Anonops #12: Spy on the Spyers

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Using the internet lands 'hacker' back in prison

The alleged computer hacker Ryan Cleary is back behind bars after breaking his bail conditions by using the internet.

Mr Cleary, 19, is accused of being a member of the hacktivist group LulzSec as it carried out a series of attacks on targets including the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency, the CIA and News International.

A court heard that he had contacted the former LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur four times. Mr Cleary's lawyer said the internet had been the "whole life" of his client, who has Asperger's syndrome, and the conversation was merely social.

Defence counsel Ben Cooper applied to Southwark Crown Court to have the decision overturned after Mr Cleary admitted breaching his bail at Basildon magistrates' court. But the application was refused by Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith.

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World War 3.0

When the Internet was created, decades ago, one thing was inevitable: the war today over how (or whether) to control it, and who should have that power. Battle lines have been drawn between repressive regimes and Western democracies, corporations and customers, hackers and law enforcement. Looking toward a year-end negotiation in Dubai, where 193 nations will gather to revise a U.N. treaty concerning the Internet, Michael Joseph Gross lays out the stakes in a conflict that could split the virtual world as we know it.

Yumad

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Anonymous LulzChallenge

Greetings young citizens of the world,

We are Anonymous

April 1st is operation LulzDay, a day which is traditionaly April Fools day. Anonymous are declaring this an Anon Holiday of Lulz when anyone can participate, but the fun does not end there.April 2nd will be your day of Lulz, Anonymous are sending out a challenge to all students in protest against your school or college restricting your freedom of speech, your internet rights and against bullying. Anonymous challenges you to gather your friends and to show your support by wearing a mask, educating your friends about their rights and showing your teachers that school is a place of learning and expression.Show your teachers and bullies that even though you may be young you still have rights and a voice and that you will be heard.Your freedoms and knowledge are not a privalage to be removed they are a human right.See how long you can last, how many people u can engage in conversation, use this as an oppurtunity to voice your opinions, to stand up for yourself and maybe invite that girl or boy that you like, you know the one. If asked to remove the mask remember to ask why, be respectful and be aware of your rights, if this can create discussion you have won. remember to work as a team and to let everyone know by posting on fb, twitter or on the irc how long you lasted before being demasked.

Remember this is for the lulz

We are Anonymous

We are Legion

We do not Forgive

We do not forget

Operation Lulzchallenge initiated

Expect us

:: Resources ::

‘Troll masks’:

http://lasserwulf.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/trollface1.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/(...)1600/troll-face3.jpg

http://tacticalip.com/wp-(...)/2334/2173_d63e.jpeg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/(...)1600/troll-face7.jpg

http://funny-picture.org/wp-content/uploads/troll-face_4845_1.jpg

http://funny-picture.org/(...)1600/troll-face4.jpg

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Anonymous China arrives: Chinese government sites hacked, defaced

In a major breakthrough for the international Internet hacktivist collective known as Anonymous, Anonymous China is born.

On Friday morning the freshly minted Anonymous China announced via Twitter that they had hacked and defaced five different Chinese government websites. In addition, Anonymous China also leaked information from at least two different Chinese government websites. And it appears Anonymous China is only getting started.

The defacements are well done, and feature The Who’s classic tune of rebellion, “Baba O’Riley,” on autoplay. The following is the text that appears on those defacements:

Hi all !

Message to Chinese government :

All these years, the Chinese Communist government has subjected its People to unfair laws and unhealthy processes.
Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall.
So expect us because we do not forgive, never. What you are doing today to your Great People, tomorrow will be inflicted to you.

With no mercy.

Nothing will stop us, nor your anger nor your weapons.
You do not scare us, because you cannot afraid an idea.

Message to Chinese People :

Each of you suffers from the tyranny of that regime which knows nothing about you. We are with you.
With you here and now. But also tomorrow and the coming days so promising for your freedom. We will never give up.
Don't lose hope, the revolution begins in the heart.

The silence of all other countries highlights the lack of democracy and justice in China. It's unbearable.
We must all fight for your freedom.

The defacements also provide a link with tips on how to bypass state censorship and browse safely and Anonymously while online.

With the birth of Anonymous China, Anonymous increases its global reach and prestige. One can only wonder how China will respond to the challenge Anonymous China presents.

For more news, art and information about Anonymous, check out Anonymous Examiner on Facebook.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Anonymous China arrives: Chinese government sites hacked, defaced - National Anonymous | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/a(...)efaced#ixzz1qjVB8tc6

Continue reading on Examiner.com Anonymous China arrives: Chinese government sites hacked, defaced - National Anonymous | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/a(...)efaced#ixzz1qjV5H1eN

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Authorities Apprehend the Hacktivist Known as th3j35t3r

In a shocking turn of events, the hacktivist known as th3j35t3r has been identified as Robert "Lance" Miller from Pittsboro, North Carolina. Mr. Miller is now in police custody after the multi-agency operation took place in the early hours of the morning on April 1st, 2012.

According to authorities, Miller was barricaded in his basement with a stash of weapons, threatening to take down the participating agencies' respective websites if they attempted to enter the premises. In the hours leading up to Miller's eventual surrender, several law enforcement websites had no reported pageviews whatsoever.

"th3j35t3r" is well-known for attacking pro-jihad and Taliban websites with his Denial of Service (DoS) tool known as "XerXeS". As to why US authorities were interested in prosecuting Mr. Miller for his supposed crimes, authorities who wish to be unnamed stated "He's smarter than us, damn it... we cant have this guy running around doing stuff without our support".

th3j35t3r was introduced to mass media on the website Infosec Island, where Miller is the co-founder. This comes as no surprise to business partners Mike Menefee and Anthony M. Freed, according to their recent statements.

According to Menefee, "We knew something was up with Lance when he just wouldn't let this 'Jester' story go. We also noticed similarities in writing styles between he and th3j35t3r early on, and that's when we initially alerted law enforcement. They advised that we should just bait him a little further, gather evidence and let them do their jobs. It sure took them long enough... I was getting tired of listing to Lance try and tell me who he though th3j35t3r was on this day or that… I'm glad this is finally over"

Freed stated "Lance was apparently an expert at misdirection… He went to crazy lengths to distance himself from his alter-ego, even going as far as accusing me of being th3j35t3r . He was constantly spinning intricate stories about who he alleged the Jester persona to be. I'm glad this jackass is behind bars."

As evidenced in the photo below of Miller and Freed taken last summer at "Hacker Halted" in Miami FL, a striking resemblance can be seen between Miller and th3j35t3r's trademark online persona.

Scot Terban, a regular contributor at Infosec Island (and whom Miller launched an extensive campaign against, also accusing him as being th3j35t3r ) said this: "I find it inconceivable that Lance has been hiding under my very nose all of this time, but the evidence is incontrovertible! Though, some of the psychotic and erratic behaviour on the part of th3j35t3r makes sense now knowing Lance".

The apprehension of th3j35t3r comes conveniently following the announcement that "Sabu", the self-proclaimed leader of the "Anonymous" online faction had been working for the US federal authorities since August of 2011, which resulted in numerous arrests.

"Sabu" - though known to be extremely limited in his intellectual capacity - nonetheless was able to gather a great deal of information on the movement's so-called "leadership".

Authorities will have little in the way of problems prosecuting the script-kiddies and their minions given the ridiculously slip-shod and juvenile nature of the anonymous movement,

We here at Infosec Island will keep you posted on the developments in this story, but there is a likely outcome from this: Lance will probably never forgive us for this betrayal.

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White House's New Report On Intellectual Property Enforcement Should Get A Copyright As A Creative Work Of Fiction

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The 2008 ProIP Act put in place a number of problematic things, including (via a very sneaky backdoor method) the ability for the US government to directly censor websites (something many people thought was in SOPA but which is already a part of the law, according to a tenuous interpretation of the law by the Justice Department and Homeland Security). It also put in place the job of IP Enforcement Coordinator, officially known as IPEC, but more regularly called the Copyright Czar. The job isn't about more efficient or more effective IP. It's designed solely to push an agenda of greater enforcement as if that must be a good thing. While the current Copyright Czar, Victoria Espinel, actually has been very good in trying to hear from critics of expanded copyright enforcement, the nature of the job itself leaves her little room to do too much.

However, as part of the job, she releases an "annual report" on intellectual property enforcement. Now, as you hopefully know, content published by the federal government cannot be covered by copyright and is automatically in the public domain. But, reading through the newly released annual report (pdf and embedded below), it makes me wonder if we should make an exception here, as it appears to be, in large part, a work of fiction.

There are plenty of questionable things in the report, but I'm just going to focus on a few (we'd be here all day if I dug into even more of the report, but feel free to read and guffaw along with the entire report). Once again, the report seems to assume that "greater enforcement = good thing," despite a near total lack of evidence to support that position. In part, of course, this is the nature of the job itself, so the report has to slant in that direction. But there are some whoppers in the report. Let's dig into a few:

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What's not in the report. It's really quite stunning what's completely missing from the report. The omissions are quite telling, however. The report appears to completely skip over what happened with SOPA/PIPA. I mean, it's as if the widespread public backlash and outrage didn't happen at all. SOPA and PIPA are barely mentioned at all, and when they are, it's only to mention briefly how random parts of those bills (not the main parts) included little bits and pieces of the White House's legislative agenda on IP around "greater information sharing." How can a report on the state of IP enforcement completely leave out the biggest thing that's happened in IP enforcement in decades? The fact that the public has stood up and said enough is enough on greater expansion of making the government Hollywood's private business model protection service. That's a huge event and to completely ignore it is quite telling.

