That ‘leader’ is known as ANONYMOUSABU

‘Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.’

Anonymous and Lulzsec seem to have forgotten this, this will be (is) their downfall.

They dumped amongst other things:

* Names of undercover operators in the field, exposing not only them, but their families.

In the name of #AntiSec??

* At least 62k INNOCENT USERS creds.

In the name of #AntiSec??

Really??

Last week there was a story circulating regarding ‘KGB’ infiltration of Anonymous?? (lol)

Here’s the link….

Well ladies….

That’s the least of your worries. You see you have allowed yourselves to start on a rocky road. It ends with all you folks becoming domestic/otherwise terrorists.

Wouldn’t it be great for the REALLY bad guys to infiltrate a group of willing pawns like ‘Anonymous’.

ANONYMOUSABU created Lulzsec by offering Anon’s ‘best hackers’ — who were merrily attacking oppresive regimes before he came along– a good time.

Then after sucking them in with candy, he switched their focus to attacking Western regimes, and more specifically military targets. It seems that these were his intentions all along.

It’s quite strange that someone who supports democratically elected governments (Hamas) would attack them and tell people to rise up against them, while at the same time try to draw hackers away from attacking non-democratic and anti-democratic regimes as ANONYMOUSABU has done.

Coincidence much? – That since ANONYMOUSABU the focus has shifted from primarily things like #opLibya #opEgypt to a host of western military, law enforcement agencies and commercial targets?

Next ANONYMOUSABU will be saying he had no clue that the word ‘Abu’ in Arabic translates to ‘Father’ – which makes him what?? – Father of Anonymous??

Let’s cut to the chase:

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD AN EXTENSIVE ANALYSIS INTO THE ‘COINCIDENCES’ RIGHT HERE:

twitter:

AnonOpsSweden twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2012 om 13:51:30 @OoPsRevolution btw @TripToSyria #OpTripToSyria has landed in Jordan is safe, and looking for safe routes reageer retweet

quote:

AntiSec hacks security site to protest LulzSec arrests

quote:

The group apparently targeted the company for comments made earlier in the day by Panda Security researcher Luis Corrons, who had celebrated the arrests and predicted that Anonymous would be incapable of perpetrating the kind of data breaches and defacements for which LuLzSec was responsible.

The note also accused Panda Security of assisting in a recent sweeps in Europe and South America that resulted in the arrest of 25 suspected members of Anonymous.

"Pandasecurity.com, better known for its shitty ANTIVIRUS WE HAVE BACKDOORED, has earning money working with Law Enforcement to lurk and snitch on anonymous activists. they helped to jail 25 anonymous in different countries...yep we know about you. How does it feel to be the spied one?"

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301(...)rests/#ixzz1oXApNeoD

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2012 16:01 schreef Yuri_Boyka het volgende:
Volgens mij hoor jij ook bij Anonymous, lijkt wel of je een archief bijhoudt.

quote:

Verder wat ik persoonlijk jammer vind is dat Anon niet hackt maar gewoon sites plat legt. Ik zou ze wel is echt TOP SECRET information willen zien publiceren dat echt alleen de beste kunnen.

quote:

How Anonymous plans to use DNS as a weapon

quote:

Typically, the DNS resolvers built into client operating systems ask nameservers (usually the
ones provided by ISPs) to perform recursive queries on their behalf. The lookups then performed by these servers to fulfill the requests are typically iterative.

Here's where the problem arises. The response to a DNS query can be considerably larger than the query itself. In the best (or worst) case, a query of just a few dozen bytes can ask for every name within a domain and receive hundreds or thousands of bytes in response. Every request sent to a DNS server has a source address—an IP address to which the reply should be sent—but these source addresses can be spoofed. That is, a request can be sent from one IP address but the DNS server will think it was sent by a different address.

Using these two things—recursive lookups that return large amounts of data to small queries, and spoofed source addresses—attacks can be made. The attacker first finds a server that is configured to enable recursive lookups. He then sends a large number of requests to the server, spoofing the source address so that the server thinks that the victim machine is making the request. Each of these requests is chosen so that it generates a large response, much larger than the queries themselves. The server will then send these large responses to the victim machine, inundating it with traffic. The disparity between the request size and the response is why these attacks are known as "amplification" attacks.

twitter:

AnonymousIRC twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2012 om 01:11:41 Wow. Just learned something from AntiSec core. Thought something was fishy about FBI and the Stratfor case? You were right. Stay tuned. reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousIRC twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2012 om 01:22:06 Sabu/FBI initially asked for money from #Wikileaks for #GIFiles, to trap Assange. Failed: He didn't fall for it and AntiSec team no want $$$ reageer retweet

quote:

Leaked: Police Plan to Raid The Pirate Bay

More than half a decade after Swedish police officers first raided The Pirate Bay, there is talk that a second police raid against the world’s most famous torrent site is in the planning. The Pirate Bay team has learned that local authorities have acquired warrants to take action against the site, and expect that both servers and the new .se domain name may be targeted soon.

pitrate bay raidIn the spring of 2006 a team of 65 Swedish police personnel entered a datacenter in Stockholm. The officers were tasked with shutting down the largest threat to the entertainment industry at the time – The Pirate Bay’s servers.

The raid eventually led to the conviction of four people connected to The Pirate Bay, but the site itself remained online.

Today, the Pirate Bay team has informed TorrentFreak that a second raid is being prepared by the Swedish authorities. The site’s operators, who are well-connected in multiple ways, learned that a team of Swedish investigators is gearing up to move against the site in the future.

The suspicions were also made public by The Pirate Bay a few minutes ago.

“The Swedish district attorney Fredrik Ingblad initiated a new investigation into The Pirate Bay back in 2010. Information has been leaked to us every now and then by multiple sources, almost on a regular basis. It’s an interesting read,” the Pirate Bay crew notes.

“We can certainly understand why WikiLeaks wished to be hosted in Sweden, since so much data leaks there. The reason that we get the leaks is usually that the whistleblowers do not agree with what is going on. Something that the governments should have in mind – even your own people do not agree.”

The Pirate Bay team confirmed to TorrentFreak that the announcement is no prank. The authorities have obtained warrants to snoop around in sensitive places and two known anti-piracy prosecutors, Frederick Ingblad and Henrik Rasmusson, are said to be involved.

Employing a little psychological warfare aimed at putting the investigators off-balance, the Pirate Bay team has chosen to make the news public to make the authorities aware that they are not the only ones being watched.

According to The Pirate Bay team they aren’t doing anything illegal, but nonetheless they noticed that the investigation intensified after the site’s recent move to a .SE domain.

“Since our recent move to a .SE domain the investigation has been cranked up a notch. We think that the investigation is interesting considering nothing that TPB does is illegal,” they say.

“Rather we find it interesting that a country like Sweden is being so abused by lobbyists and that this can be kept up. They’re using scare tactics, putting pressure on the wrong people, like providers and users. All out of fear from the big country in the west, and with an admiration for their big fancy wallets.”

Behind the scenes The Pirate Bay team is working hard to ensure that the site will remain online in the event that servers, domain names and Internet routes are cut off. In this regard The Pirate Bay has learned a valuable lesson from its former operators.

Those who are aware of the site’s history know that without a few essential keystrokes in May 2006, The Pirate Bay may not have been here today. When Pirate Bay founder TiAMO heard that something was amiss, he decided to make a full backup of the site before heading off to the datacenter, where he was greeted by dozens of police officers.

Cam from the TPB bust

TiAMOs decision to start a backup of the site is probably the most pivotal moment in the sites history. Because of this backup the Pirate Bay team were able to resurrect the site within three days. If there hadnt have been a recent backup, things may have turned out quite differently.

It was a close call at the time, and a defining moment in the history of the site. The determination to get the site back online as soon as possible set the defiant tone for the years that followed. Today, the site prides itself in being the most resilient torrent site around.

In recent years The Pirate Bay has implemented a variety of changes to guarantee that the site remains online. It added several backup domains, placed servers all over the world, and removed resource intensive processes.

Earlier this week The Pirate Bay took another important step by removing .torrent files altogether to become a magnet link site. As a result, the entire site can now be reduced to a few hundred megabytes, small enough to fit on the tiniest thumb drive.

For the police, this makes a successful Pirate Bay raid almost impossible. While they can take steps to put the site out of business briefly, its inevitable that it will re-appear in a matter of hours, or days.

Or to use the words of the Pirate Bay team. Were staying put where we are. Were going no-where. But we have a message to hollywood, the investigators and the prosecutors: LOL.

Anonymous - KONY2012 Warning

SPOILER

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

quote:

Norton Antivirus all Platforms source code leaks to public

After PcAnywhere source code released Anonymous leaks Norton AntiVirus 2006 All Platform’s Source Code via PirateBay. The source code is available for download since 4:10PM today.

quote:

. All conflict comes from social inequality and those who use this to their advantage ? Our civilization is facing a radical, imminent mass change. The alternative to the hierarchical power structure is based on mutual aid and group consensus. As hackers we can learn these systems, manipulate these systems, and shut down these systems if we need to.?