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A Telecom-Independent Internet, Tested at Occupy Wall Street, for Just $2,000

This is a guest post from Cole Stryker, a writer and publicist working in New York. It is an excerpt from his book, ”Identity Wars: Online Anonymity, Privacy and Control,” which is slated for a September release from Overlook Press.

On March 27, 2012 I had the opportunity to attend a private screening of a mini-documentary called “Free the Network,” produced by Vice’s tech site, Motherboard.tv. The documentary opens at Occupy Wall Street, first depicted as a wacky, disparate band of activists which developed a curious techno-centric bent with the arrival of Anonymous, along with a more or less disorganized faction of hackers who wished to bring about social revolution through technology. The film centers on one of them, a 21-year old college dropout named Isaac Wilder, the executive director of the Free Network Foundation.

Mr. Wilder builds communications systems based around Freedom Towers, DIY kits that fit in a suitcase containing everything one would need to set up an ad hoc peer to peer network. The instructions are simple: “Plug it in. Press the big green button.” It creates a local network that stays up no matter what happens to the wider global Internet. All of this is mostly funded through private donations from family, friends, and fellow revolutionaries. Mr. Wilder estimates that the equipment required to assemble a Freedom Tower would have cost over $10,000 as recent as five years ago. Today: $2,000. And it’s completely grid-independent. That means solar powered batteries, a DC power system, a server, a router and a suite of powerful software, all contained in a suitcase.

The idea is to build a mesh network, where all computers are nodes that act as transmitters to other computers, in order to decentralize the Internet and remove it from the control of governments and corporations. Mr. Wilder argues that if we are ever going to achieve global revolution, we must wrest control of the pipes from multinational telecom companies who would censor or monitor the communication of social revolutionaries.

The documentary depicts the aftermath of a police raid at Zucotti Park during Occupy Wall Street, specifically rows of laptops that had been smashed in by cops, presumably. Several contributors to the documentary speculate that the destruction indicates the establishment is trying to keep the message down. Maybe the cops are just sick of putting up with a bunch of grungy hippies and this was a method of discouragement rather than an outright conspiracy to destroy information. Either way, it’s a dark, dark image, one that makes me immediately sympathize with the need to create information networks that can’t be smashed in, let alone censored.

I caught up with Mr. Wilder a few days after the screening and asked him where his passion for free networks comes from.

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Ruh roh: Anonymous doxed Wisconsin’s politicians, including Fitzgerald, Vos, Duffy, many more

“The Knot is a group of freedom fighters that fight for the truth and democracy in the state of Wisconsin,” or so they state on their Twitter page. Well, Anonymous begs to differ and has taken issue with them.

My own issues with them are largely political including their casual use of dubious and allegedly illegal behavior in order to stifle their opponents’ support. The Facebook Page “Knot My Wisconsin” (one and the same) had a sister page, “Operation Burn Notice” which was initiated in order to collect recall signatures for the embattled Governor Walker and thusly dispose of them. You see, this group uses the word “knot” to counter Not My Wisconsin’s Facebook page which has almost 15,000 ‘likes’. But, they suck at it, so they cheated and tried to win voters over by feigning to be in opposition to Governor Scott Walker. Obviously, this makes no sense unless you’re politically challenged.

Whatever Anonymous’ particular grievances with them are – ”Politicians that support the Knot, affiliated or directly involved” they have just been doxed by LulzClub and the information obtained is vast.

Info on Robin Vos (WI-ALEC), as well as Governor Scott Walker’s wife, Scott Fitzgerald (R-tool), a member of the Wisconsin Senate among others are now, public knowledge.

The information gathered speaks of illegal wiretaps used as well as a variety of their dalliances with unscrupulous behavior.

A very small snippet:



Matt Lepperd, aka Matt Wynns/Carl Flingler
M J Lepperd
This guy brings internet stalking to an entire new level.
He is a longtime friend of Roy Innis. Along with Roy Innis and the Parents appear to lead the Knot My Wisconsin group, this fellow also has had his hand in the creation and making of that Operation Burn page. Piles of info on this guy, appears to come off as a relatively nice person in real life. Similar to Roy, he loves to play the victim card. This guy ties into the Waukesha GOP and is considered to be the leader of the Facebook attack/hate group. Follow the trail from him to the Waukesha WI GOP up the ladder – it makes for an interesting story.

(my bold)

And there’s so much more. Feel free to browse around. http://pastebin.com/FJNYLPqp

Thanks always to DokCak3.

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Britse overheid wil toegang tot e-mailverkeer van burger

De Britse overheid krijgt toegang tot informatie over het bel-, mail- en surfgedrag van haar burgers. Ook communicatie op sociale netwerksites als Facebook en Twitter komt ter beschikking te staan van de autoriteiten, voor zover ze al niet op gewone wijze kunnen meelezen.

Binnen de overheid leeft er zekere angst voor terreuraanslagen, zeker nu de Olympische Spelen voor de deur staan.

Een soortgelijke spionagewet was al in 2009 opgesteld door de toen regerende Labour Partij, maar die stuitte indertijd op teveel maatschappelijk verzet.

Opvallend is dat ook de huidige regeringspartijen - de Conservatieven en Liberaal-democraten - destijds felle kritiek uitten op dit voornemen en op andere privacygevoelige maatregelen van de Sociaal-democraten.

Een verschil is dat Labour de gegevens centraal wilde opslaan en dat de huidige regering de informatie laat beheren door de bedrijven zelf.

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http://pastebin.com/jjMRFDH6

Dear Anonymous & fellow Americans
My name is Higinio Ochoa and until recently I have been also known as higochoa and w0rmer. I have spent the last few months fighting along side some of the best in the world.
On march 20th 2012 @ 10:30 am around 8 agents from the FBI stormed my apartment and put me under arrest. Shortly after I was taken to the Texas City field office where I turned over all evidence I had collected on myself,over the course of the last few months. I then spent the subsequent hours going over w0rmers timeline and confirming or denying my participation in various attacks. After FBI Agent Scott Jenson was done explaining how unimpressed he was with both my expressed skills, and information I provided the systems administrator for the texas DPS. He then proceeded to interview me for the exact information concerning the breach of the texas DPS site.( It would seem to me niether the DPS administrator nor the FBI fully understand the "complexity" of SQL injections.) After faIling to get the printer from which my fingerprints were to get printed from, to work, they proceded to fonger print me "old school style" as one agent elequently put it. Hand cuffed and guarded by two U.S. marshalls I was led to a car and driven to the Houston federal detention center.
Once there, I was once again finger printed and processed to be held until my court date the following morning. I want to express that the young cocky FBI agent (mr. Jenson) aside ;everyone who I had contact with was both understanding and curtious in their actions. the following morning I was once again dressed out and led by two marshals to the Southern District Fedral court house where I was to await trial. After the marshals turned me over though, all curtisies were thrown out the window. As an epileptic I was required to take 2 medications twice daily. One medication was provided the first day while the second was witheld. The following day niether were even offered to me; even after the medication was both provided and the courthouse marshals were informed of my condition.
The marshal that processed me had no issue calling me dumb after I failed to provide a single piece of contact Information to anyone on the outside because of my personal operation security measures allowing plausable denyability thus ensuring the protection of both my family and friends. After seeing the judge and having my bond set, this same agent then proceeded to stall my release by holding me and refusing to let me go until even the guards had left.
On the 23rd after talking with my public defender I had a name trial waved and all subsequent proceedings moved to Austin, home of the orginating charges. Let it be a matter of public record that not a single marshal there showed anything but fear and aggression towards me; someone charged with neither a violent nor drug based crime. Y U mad Bro?
Let me take this time now to clarify a couple of things I know many of you are questioning.
1. Where is my natural urge for self preservation? I have none. I did not "join" this movement out of personal interest, I did not get paid to hack these sites, I simply took donations in case any supporters of this cause could donate towards my protection. In fact my main source of currency was 'bit coins' as the american dollar continues to drop in value. When I abandoned my mask i was fully aware of the consiquences and know full well that someday i may infact have to pay for my activism. My life from that day on was about protecting my fellow activist, not myself, which is why I stand here today and you do-not. I was asked by the agents if I thought other anon's caught would feel the same as I do, and if i expected others to not, rat me out. To this I responded: "of course not" But the problem i see in the world today is apathy and a willingness to protect oneself over others, something I myself took a personal oath to not follow. Americans and the world no less, need to wake up, turn off their T.V's and notice a real change is comming.
2. Were you ever approached to be a confidential informant? Of course I was! Some body such as myself who not only participated in the occupy movement but knew many and knew the inner workings of the "infamous" cabin crew would not be just put away without wondering if he could be turned. I did how ever tell FBI that I would participate in the capture of my fellow crew mates, a play which undoubtfully both satisfied and confused the FBI. Those however who know me best would vouch for me undoutfully that doing so would put this movement at risk, something that i wish more anon's would not only consider but place higher than themselves and those around them. ALL information provided to the FBI merely made MY case weaker and caused internal confusion showing the inherent weakness in the system. It was only because of this play that I believe I was allowed to not only get bond but keep those closest to me safe. I gave the FBI plenty of time to come up with more questions that I may have considered answering but alas they failed even that simple task. I turned over all accounts in my control and forfieted any protection I personally may have had to ensure they believed I was cooperating.
3. and last on my list, what did I hope to accomplish by speaking out as I am? This is simple. As our nation continues to grow more worldly and anonymous continues to spread our reach, our country will continue to wage war. This time however it will not only be our civial rights but our human rights. This country, one based on a failing system, not only continues to mis-manage our rights and resources but our internal infrastructure. If there was ever a time when helping others was needed, yesterday was that time. As millions go homeless, many millions of houses lay vacant, as millions go hungery, tons of food go wasted. Let me stand here, as many have before , and call out to you to request not that you vote a certain way, or even risk what you currently have as I have done, but to educate yourselves and reach out to those unconditionally who truly need help so that when you stand in need, that same help will be available to you. Thank you for reading. Yours in human eveloution.
Hig/w0rmer.

All Media and support inquiries please contact my public defender at, Jose I. Gonzalez-falla (512)916-5025

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Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill

While most folks are looking elsewhere, it appears that Congress is trying to see if it can sneak an absolutely awful "cybersecurity" bill through Congress. We've discussed how there's been some fighting on the Senate side concerning which cybersecurity bill to support, but there's a similar battle going on in the House, and it appears that the Rogers-Ruppersberger bill, known as CISPA (for Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) or HR 3523 is winning out, with a planned attempt to move it through Congress later this month. The bill is awful -- and yet has somehow already gained over 100 sponsors. In an attempt to pretend that this isn't a "SOPA-like" problem, the supporters of this bill are highlighting the fact that Facebook, Microsoft and TechAmerica are supporting this bill.

However, this is a terrible bill for a variety of reasons. Even if we accept the mantra that new cybersecurity laws are needed (despite a near total lack of evidence to support this -- and, no, fearmongering about planes falling from the sky doesn't count), this bill has serious problems. As CDT warned when this bill first came out, it's way too broad and overreaching:

. However, the bill goes much further, permitting ISPs to funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls. The bill does not specify which agencies ISPs could disclose customer data to, but the structure and incentives in the bill raise a very real possibility that the National Security Agency or the DOD’s Cybercommand would be the primary recipient.

If it's confusing to keep track of these different cybersecurity bills, the ACLU has put together a handy dandy (scary) chart (pdf) comparing them all. And what comes through loud and clear is that the Rogers-Ruppersberger CISPA bill will allow for much greater information sharing of companies sending private communication data to the government -- including the NSA, who has been trying very, very hard to get this data, not for cybersecurity reasons, but to spy on people. CISPA has broad definitions, very few limits on who can get the data, almost no limitations on how the government can use the data (i.e. they can use it to monitor, not just for cybersecurity reasons) and (of course) no real oversight at all for how the data is (ab)used.

CDT has put together a reasonable list of 8 things that should be done if politicians don't want to turn cybersecurity into a new SOPA, but so far, Congress is ignoring nearly all of them. Similarly, EFF is asking people to speak out against CISPA, noting that it basically creates a cybersecurity exemption to all existing laws. If the government wants your data, it just needs to claim that it got it for "cybersecurity purposes" and then it can do pretty much whatever it wants.

This is a really bad bill and it looks like it's going to pass unless people speak up.

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EU Cybercrime Bill Targets Anonymous: Makes It A Criminal Offense To Conduct 'Cyber Attack'

While we're still sorting through the crazy cybersecurity bill proposals in the US, it appears that some in the EU are going through a similar process. The EU Parliament's "Civil Liberties Committee" has approved a legislative proposal concerning "cyber attacks," which appears to ramp up criminal penalties for all sorts of broadly defined activities. It even applies criminal penalties to a company if an employee hacks into a competitor's database (even if they weren't told to do it). But where it gets scary is when it appears to directly target "hactivism" like what Anonymous does. While we still think Anonymous' DDoS attacks are incredibly counterproductive, are they really criminal?

. The Committee's proposals would make it a criminal offence to conduct cyber attacks on computer systems. Individuals would face at least two years in jail if served with the maximum penalty for the offence.

. A maximum penalty of at least five years in jail could apply if "aggravating circumstances" or "considerable damage ... financial costs or loss of financial data" occurred, the Parliament said in a statement.

. One aggravating circumstance in which the heavier penalty could be levied is if an individual uses 'botnet' tools "specifically designed for large-scale attacks". Considerable damage may be said to have occurred through the disruption of system services, according to plans disclosed by the Parliament.

Even more ridiculous? Merely "possessing... hacking software and tools" could lead to criminal charges. Does that make everyone with a computer a criminal? This whole thing seems like a bad overreaction by politicians who are freaked out, but who clearly don't understand the technology in question.

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How do you police the entire internet?

The Ben Dover case shows how bizarre copyright and piracy battles have become

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Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA

Army General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, is having a busy year — hopping around the country, cutting ribbons at secret bases and bringing to life the agency’s greatly expanded eavesdropping network.

In January he dedicated the new $358 million CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building at NSA Hawaii, and in March he unveiled the 604,000-square-foot John Whitelaw Building at NSA Georgia.

Designed to house about 4,000 earphone-clad intercept operators, analysts and other specialists, many of them employed by private contractors, it will have a 2,800-square-foot fitness center open 24/7, 47 conference rooms and VTCs, and “22 caves,” according to an NSA brochure from the event. No television news cameras were allowed within two miles of the ceremony.

Overseas, Menwith Hill, the NSA’s giant satellite listening post in Yorkshire, England that sports 33 giant dome-covered eavesdropping dishes, is also undergoing a multi-million-dollar expansion, with $68 million alone being spent on a generator plant to provide power for new supercomputers. And the number of people employed on the base, many of them employees of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, is due to increase from 1,800 to 2,500 in 2015, according to a study done in Britain. Closer to home, in May, Fort Meade will close its 27-hole golf course to make room for a massive $2 billion, 1.8-million-square-foot expansion of the NSA’s headquarters, including a cybercommand complex and a new supercomputer center expected to cost nearly $1 billion.

The climax, however, will be the opening next year of the NSA’s mammoth 1-million-square-foot, $2 billion Utah Data Center. The centerpiece in the agency’s decade-long building boom, it will be the “cloud” where the trillions of millions of intercepted phone calls, e-mails, and data trails will reside, to be scrutinized by distant analysts over highly encrypted fiber-optic links.

Despite the post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping of Americans, the NSA says that citizens should trust it not to abuse its growing power and that it takes the Constitution and the nation’s privacy laws seriously.

But one of the agency’s biggest secrets is just how careless it is with that ocean of very private and very personal communications, much of it to and from Americans. Increasingly, obscure and questionable contractors — not government employees — install the taps, run the agency’s eavesdropping infrastructure, and do the listening and analysis.

And with some of the key companies building the U.S.’s surveillance infrastructure for the digital age employing unstable employees, crooked executives, and having troubling ties to foreign intelligence services, it’s not clear that Americans should trust the secretive agency, even if its current agency chief claims he doesn’t approve of extrajudicial spying on Americans. His predecessor, General Michael V. Hayden, made similar claims while secretly conducting the warrantless wiretapping program.

Until now, the actual mechanics of how the agency constructed its highly secret U.S. eavesdropping net, code-named Stellar Wind, has never been revealed. But in the weeks following 9/11, as the agency and the White House agreed to secretly ignore U.S. privacy laws and bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, J. Kirk Wiebe noticed something odd. A senior analyst, he was serving as chief of staff for the agency’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (SARC), a sort of skunkworks within the agency where bureaucratic rules were broken, red tape was cut, and innovation was expected.

“One day I notice out in the hallway, stacks and stacks of new servers in boxes just lined up,” he said.

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RCMP, spy agency shed no light on Anonymous threats against Toews

Representatives of Canada’s electronic surveillance agency and national police force were called before a Commons committee Tuesday to tell politicians all they know about threats posted by online hacker group Anonymous against Public Safety minister Vic Toews.

And the answer is: Not much.

Toni Moffa, the assistant deputy minister who is responsible for technical security at the Communications Security Establishment, seemed genuinely confused by the questions being put to her and had to repeatedly explain that threats posted to public Internet sites are outside the jurisdiction of her organization.

And, while Chief Superintendant James Malizia of the RCMP agreed his organization was looking into the activities of Anonymous as they relate to Mr. Toews, he made it clear he could not discuss the details of the investigation.

The matter was referred to the House affairs committee by Speaker Andrew Scheer, who ruled that Mr. Toews’s privileges as a parliamentarian may have been breached by Anonymous – a loose network of international protesters who, in this case, objected to controversial online-surveillance legislation introduced by the minister.

Some of the opposition MPs on the committee have previously expressed concern their inquiry is hampered by the fact Anonymous is anonymous. When they asked how they should get around that problem, Mr. Toews – who testified last week – suggested that they should call in the experts.

But the testimony of those experts Tuesday merely bolstered the notion that the committee’s efforts are, in many ways, futile.

As Ms. Moffa told the committee, CSE collects foreign intelligence signals and provides assurances to the government that federal computer systems are secure. But when asked by Conservative MP Harold Albrecht to explain what she knows about Anonymous, how it operates and what threats the group may pose, Ms. Moffa was at a loss.

Anything CSE knows about Anonymous comes from “open sources,” she said. And “from our perspective, it’s not an [information technology] security breach and it would be best dealt with by an investigative body or agency that would do that type of investigation.”

But the investigators were not much more informative.

Supt. Malizia confirmed it is public knowledge that there is an ongoing investigation. But, in response to any question about the case of Anonymous and Mr. Toews, he said: “I am not in a position to discuss any details or specifics with respect to any ongoing investigation.”

The most important information provided to MPs on the committee by CSE and the RCMP was that they should follow good Internet security protocols and, if they are ever threatened, they should inform the authorities – none of which will get them very far in their current inquiry.

Toward the end of the committee meeting, which finished early because the MPs had nothing more to ask their witnesses and their witnesses had nothing more to tell them, Conservative MP Laurie Hawn conceded it is unlikely that the identities of the people behind the Anonymous threats will ever be revealed.

Searching for ways to make the committee’s inquiry relevant, Mr. Hawn asked Supt. Malizia if he thought the process was worthwhile in reminding Internet users that posting threats against parliamentarians is a crime. “Has this process been useful at least in that respect?” he asked the police officer.