~ Jeremy Ham[/quote]mond (alleged hacker sup_g)

FREE sup_g
FREE kayla
FREE palladium
FREE Topiary
FREE pwnsauce
FREE ALL ARRESTED ANONS WORLDWIDE.

we are AntiSec,
we are legion,
we do not forgive,
we do not forget,
expect us.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2012 18:24 schreef Schenkstroop het volgende:
Ik las net dat Obama zei dat hij de NDAA bill zou tegenstemmen. Maar op het laatst toch ondertekende. Ook werd duidelijk dat het witte huis ervoor bepaalde stekende zinnen over ontvoering van Amerikaanse burgers weg liet halen voordat erop gestemd werd. Obama loog dus als een Pinokio.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2012 18:30 schreef Schenkstroop het volgende:
Zoiets begreep ik ook wat een sneak! Tekenend, telling. damning, sign o' the times. Where's the mainstream media?

quote:

Man arrested on suspicion of hacking Britain's biggest abortion clinic

West Midlands arrest follow claims on Twitter that British Pregnancy Advisory Service's patients would be made public

A 27-year-old man suspected of hacking the website of Britain's biggest abortion clinic was arrested on Friday morning.

The arrest in the West Midlands follows claims made on Twitter on Thursday that the names of patients who used the British Pregnancy Advisory Service would be made public on Friday.

The man, who police say claims to have links to the loose hackers group online "hacktivists" Anonymous, was detained by officers from Scotland Yard's e-crime unit on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act.

A spokeswoman for BPAS said there were about 26,000 attempts to break into its website on Wednesday night, adding that there was never any danger that medical or personal information relating to women who had received treatment was accessed.

BPAS said "no client records" were stored on the website but it took the attack very "seriously" and praised the police for its "swift response".

The firm, which treats about 55,000 woman a year for a range of services from abortion to contraception, obtained an injunction on Thursday preventing any information that could have been hacked being put into the public domain.

BPAS first noticed the site had been hacked early on Thursday morning and it became apparent quite quickly that it was under a sophisticated and co-ordinated attack, the spokeswoman said.

"There is no suggestion that the security of our site is weak, but this is a wake-up call to everybody to what could happen," she added.

"It was the kind of thing we've seen happen to the Pentagon, but targeting a health charity is very different to what's gone on before."

She added that the incident appeared to reflect the "escalating" and "aggressive anti-abortion" protests BPAS is experiencing outside its clinics and "some of the language used was redolent of the political language being used such as accusations that woman are being 'coaxed into abortions' by counsellors".

Detective inspector Mark Raymond from the Metropolitan police's central e-crime unit confirmed the website had been compromised but stressed that the stolen data did not contain medical details of anyone in touch with BPAS or who had had an abortion.

"We have taken rapid action to identify and arrest a suspect involved in hacking. This was done to prevent personal details of people who had requested information from the BPAS website being made public. It should be stressed that the stolen data did not contain the medical details of women who had received treatment or why individuals had contacted the BPAS," he said.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2012 18:33 schreef YazooW het volgende:

[..]

Wat een mafkees, dat soort gegevens ga je toch niet naar buiten brengen

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2012 18:32 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Google's browser binnen 5 minuten gehackt, binnen 24 uur weer gedicht

De afgelopen jaren wist Chrome, de internetbrowser van Google, de hackerswedstrijd Pwn2Own telkens ongeschonden te overleven. Maar dit jaar lukte het een Frans team al binnen 5 minuten om een lek te vinden. En ook in een andere wedstrijd, Pwnium, werd de browser gekraakt. Dat Google een flink geldbedrag had beloofd voor de vinders van een lek, heeft dat waarschijnlijk bespoedigd.

Een Frans team toonde gisteren op Pwn2Own in Vancouver aan hoe de beveiliging van Chrome te omzeilen is. Het is de eerste keer dat Chrome bij deze wedstrijd niet ongeschonden uit de strijd komt. De hackers kregen drie dagen de tijd om het systeem te kraken, maar de Fransen hadden slechts 5 minuten nodig om dit voor elkaar te krijgen. Hun methode willen ze niet vrijgeven.

Pwnium
Op dezelfde dag organiseerde Google haar eigen hackerswedstrijd: Pwnium. En ook daar werd de browser gekraakt. Hier mocht een Russische hacker met de eer strijken. Hij mag bovendien 60.000 dollar (ruim 45.000 euro) op zijn rekening bijschrijven. Google looft sinds kort namelijk verschillende bedragen uit voor hackers die hun browser weten te kraken, dat demonstreren en de hack vervolgens vrijgeven. Hoe gevaarlijker het lek, hoe groter het te winnen bedrag.