“Well, I am not in a position to comment on the committee’s work and the process,” Supt. Malizia replied, “but I can say is that advances in technology have created an environment where individuals achieve anonymity.”

quote:

http://pastebin.com/mTw9Y1ea

Operation: BlackTide || #OpBlackTide

Targets:
www.bp.com
www.saudiaramco.com
www.nioc.com
www.qgpc.com.qa
www.shell.com
www.conocophillips.com
www.chevron.com
www.knpc.com.kw
www.adnoc.com
www.texaco.com

Message:

This message is to the internation oil giants concerning the ever rising prices of petrol. We have been watching you. Your gluttony can no longer be tolerated. You continue to raise the prices of oil which in turn raises the prices of everything needed to live day to day. You ignore OSHA guidelines and ravage our planet. This cannot be allowed to go on any longer.

With fuel prices reaching $4.00 per gallon in poorer parts of the United States, and rumors of prices rising to $8.00 per gallon, many minimum wage workers cannot afford to travel to work and back home. You have taken advantage of the people for to long. It is time that you learned that the people have the power, not the Government, and not you.

Our demands are simple, lower fuel prices and cap them at $3.00 per gallon for fuel not containing ethanol and $2.75 per gallon for fuel with up to 10% ethanol. We are not asking for free fuel or a drastic change in price, but we demand that the price of oil be controlled.

---

This message is to the citizens of the world, the consumers, the very people that these oil giants are taking advantage of. The weight of this operation falls on you. Without you, this operation cannot be successful without the support of the people. We are not asking you to do anything illegal, we are just asking you to do what you will. Don't buy fuel on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Sundays. Protest at gas stations. DDOS the target websites listed above. Print and pass out fliers. Share this post. Call your Congressman. Write letters to these corporations. Use hashtag #OpBlackTide. Anything you are willing to do to help this operation. Together we can make this work and secure the prices of oil.

How do oil prices effect everything else? Shipping. When oil prices go up, the cost of shipping goes up, when the cost of shipping goes up, the cost of the product being shipped goes up. Everything trickles down hill while the oil giants reap the benefits.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

quote:

Hacker claims breach of China's CEIEC defence contractor

Hacker known as Hardcore Charlie says he targeted CEIEC in search of information on US military campaign in Afghanistan

A hacker has posted thousands of internal documents he says he obtained by breaking into the network of a Chinese company with defence contracts.

The hacker, who uses the name Hardcore Charlie and said he was a friend of Hector Xavier Monsegur, the leader-turned-informant of LulzSec, told Reuters he got into the computer system of the Beijing-based China National Import & Export Corp (CEIEC).

He posted documents ranging from purported US military transport information to internal reports about business matters on several file-sharing sites, but the authenticity of the documents could not be independently confirmed.

CEIEC did not respond to a request for comment. Pentagon and US intelligence officials had no immediate comment.

CEIEC's website says the company performs systems integration work for the Chinese military.

Cyberspying is a growing concern for companies and governments around the world. Beijing is often accused of promoting or at least tolerating the hacking of western targets, but Chinese institutions have rarely been identified publicly as victims of such attacks.

Hackers associated with LulzSec have generally targeted western defence contractors and law enforcement organisations, though some of their attacks may have been driven by FBI informants. LulzSec is a spin-off of Anonymous, an amorphous collective that uses computer break-ins to promote social causes and expose what members see as wrongdoing by governments and corporations.

Hardcore Charlie said in email and Twitter conversations with Reuters that he had worked with others to crack the email passwords that got him inside CEIEC.

In particular, the hacker said he worked with an associate who calls himself YamaTough, another former Monsegur ally who recently released stolen source code for old versions of security products made by Symantec Corp.

YamaTough was involved in an incident in which fake documents, purportedly from Indian military intelligence, were mixed with genuinely stolen documents, raising the possibility Hardcore Charlie had pursued a similar strategy in posting the alleged CEIEC documents.

Hardcore Charlie described himself as a 40-year-old Hispanic man in a country close to the US. He said he did not have strong political leanings, but was concerned the Chinese company had access to material about the US war effort in Afghanistan, as some of the documents suggest.

He said he planned to "explore" the computer networks of other Chinese companies.

quote:

Hacker LulzSec bekent schuld grote kraak Sony

Cody Kretsinger van de hackersgroep LulzSec heeft vandaag in Californië schuld bekend aan deelname bij een grote kraak bij Sony. Hij zei schuldig te zijn aan samenzwering en beschadiging van een beveiligde computer.

Eerder had Kretsinger de beschuldigingen ontkend. De verdachte kan maximaal 15 jaar gevangenisstraf opgelegd krijgen.

Volgens de aanklagers heeft Kretsinger vertrouwelijke informatie van computersystemen van Sony weten te bemachtigen. Hij en zijn mede-hackers hebben de informatie vervolgens op de website van LulzSec geplaatst en dit bekend gemaakt op Twitter.

LulzSec is de afgelopen jaren veelvuldig in het nieuws geweest vanwege inbraken op de systemen van onder meer de CIA, de Amerikaanse senaat, het Playstation Network van Sony, Mastercard en de Algerijnse en Zimbabwaanse overheden.

quote:

http://nibletz.com/2012/04/optrialathome-from-anonymous-to-hit-this-saturday/

#OpTrialAtHome is Anonymous newest cause. Unlike last Saturdays “attempt” to take down the Net which makes no sense as why would they crash their playground. This one is being reported by all the Anonymous Twitter feeds and people close to it. In a group showing against UK extraditing people to the USA to face crimes, Anonymous is telling its supports to take out the countries home website.

In what has been a normal accordance to governments helping the West, Anonymous believes that the actions taken by the British government to send citizens back to the US for crimes shouldn’t happen.

In an attempt to show how Britain wrongly sent Gary McKinnon, Christopher Harold Tappin and Richard O’Dwyer back to the USA for crimes. Such as allegedly hacking into U.S. military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002 and deleting files and copying data done by Gary McKinnon.

To take place at 9p.m. GMT Anonymous even posted the IP address to go after its promo picture for the “event”.

quote:

CISPA: Anonymous prepares for battle to keep Internet free

Anonymous prepares for battle to prevent CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, from eroding digital rights and censoring the Internet.

Anonymous enthusiasts and others across the Internet are warning of the dangers of CISPA, a controversial new bill that would allow for unchecked Internet censorship and surveillance. Critics agree, H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), constitutes a substantial threat to the Internet as we know it.

Within the last 24 hours a petition Anonymous has been promoting at Avaaz.Org has received over 300,000 digital signatures. The petition reads:

Continue reading on Examiner.com CISPA: Anonymous prepares for battle to keep Internet free - National Anonymous | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/a(...)t-free#ixzz1rL2giZhO

quote:

The 2012 TIME 100 Poll

Voting for inclusion in the TIME 100 issue is now closed. The final list, selected by our editors, will be revealed on Tuesday, April 17th

quote:

‘Anonymous’ says it will hack more Chinese sites

The hacking group Anonymous said Friday it would continue targeting China, after announcing it had hacked hundreds of Chinese websites to protest against Internet censorship in the country.

Most of the sites Anonymous China claimed to have hacked were working normally early Friday, although some still carried error messages, among them an official site for the ruling Communist Party in the southern city of Hezhou.

But the group, which announced its existence last month via Twitter, told AFP in an email it would continue targeting Chinese sites.

“It will keep going. The targets are selected,” it said.

Anonymous said this week it had hacked 300 Chinese websites and posted messages to the government and the Chinese people.

One read: “To the Chinese people: your government controls the Internet in your country and tries to filter what he sees as a threat to him.”

Another said: “Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible. Today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall.”

China has the world’s largest online population, with more than half a billion users, but its government tightly controls the web, using a vast and sophisticated censorship system known as the “Great Firewall”.

This week’s hackings came after the government last month shut down websites, made a string of arrests and punished two popular microblogs after rumours of a coup linked to a major scandal that brought down a top politician.

quote:

Decentralized and Open DNS To Defeat Censorship

For the last couple of years discussion around censorship of websites in the West has become as prolific as the that around already established blockades in countries such as China and Iran. While meddling with the Internet’s DNS is the weapon of choice for censors, a new P2P system called ODDNS hopes to put control back in the hands of the people.

The Internet’s Domain Name System, which translates human-readable URLs into IP addresses so that web users can more easily find Internet sites, has become a battle ground for censorship during the last couple of years.

From residing almost exclusively in the awareness of computer engineers and nerds, recent attempts by various copyright holders to censor sites such as The Pirate Bay and introduce even more broad powers with the introduction of the SOPA legislation in the US, the existence and mechanisms of the Internet’s DNS have now broken through into the mainstream.

In a response to growing attempts at censorship, various alternative DNS systems have been proposed with an emphasis on those that can’t be meddled with by the authorities. The latest, called ODDNS, comes out of France.
As its name suggests, ODDNS (Open and Decentralized DNS) is an open and decentralized DNS system running on the P2P (Peer-to-Peer) model. It’s creator, web developer Jimmy Rudolf, told PCinpact he invented the system with two specific aims in mind.
The first, and of most interest to people fighting censorship, is to “show governments that it is not possible to prevent people from talking.”

The second, of interest to anyone who owns and maintain their own domain names, is to take back control of them. “I find it absurd to have to regularly pay for a domain name,” Rudolf explained.
ODDNS is an application which allows everyone running the software to share information about domain names with each other, a bit like how a P2P network functions. ODDNS can supplement or even replace regular DNS.
ODDNS Because domain names and related IP addresses are shared among peers in the network, they can no longer be censored. Furthermore, buying a domain name from a registrar is no longer required since people running ODDNS can create and maintain their own.

Still under development, as expected the source code to ODDNS is licensed under GNU GPLv3. PCinpact reports that the current ODDNS website will be updated next week and the first beta release of the software will follow shortly after.

Of course the success of the project will sit on the developers’ ability to overcome the technical hurdles and, crucially, if they can encourage enough people to come on board and stay on board. The desire to stick with this kind of system will be driven by need so more censorship will become this and similar projects’ lifeblood.

quote:

UK 'exporting surveillance technology to repressive nations'

Fears that software similar to that which government wants to use in Britain is being sold to monitor dissidents abroad

Britain is exporting surveillance technology to countries run by repressive regimes, sparking fears it is being used to track political dissidents and activists.

The UK's enthusiastic role in the burgeoning but unregulated surveillance market is becoming an urgent concern for human rights groups, who want the government to ensure that exports are regulated in a similar way to arms.

Much of the technology, which allows regimes to monitor internet traffic, mobile phone calls and text messages, is similar to that which the government has controversially signalled it wants to use in the UK.

The campaign group, Privacy International, which monitors the use of surveillance technology, claims equipment being exported includes devices known as "IMSI catchers" that masquerade as normal mobile phone masts and identify phone users and malware – software that can allow its operator to control a target's computer, while allowing the interception to remain undetected.

Trojan horse software that allows hackers to remotely activate the microphone and camera on another person's phone, and "optical cyber solutions" that can tap submarine cable landing stations, allowing for the mass surveillance of entire populations, are also being exported, according to the group.

Privacy International said it had visited international arms and security fairs and identified at least 30 UK companies that it believes have exported surveillance technology to countries including Syria, Iran, Yemen and Bahrain. A further 50 companies exporting similar technology from the US were also identified. Germany and Israel were also identified as big exporters of surveillance technology, in what is reportedly a £3bn a year industry.

Last month Privacy International asked 160 companies about sales of equipment to repressive regimes. So far fewer than 10 have written back to deny selling to nations with poor human rights records. The campaign group warns: "The emerging information and communications infrastructures of developing countries are being hijacked for surveillance purposes, and the information thereby collected is facilitating unlawful interrogation practices, torture and extrajudicial executions."

Many of the brochures, presentations and marketing videos used by surveillance companies to promote their technology have now been posted on the WikiLeaks website, while a list of firms identified by Privacy International as a cause for concern has been provided to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The trade minister, Mark Prisk, has been briefed on the situation.

Last month the European council banned the export of surveillance technologies to Iranian authorities in response to serious human rights violations. It has imposed similar bans on exports to Syria.

But human rights groups said equipment was still being sold to commercial organisations in the two countries and called for the government to take stronger action.

"By the time the embargo is in place the ship has sailed," said Eric King, head of research at Privacy International. "Our research shows the idea that this is not a British problem is wrong. We need governments to act now. In a few years this equipment will need to be updated; these countries don't have the technical expertise to do it, so this is something the UK needs to be aware of and to take action against now."

In December it emerged a British company had offered to sell software to Egyptian security services that experts say could hack into web-based email. The company, Gamma Group International, insists it "complies, in all its dealings, with all relevant UK legislation".

Last year a public outcry forced an Italian company to pull out of supplying Syria with "deep packet investigation" technology that would allow the country's security forces to access internet service providers. But Syriatel Mobile, Syria's largest mobile phone operator, uses blocking technology provided by a Dublin-based company.

Creativity Software (CS), a British firm specialising in "location-based services", sold technology to the mobile network operator MTN Irancell that campaign groups said could be used to track individuals. The company said its technology provided "the same type of activities that are enjoyed by consumers in many other markets – a hugely popular and successful social networking and location-based mobile advertising service".

It is the responsibility of manufacturers to ensure their technology is not used to perpetrate human rights abuses. But there are now calls for them to be subject to stringent export controls requiring a licence to sell abroad.

Privacy International also argues that, in order to prevent dangerous technologies reaching authoritarian regimes through middlemen, there is a need for "end-use" controls that would make it illegal for companies to provide their products when they know or suspect they will be used in human rights abuses.

In a letter to Privacy International, Downing Street said the government was "actively looking at this issue" and was working within the EU to introduce new controls on surveillance.

quote:

Pastebin to hire staff to tackle hackers' 'sensitive' posts

The owner of Pastebin.com says he plans to hire more staff to help police "sensitive information" posted to the site.

The website is frequently used by Anonymous and other hackers to reveal data taken from their targets.

In the past this has included home addresses, email passwords and bank account details.

Pastebin currently relies on an abuse report system to alert it to material that might need to be removed.

Jeroen Vader, a 28 year-old Dutch entrepreneur, bought the site from its original owner in early 2010.

In that time he says he has helped grow its popularity, as it now attracts an average of 17 million unique visitors a month. The site makes money from banner adverts on its pages.

Revelations

Many visitors to the site use it to keep watch over trending topics. These often include articles posted by people who identify themselves as being linked to the hacktivist collective Anonymous, or related movements such as Antisec or Lulzsec.

Recent posts have included details of attacks on Panda Labs, the Spanish security firm; Stratfor, the US risk analysis firm; and email addresses and passwords belonging to users of the Youporn pornography sites.

In January, users who discovered that feeds from thousands of Trendnet home security cameras could be accessed to spy on their owners posted details of the internet addresses and locations of some of the breached devices on its site.

Pastebin asks its members not to post password lists, source code or personal information.

Mr Vader said he currently received on average a total of 1,200 abuse reports a day via Pastebin's on-site notification system and by email.

"I am looking to hire some extra people soon to monitor more of the website content, not just the items reported," he told the BBC.

"Hopefully this will increase the speed in which we can remove sensitive information."
Blocked users

Mr Vader noted that personal information about himself had been posted to Pastebin, which he "quickly" removed.

He confirmed reports that the site had been blocked in Pakistan and Turkey after material hacked from local databases was published.

However, he said that people in both countries were still finding ways to visit the site, and traffic from the two nations had only fallen by about 50%.

Mr Vader also noted that Pastebin itself is the victim of unidentified hackers.

"In the last three months not a single day has gone by that we didn't get some kind of DDOS [distributed denial of service] attack," he said.

"I do hear from people in the hackers community that many hackers like to test their DDOS skills on Pastebin."

quote:

Global Internet Slowdown: Is Anonymous to Blame?

Anonymous is claiming responsibility for a cyberattack against Chinese websites — one that may also be having an impact on Internet speeds across the world.

Networks in North America, Europe and especially Asia were running at significantly lower speeds Thursday. Asia’s cyber backbone was especially hard hit, seeing packet loss of 33% or more, according to the monitoring website Internet Traffic Report.

Anonymous, a loosely knit group of hackers, took credit for defacing up to 500 Chinese websites Thursday, according to ABC News.

“Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall,” reads a message left on the homepages of attacked sites.

Other messages encouraged Chinese citizens to join a revolution against the Chinese government and left instructions for bypassing Internet filters installed by the Chinese government to prevent citizens from freely accessing the web.

There was no explicit connection between the site defacements and the Asian slowdown. But Anonymous’s attacks also often come in the form of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). Thousands of connections are made to a specific server causing it to crash from an overload of web traffic.

If such an attack is carried out on a massive scale, it can have consequences for Internet speeds across the world.

An eerie, two-word message left on an Anonymous Twitter account seems to back up that theory: “Don’t panic,” with a smiley face emoticon.

quote:

Audiomicro

quote:

Hacked By Anonymous
Lol

AdRev Copyright Trolls Beware! You now have the attention of Anonymous

Under the name AdRev you wrongly claim ownership of audio from other peoples YouTube videos in order to make money fraudulently. This will no longer be tolerated. We consider this your first and final warning.

We are Anonymous
We Are Legion
Expect Us»

quote:

I've been waiting for someone to do a little research on this. Very interesting! It would appear from the leaked logs that team pois0n didn't know that in ^ sane was sabu and they're all unknowingly part of a sting.

Lol at this tweet: @anonymouSabu i think you've just united morons. antisec was supposed to be an ethical imperative of the priestly caste and thats it.

So he's shitting on a member of his team. Can you imagine how hilarious that would be if in pois0n's IRCs MLT goes on a tirade agaist lulzsec/sabu, all the while iN^ SaNe (aka Sabu) has to hold his shit together while going, "yeah what a twat! Let's hax0r him!"

Hackers: backstabbers backstabbing backstabbers.

quote:

Anonymous to launch Operation Cannabis 420 campaign

First Netflix, now the drug war. Anonymous is taking absolutely no prisoners this week.

The hacktivist group has declared a new project: Operation Cannabis 420. The informal Internet collective has declared April 20, a traditional day of observance for those in the marijuana community, as a day of action for all occupiers around the world and will launch a full campaign to educate the masses and (hopefully) end the war on drugs.

A press release put out today (April 9) highlights the myriad of medicinal uses for cannabis, and states, "Cannabis has been oppressed by the powers that be that are afraid of its true benefits, and these benefits do help all of mankind! So cannabis fits the criteria for Anonymous support."

And just what can you do? "We ask that all Anons and individuals please support the legalization efforts in any way possible! Even simply signing a petition or sharing info or even just having an open mind about the subject will help!" The group is also asking people to make their online social-media photos green on April 20 as a show of solidarity.

Anonymous and cannabis. It's like my two favourite things all rolled into one. If I didn't have a calendar, I'd swear it was Christmas.

Anonymous #OpCannabis 420

quote:

Anonymous Leaks Tunisia Prime Minister’s Emails

Anonymous Hackers says it has hacked 2,725 emails belonging to Tunisia's ruling Ennahda party, including those of the prime minister, in the latest challenge to the Islamist-led government. The email addresses of the president, head of the Constituent Assembly, Ennahdha party officials, and other party leaders were disclosed as well as documents from the electoral campaigns.