Ook bijzonder: vandaag, amper 24 uur later, meldt Google dat het lek alweer gedicht is. En dat is snel, als je het vergelijkt met concurrent Microsoft, die veel vaker te kampen heeft met hacks, en waarbij het soms wel maanden duurt voordat een lek is gerepareerd. Gedicht of niet, Google wacht met het vrijgeven van nadere informatie over het lek totdat is onderzocht of ook andere browsers, zoals Apple's Safari, erdoor getroffen zouden kunnen worden.

Bounty hackers
Door hackers te stimuleren om hacks in besturingssystemen en browsers te vinden, hopen grote internetbedrijven eventuele kwetsbaarheden sneller en doelmatiger te kunnen opsporen, en zo uiteindelijk hun gebruikers beter te beschermen. Goedaardige hackers kunnen kwaadaardige hackers zo voor zijn. Facebook maakt al langer gebruik van deze zogenoemde 'bounty hackers' (premiehackers).

twitter:

oldschooldsl twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2012 om 20:21:28 #Anonymous successful at obtaining full #Microsoft Windows 7 and #Windows 8 Source Code @Windows reageer retweet

quote:

Justitie kijkt illegaal in buitenlandse computers

Bij de opsporing van cybercriminelen schendt de Nederlandse recherche soms de soevereiniteit van andere landen door buitenlandse computers te kraken. Dit is verboden, maar in de opsporing van cybercrime soms onvermijdelijk, stelt Lodewijk van Zwieten, landelijk officier voor cybercrime en interceptie.

De wet schiet volgens hem tekort als het gaat om de online jacht op bijvoorbeeld pedofielen. De digitale wereld is grenzeloos, maar veel wetgeving is aan landsgrenzen gebonden.

'Terwijl wij voor opsporingsonderzoek toestemming moeten vragen aan buitenlandse instanties, zit een cybercrimineel met één druk op de knop aan de andere kant van de wereld', zegt Van Zwieten. Criminelen voeren in toenemende mate anoniem handel via verborgen kanalen op het internet. En bestaande kinderporno gaat niet alleen sneller de wereld rond, maar heeft ook geleid tot een toename van het kindermisbruik, stelt Wilbert Paulissen, hoofd van de Nationale Recherche.

Tijdens het onderzoek naar de contacten van Robert M., die maandag terechtstaat wegens het misbruik van tientallen kinderen, stuitten rechercheurs op verborgen sites vol kinderpornografie.

Ook tijdens het onderzoek naar het Bredolab-netwerk, toen cybercriminelen wereldwijd 30 miljoen computers met een kwaadaardig virus besmetten, kraakte de recherche computers in het buitenland.

Paulissen pleit voor meer specifieke, juridische kaders voor online opsporing. Het moet wetgeving zijn 'die de snelheid van deze ontwikkelingen kan bijhouden, anders zitten we er constant als opsporingsdiensten achteraan te jagen'.

Volgens officier Van Zwieten lopen internationaal alle opsporingsinstanties tegen dezelfde problemen aan en moet iedereen 'met een nieuwe bril naar bestaande regels leren kijken'. Ook voor rechters is cybercrime volgens hem relatief onbekend. 'Zij denken nog wel eens bij een cybercrimineel: dat is een 16-jarig puistenkoppie dat met computers heeft lopen klooien. Maar die puistenkop verdient soms veel meer dan de topman van een nationale bank.'

twitter:

DiabloAnon twitterde op zaterdag 10-03-2012 om 07:17:32 @CrazyLittleOwl A user of the account @LuLzWarfare was killed protesting in Egypt a month or so ago sadly reageer retweet

quote:

Websites attacked by Anonymous #March list

Third list of websites attacked by Anonymous. The list has both hacked and DDoSed websites. The list gets updated daily so stay tuned.

quote:

Op zaterdag 10 maart 2012 11:47 schreef heggeschaarbarbaar het volgende:
Over Pwn2Own: Hackwedstrijden zijn een goed initiatief, maar het genoemde Franse 'team' is commercieel bedrijf genaamd Vupen. Dit bedrijf maakt niet alle hacks openbaar, maar verkoopt de informatie over de werking van de hacks aan geïnteresseerden (overheden, criminelen, ...). Echt veiliger ga ik me daar niet door voelen!