In a video posted on a Facebook page belonging to Anonymous TN, a hacker wearing the trademark activist "Guy Fawkes" mask, said the emails were released in protest against Ennahda's alleged failure to protect the unemployed and artists who were attacked by Salafi Islamists during a recent protest.

The activist said the emails include phone numbers, bank transactions and invoices paid during Tunisia's election campaign in October, in which Ennahda won more than 40 percent of parliament seats, going on to lead the government.

The Tunisian government seems to think the emails are pretty old, but are investigating if the emails from Jebali are from before or after the election.

Anonymous is pushing against internet censorship in Tunisia, and promised: "To the Tunisian government, we have kept a large part of your data secret. If you do not wish to see these published on the internet we ask you to work to the best of your ability to avoid internet censorship and to respect human rights and the freedom of expression in Tunisia."

quote:

Anonymous wants to take down the Great Firewall of China

Last week, I wrote about how the hacktivist group Anonymous has a new Chinese branch, Anonymous China, which has been very active since it launched its Twitter account on March 30, 2012. The group has hacked and defaced hundreds of Chinese government, company, and other general websites to the point where China even acknowledged the attacks. The hacking has continued against various websites, but even more importantly, the group has declared a new target: the so-called Great Firewall of China.

Since my last two reports, Anonymous China has hacked shangzhi.gov.cn, publicly posting eight user names and passwords on Pastebay. This was soon followed by the hacking of szzfcg.gov.cn, which resulted in the sites full database being leaked and posted to Wikisend. The document was hard to parse, but I could easily see that it included thousands of e-mail addresses, logins, and passwords.

quote:

ACTA-rapporteur raadt omstreden anti-piraterijverdrag afDe Britse socialist David Martin, die namens het Europees Parlement de Handelsovereenkomst ter bestrijding van namaak (ACTA) behandelt, heeft zich vandaag zelf tegen het omstreden anti-piraterijverdrag gekeerd. Hij raadt Europarlementariërs aan om niet met het verdrag in te stemmen.

Dat zei Martin vandaag na afloop van een bijeenkomst van de Progressieve Alliantie van Socialisten en Democraten. Met 184 van de in totaal 736 zetels is dat de op één na grootste fractie in het Europarlement. Volgens Martin verandert het verdrag niets aan de Europese wet, en levert het de Europese Unie te weinig op.

Privégebruik
Zo zou er volgens hem in het verdrag te weinig onderscheid worden gemaakt tussen privé- en commercieel gebruik. En het enige dat het Europa oplevert, is meer samenwerking met enkele andere landen. De voordelen wegen uiteindelijk niet op tegen de nadelen, denkt hij. De ACTA-rapporteur zal daarom in zijn eindverslag aanraden om het verdrag te verwerpen.

ACTA, voluit: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is al aangenomen door de Europese Commissie. Maar naast het Europarlement moeten ook de individuele Eurolanden, waaronder Nederland, er nog mee instemmen. Gebeurt dat niet, dan is het verdrag van de baan.

Onder andere in Nederland is er veel weerstand tegen de wet, die internationale standaarden voor de bescherming van de rechten van producenten van muziek, films, farmaceutica, mode en tal van andere producten probeert te harmoniseren. Tegenstanders noemen het ook wel de 'censuurwet', omdat het de internetvrijheid drastisch zou beperken.

quote:

Two from Team Poison arrested in MI6 hotline phone hack

quote:

Police in the UK have arrested two teens as part of an investigation into illegal recordings of conversations on Scotland Yard’s anti-terror hotline, which were later posted on Youtube. Two teenage boys aged 16 and 17 years have been arrested in the West Midlands in connection with an investigation into reports that hackers accessed Scotland Yard's anti-terror hotline.

quote:

Met Denies Anti-Terrorism Hotline Hacked

quote:

Scotland Yard has denied its computer systems were hacked after a recording emerged of a confidential phone discussion between counter-terrorism officers.

Activists from the Teampoison hacker collective claimed they were able to breach security and make the recording, which was posted on YouTube a few hours later.

It appears to be a recording of officers discussing an earlier attack by Teampoison members.

This earlier attack involved the counter-terrorism hotline being bombarded with prank calls allegedly launched by Teampoison computers.

But a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said: "We are confident the MPS communication systems have not been breached and remain, as they always have been, secure.

quote:

Detonate said: "We did it with ease. Their security is bizarre, it's as if they have no security whatsoever. The security they lack, it's incredible. They use an old phone system. It's pretty much the art of phreaking (phone hacking).

twitter:

OpCensorThis twitterde op vrijdag 13-04-2012 om 07:11:38 All of #TeaMp0isoN is fine! Not v&! Trust us! reageer retweet

quote:

Privacy-protective ISP raises over $43,000 in donations in one day

Privacy may not be quite dead yet: proposal for surveillance-resistant Internet provider, which could become the ACLU's dream and the FBI's nightmare, finds some early fundraising success.

An ambitious effort to launch an Internet service provider designed from its inception to be privacy-protective and surveillance-resistant has raised more than $43,000 in only one day.

A CNET article published yesterday morning profiled Nicholas Merrill, who's raising funds to launch what he calls a national "nonprofit telecommunications provider dedicated to privacy, using ubiquitous encryption" that will sell mobile phone service and, for as little as $20 a month, Internet connectivity.

Merrill, 39, set up a donation page on the Indiegogo crowd funding site a few hours after the article appeared. With the help of an enthusiastic response on Reddit.com, the donations began pouring in. By this evening, donations had reached $43,214 out of a target of $1 million.

"I had no idea that the crowd funding would take off as much as it has in such a short time," Merrill told CNET today. "I hope that people will continue to spread the word and help Calyx reach its funding goal so this plan can come to fruition sooner rather than later."

Merrill also has a donation page on the Web site of the nonprofit he launched, called The Calyx Institute. (He said that Kickstarter "wouldn't accept Calyx as a campaign because it's not a physical product, or arts-related.")

He added: "I am grateful for the outpouring of support which I think clearly demonstrates that there is a vast public demand for privacy-conscious telecommunications companies"

Calyx isn't exactly the first Internet provider to pitch privacy as a business model. C2Net, better known for developing the Apache Web server software, tried a more limited form before being bought by Red Hat in 2000.

But Merrill has a unique qualification: while running a previous Internet service provider, he was the first person to fight back against the Patriot Act's expanded police powers -- and win.

In February 2004, the FBI sent Merrill a secret "national security letter" (not an actual court order signed by a judge) asking for confidential information about his customers and forbidding him from disclosing the letter's existence. He enlisted the ACLU to fight the gag order and won. A federal judge barred the FBI from invoking that portion of the law, saying it was "an "unconstitutional prior restraint of speech in violation of the First Amendment."

Merrill's plan is to resell wireless service, such as 4G WiMax broadband, and add end-to-end encryption for Web browsing and encrypted e-mail. So if the Feds show up with a legal court order -- something that the National Security Agency and FBI don't always do -- he couldn't help even if he wanted to.

"The idea that we are working on is to not be capable of complying," Merrill says.

quote:

News and information about Anonymous hacker groups.

quote:

We warned you to go away. and you posted this? [link]
Your internet is now disconnected, website hacked, and all twitter accounts suspended. email accounts and domain name was stolen, u butthurt?

You better lock your doors bro, we're real people in the real world!

[#] @ihazcandy suspended
[#] @enigmazrr suspended
[#] consternation.us stolen
[#] cnationsec@gmail.com stolen
[#] phone disconnected
[#] IRC shell pure.consternation.us DDOSED off the planet!

p.s we talked to that lovely wife of yours.
She should "Expect Us"

[#] Follow us on Twitter [#]

#TeaMp0isoN
#FreeTriCk
#OWS
#Anonymous
#opRenaissance
#OpMonsanto
#PonyCr3w
@TeaMp0isoN__
@_TeaMp0isoN
@_MLT_
@phantom4life
@_f0rsaken
@aXioM
@d3tonat3

quote:

Op zondag 15 april 2012 15:45 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:
Dat er nog zo veel 'nieuws' over is. Politiek tast nog steeds in het duister. Anonymous leeft op 4chan niet meer zo volgens mij.

twitter:

jack867 twitterde op zondag 15-04-2012 om 16:02:55 @YourAnonNews @CabinCr3w For #TRicK Dutch telecom KPN owned by #Team_h44t33_Anon as well - all #Bioware servers #Anon #Antisec #Anonymous reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 15 april 2012 16:10 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:
Wauw mij lukt het niet om die tweet te ontcijferen hoor

quote:

Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin

Exclusive: Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style 'walled gardens'

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary."

The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of "restrictive" walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.

The 38-year-old billionaire, whose family fled antisemitism in the Soviet Union, was widely regarded as having been the driving force behind Google's partial pullout from China in 2010 over concerns about censorship and cyber-attacks. He said five years ago he did not believe China or any country could effectively restrict the internet for long, but now says he has been proven wrong. "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said.

He said he was most concerned by the efforts of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict use of the internet, but warned that the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and balkanising the web.

"There's a lot to be lost," he said. "For example, all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it."

Brin's criticism of Facebook is likely to be controversial, with the social network approaching an estimated $100bn (£64bn) flotation. Google's upstart rival has seen explosive growth: it has signed up half of Americans with computer access and more than 800 million members worldwide.

Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive," he said. "The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation."

He criticised Facebook for not making it easy for users to switch their data to other services. "Facebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for many years," he said.

Brin's comments come on the first day of a week-long Guardian investigation of the intensifying battle for control of the internet being fought across the globe between governments, companies, military strategists, activists and hackers.

From the attempts made by Hollywood to push through legislation allowing pirate websites to be shut down, to the British government's plans to monitor social media and web use, the ethos of openness championed by the pioneers of the internet and worldwide web is being challenged on a number of fronts.

In China, which now has more internet users than any other country, the government recently introduced new "real identity" rules in a bid to tame the boisterous microblogging scene. In Russia, there are powerful calls to rein in a blogosphere blamed for fomenting a wave of anti-Vladimir Putin protests. It has been reported that Iran is planning to introduce a sealed "national internet" from this summer.

Ricken Patel, co-founder of Avaaz, the 14 million-strong online activist network which has been providing communication equipment and training to Syrian activists, echoed Brin's warning: "We've seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realising the power of this medium to organise people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we're seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world."

Writing in the Guardian on Monday, outspoken Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei says the Chinese government's attempts to control the internet will ultimately be doomed to failure. "In the long run," he says, "they must understand it's not possible for them to control the internet unless they shut it off – and they can't live with the consequences of that."

Amid mounting concern over the militarisation of the internet and claims – denied by Beijing – that China has mounted numerous cyber-attacks on US military and corporate targets, he said it would be hugely difficult for any government to defend its online "territory".

"If you compare the internet to the physical world, there really aren't any walls between countries," he said. "If Canada wanted to send tanks into the US there is nothing stopping them and it's the same on the internet. It's hopeless to try to control the internet."

He reserved his harshest words for the entertainment industry, which he said was "shooting itself in the foot, or maybe worse than in the foot" by lobbying for legislation to block sites offering pirate material.

He said the Sopa and Pipa bills championed by the film and music industries would have led to the US using the same technology and approach it criticised China and Iran for using. The entertainment industry failed to appreciate people would continue to download pirated content as long as it was easier to acquire and use than legitimately obtained material, he said.

"I haven't tried it for many years but when you go on a pirate website, you choose what you like; it downloads to the device of your choice and it will just work – and then when you have to jump through all these hoops [to buy legitimate content], the walls created are disincentives for people to buy," he said.

Brin acknowledged that some people were anxious about the amount of their data that was now in the reach of US authorities because it sits on Google's servers. He said the company was periodically forced to hand over data and sometimes prevented by legal restrictions from even notifying users that it had done so.

He said: "We push back a lot; we are able to turn down a lot of these requests. We do everything possible to protect the data. If we could wave a magic wand and not be subject to US law, that would be great. If we could be in some magical jurisdiction that everyone in the world trusted, that would be great … We're doing it as well as can be done."

quote:

The Guardian: Battle for the Internet.

Over seven days

the Guardian is taking stock of the new battlegrounds for the internet. From states stifling dissent, to the new cyberwar front line, we look at the challenges facing the dream of an open internet

quote:

Op zondag 15 april 2012 16:12 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Er was wat gedoe rond TeaMp0ison, 1 van de leden, Trick, zou gearresteerd zijn en dit zou een wraakactie kunnen zijn.

quote:

TeaMp0isoN Retaliation
By: a guest on Apr 15th, 2012 | syntax: None | size: 2.29 KB | hits: 236 | expires: Never
download | raw | embed | report abuse

_____ __ __ ___ _ _ _
|_ _|___ __ _| \/ |_ __ / _ \(_)___ ___ | \ | |
| | / _ \/ _` | |\/| | '_ \| | | | / __|/ _ \| \| |
| || __/ (_| | | | | |_) | |_| | \__ \ (_) | |\ |
|_| \___|\__,_|_| |_| .__/ \___/|_|___/\___/|_| \_|
@TeaMp0isoN__ |_|[irc.tsukihi.me #retaliation]

.: TriCk - f0rsaken - MLT - Phantom - aXioM - d3tonate - 2Root - iN^SaNe - vetr0 :.

We've lost the first and most important member of our team; our founder, our brother, our family member. Most importantly we lost a fighter for freedom, a fighter against corruption.

He strived for justice, and constantly fought against oppression and corruption, to help spread awareness on humanitarian causes, and now, he is no longer with us.

Most of you think that this is end of TeaMp0isoN and that this is end of our fight.
We're glad to shout:
#################################
#_ITS NOT OVER, IT JUST STARTED_#
#_ITS NOT OVER, WE ARE STRONGER_#
#_ITS NOT OVER, WE ARE UNITED_ #
#################################

I ask you, a fellow hacker, as a blackhat, to rise, to unite and to fight. For years the hacking scene for the most part has been misrepresented by skids, who have inevitably led to the copious amounts of faggotry and butthurt which currently pollutes the scene. Whitehats continue to lurk and grow, and nothing is preventing them from disclosing exploits.

As a collective we have to stop this, to ascend out of the underground and show the world we are not fucking around, something which TriCk firmly believed in. We, as hackers, have to unite to revive the blackhat scene, for TriCk... and everything that we stand for.

Do you support TeaMp0isoN? Help out via:
irc.tsukihi.me
#retaliation

-----------------------------------------
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf skids/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf whitehats/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf governments/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf justicesystem/*
root@TeaMp0isoN:~# rm -rf police/*
-----------------------------------------

Blend in.
Get trusted.
Trust no one.
Own everyone.
Disclose nothing.
Destroy everything.
Take back the scene.
Never sell out, never surrender.
Get in as anonymous, leave with no trace.

TL;DR Blackhats unite, fuck some shit up, in the name of TriCk.

quote:

Ricken Patel on the freedom of the web: 'We need to move from the defensive to the offensive'

quote:

Co-founder of Avaaz Ricken Patel talks to Ian Katz about the rise of attacks on the freedom of the internet from governments and corporations, and about the campaign to defend it. He says that citizens need to come together to create a charter or global treaty to secure the future of the web

twitter:

PLF2012 twitterde op dinsdag 17-04-2012 om 21:45:26 The PLF & Anonymous proudly bring you a "no logs" & server side encrypted alternative to PasteBin | AnonPaste - http://t.co/BePbFhWk | :-) reageer retweet

quote:

AnonPaste is based on the open source ZeroBin software. It is a minimalist, opensource online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. Data is encrypted/decrypted in the browser using 256 bits AES. More information on the project page.

quote:

Wereldwijde storing Gmail

quote:

Cyberaanval treft 275.000 klanten XS4ALL

quote:

50 MB aan tweets, adressen en al je nummers. Dit is wat Twitter van je weet

quote:

What does Twitter know about me?, luidt de titel van haar geruchtmakende stukje. Ze vroeg al haar persoonlijke gegevens op bij het sociale netwerk, waar ze volgens de Europese Privacyrichtlijn recht op heeft. Na drie weken ontving ze keurig antwoord in de vorm van een enorme .zip-file. Met de nadruk op enorme: het bestand was bijna 50 MB.

Niet alleen de gegevens van Anne zelf (al haar tweets inclusief ID-nummer, haar logins vanaf 1 februari 2012 met IP-adressen en al haar Direct Messages) stonden in het bestand, maar ook meer dan 1000 e-mailadressen en 150 telefoonnummers van Anne’s contacten. Verkregen uit haar adresboek, toen ze de find friends optie gebruikte.

quote:

Technologie internetcensuur onder de loep

Het Europees Parlement wil het moeilijker maken om technologie te exporteren waarmee regeringen internet kunnen censureren of zelfs blokkeren. Er moeten regels komen voor bedrijven die geld verdienen met internetcensuur. Het Europarlement roept de Europese Commissie op in 2013 met voorstellen te komen en nam daartoe vandaag een resolutie aan.

De oproep komt naar aanleiding van de succesvolle rol van internet en sociale media bij de Arabische Lente. D66-Europarlementariër Marietje Schaake is blij met de oproep. 'We hebben duidelijke regels nodig over welke technologieën Europese bedrijven wel en niet mogen exporteren. Sommige technieken zijn niets minder dan 'digitale wapens' en worden zelfs speciaal gemaakt om mensenrechten te schenden.'

'Er is een race gaande tussen diegenen die nieuwe media inzetten voor vrijheidsdoeleinden en diegenen die ze inzetten voor onderdrukking', aldus een Britse Europarlementariër. Hij hekelde de acties van telecomgigant Vodafone die op verzoek van het voormalige Egyptische regime zijn diensten in het land staakte slechts enkele weken voor de revolutie in het Noord-Afrikaanse land

quote:

'Blokkades zijn riskant voor het stabiel functioneren van internet: straks zitten wij met de brokken'

Een digitale flitspaal is een veel betere oplossing tegen het uploaden van films dan het blokkeren van The Pirate Bay. De initiatiefnemers van Steunfonds Open en Stabiel Internet roepen op de blokkade morgen in de rechtszaal niet uit te breiden naar alle grote ISPs.

Sinds 1 februari moeten de Internetproviders Ziggo en XS4ALL van de rechter The Pirate Bay blokkeren en heeft de stichting BREIN een carte blanche om de blokkadelijst aan te vullen in een, naar het zich inmiddels laat aanzien, eindeloos kat-en-muis spel.

Zulke ad-hoc blokkades bij de providers zijn erg riskant voor het stabiel functioneren van Internet. In Denemarken bestaat al enige tijd zo'n blokkadesysteem. Eind februari werd op de verkeerde knop gedrukt en gingen er 8000 sites uit de lucht, waaronder zoekmachines, sociale netwerken en belangrijke publieke informatiebronnen. Straks zitten wij, de gebruikers, bedrijven en de BV Nederland, met de brokken.

Nutteloos
Een blokkade helpt niet tegen auteursrechtinbreuk met filesharing-programma's. BREIN stelde van wel en de rechter gaf BREIN het voordeel van de twijfel. De effectiviteit was in Nederland niet aantoonbaar voordat deze blokkade in werking trad. Met een nu herhaalde meting wel. Afgelopen vrijdag is door de Universiteit van Amsterdam bekendgemaakt dat er geen significante daling is gevonden door de blokkades bij Ziggo en XS4ALL. Blokkeren blijkt inderdaad nutteloos.

BREIN wil deze blokkade uitbreiden naar alle grote ISPs en voert daartoe op 19 april een Kort Geding. Een belangrijk argument van BREIN is dat een blokkade bij de Internetproviders het laatste redmiddel is voor auteursrechthebbenden en daarmee proportioneel. Dit verrast. Werkelijk iedereen is het erover eens dat blokkeren (of beter nog, verwijderen) bij de bron de beste maatregel is. Maar met het blokkeren van The Pirate Bay wordt auteursrechtinbreuk niet verminderd, want de verwijsindex die ze tonen is zelf niet de bron van de inbreuk. En er bestaan wel degelijk andere doelgerichte alternatieven.

Bij het gebruik van fileshare-software wordt de daadwerkelijke inbreuk gepleegd door de eindgebruikers zelf: zij zijn het die via hun upload het materiaal aanbieden. Stoppen van auteursrechtinbreuk is alleen mogelijk als eindgebruikers meewerken. Óf vrijwillig, door alleen gebruik te maken van legale diensten, óf onvrijwillig, door bestraft te worden voor gebruik van niet-legale alternatieven. We snappen natuurlijk best dat tot nu toe zowel politici als auteursrechthebbenden er niet happig op zijn hun kiezers en klanten aan te pakken. Maar dat is echt het enige dat werkelijk effect heeft. Het collectieve struisvogelgedrag moet stoppen in het belang van een open en stabiel internet.

Combinatie
Het aanpakken bij de bron kan: we schetsen enkele van de vele mogelijkheden. Combinatie werkt wordt nog doelgerichter.

UvA onderzoekers hebben meet-software vrij beschikbaar gesteld die met grote regelmaat 'foto's' kan maken van de situatie rond uitwisselingsverkeer op het Nederlandse internet. De software kijkt alleen naar degenen die daadwerkelijk betrokken zijn bij uploaden en vermijdt daarmee overige internetters onder constante bewaking te zetten. Dit kan goed gebruikt worden om 'veelplegers' op te sporen, zonder ongewenste neveneffecten voor de privacy en communicatievrijheid.

Daarmee is in feite een 'Digitale Flitspaal'ontstaan. Zoals boetes voor snelheidsovertredingen op de deurmat belanden via de Kentekenregistratie, zo zouden ook boetes aan uploaders uitgedeeld kunnen worden. Iedere internetverbinding heeft namelijk zijn eigen 'kenteken', het Internetadres. Internetproviders zijn wettelijk verplicht die te registreren bij het CIOT, een centrale overheidsdatabank die de Internetadressen koppelt aan naam, adres en woonplaatsgegevens. Daarmee is in analogie met de 'Wet Mulder' voor snelheidsovertredingen een transparant en controleerbaar boete-incassosysteem op te zetten voor auteursrechtinbreuk.

Daarnaast kan ook een systeem opgezet worden waarbij een gebruiker die veelvuldig auteursrechtinbreuk pleegt, eerst een waarschuwing krijgt per e-mail voordat daadwerkelijk tot individuele (boete-) heffing wordt overgegaan. Vergelijk het met de waarschuwingen voor flitspalen op een TomTom. De internetprovider vervult hierbij zijn normale rol van doorgeefluik, waarbij hij als extra voorziening de identiteit van zijn klanten afschermt.

Tot slot kan de invoering van een downloadheffing overwogen worden. Oftewel: legalisatie van digitaal kopiëren op beperkte schaal in huiselijke kring, als uitbreiding van de thuiskopieerheffing. Een bedrag afhankelijk van de aard en capaciteit van de internetverbinding, zoals wegenbelasting. Het totaalbedrag wordt vervolgens op de gebruikelijke wijze via auteursrechtenorganisaties verdeeld onder de rechthebbenden.

Riskant
De nu opgeëiste blokkades als laatste redmiddel bestempelen gaat veel te ver: het blijkt niet effectief, er zijn riskante neveneffecten en er zijn betere alternatieven. Maar ook het downloadverbod van Staatssecretaris Teeven sneuvelde in de Tweede Kamer. Stagnatie en onnodige juridische procedures domineren.

Steunfonds Open en Stabiel Internet zal daarom een publiek debat organiseren waarin alle betrokkenen, internetproviders, auteursrechthebbenden, maar nu ook de gebruikers, bedrijven, politiek en overheid samen tot een afgewogen en beheersbaar systeem kunnen komen, dat maximaal recht doet aan alle belangen.

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 21:59:10 bumastemra.nl #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

twitter:

digital_human twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:07:11 "#OpAap: Tango down sena.nl @DwayneV1x #Anonymous #SaveTPB" i dont support dd05 but for this i make an exception. Pewpew reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:02:30 nvbinfocentrum.nl #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:01:48 nver.info #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op woensdag 18-04-2012 om 22:17:52 filmdistributeurs.nl #DOWN | #OpAap | #Anonymous #Netherlands reageer retweet

Knife Party - Destroy Them With Lazers

quote:

Operation AAP

quote:

*****Operation AAP (Against Anti-Piracy) #OpAap on twitter*****
18th of april, 20.00 GMT

Hello world,

In the Netherlands, as you might know, we have an organisation called 'Stichting Brein'.
A organisation says they defend copyright of artists, but they are censoring the internet in the Netherlands.
at january the 11th, 2012, the dutch providers Ziggo and XS4ALL already blocked our lovely piratebay.com because the judge told them to after a case with Stichting Brein. many TPB mirrors have been blocked too!
At the 19th of April, 2012, Brein goes to the judge again, to get The pirate bay blocked for all other dutch providers like tele2.

We can't just stay looking at this, while Brein is censoring internet in a country as the Netherlands that should be free!

So I'm calling in your help! share this message with everyone you know!
In a week, at the 18th of april, a day before the decision, at 20:00 GMT (21:00 dutch time) ,we will unleash hell to Stichting Brein, and let them know that they should have expected us!

Help all the people of the Netherlands in a war against censorship, we can't do it all alone!
Let the DDoS beast attack!

@CHARGE YA LAZ0RS!

IMPORTANT ONES HERE!
Sites that help and sponsor Brein:
1. http://www.bumastemra.nl ---- > Ip: 87.236.98.212
Tel: 023 - 799 79 99
fax: 023 - 799 77 77
Bas Erlings
tel: 023-799 76 90
mobile: 06-526 76 035

2. http://www.sena.nl ---- > Ip: 130.117.73.211
Fax: 035 628 09 71
Tel: 035 625 17 00

3. http://www.nvpi.nl ---- > Ip: 109.71.48.125
tel: 035-625 44 11
fax: 035-625 44 10

4. http://www.filmdistributeurs.nl ----> Ip: 193.67.128.73
Tel: 020–386 86 30
Fax: 020–386 86 31

5. http://www.nvbinfocentrum.nl ---- > Ip: 93.187.8.15
tel: 020-42 66 100
fax: 020-42 66 115

6. http://www.videma.nl ---- > Ip: 217.149.72.146
tel: 0183-583 000
fax: 0183-583 090

7. http://www.nver.info ---- > Ip: 83.149.121.142
Tel: +31 (0) 35 672 90 90
Fax: +31 (0) 35 672 90 99

8. http://www.nuv.nl ---- > Ip: 92.52.84.14
Tel: 0031 (0)20 - 430 91 50
Fax: 0031 (0)20 – 430 91 99

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, Brein themselves!:
9. -------> www.anti-piracy.nl <------ ------> IP: 94.75.218.97 <------
Tel: (023) 799 78 70
Fax: (023) 799 77 20

SOME PERSONAL PHONE NUMBERS AND NAMES OF PEOPLE THAT WORKS/WORKED FOR SENA (SECOND WEBSITE TO ATTACK):

Eduardus Hermannus Theresia Maria (Ed) Nijpels - Chairman, (VVD member).
+031(0)623916333
---------------------
Koert Pouwel Ligtermoet - Vice Chairmen, (ex)boardmember of BREIN.
+031(0)622395869
-----------------
Erwin Radjinder Angad-Gaur - Member, (D66 member) general secretary at Ntb and member of PALM
+031(0)651180903
--------------------
Peter Boertje - Member, (VVD member), Associated with Casual Solution BV & Essential Dance Music BV
+31(0)786848788
--------------------
A.C.M (Bert) Ruiter - Member, also Member of BSO/BSA (Buma/Stemra-related) and member of PALM, Freelance musician/composer
+31(0)355316209
--------------------
Eva Anna Grietje (Eva) Kamer-Führen - Chief financial officer, chemist-entrepreneur
+31(0)356248229
--------------------
Johannes Adrianus Petrus Maria (JOhannes/Hans) Van Berkel - (ex)CEO, Treasurer at VOI©E, Executive Chairman at KOBALT NEIGHBOURING RIGHTS LIMITED
+31(0)356473157
--------------------
Cees J.J. van Steijn - Interim Director, worked for Amsterdam RAI B.V., Newconomy N.V., Landis ICT Group N.V., NOB N.V., Veronica, Priority Telecom N.V. , Blue Fox Enterprises N.V, Econcern
+31(0)650691920
--------------------
Tom Peters - Member, CEO at NRGY Music, composer and producer.
+31(0)356246161
--------------------
Simone Vierstra - Member, CEO at Fit2Play, Violinist
+31(0)644770539
--------------------
John J.P. van Leeuwarden - Member, Aka Johhny Lion, Singer, Actor, Journalist
+31(0)765871594
--------------------
Annemarieke Schulte - Member, Lawyer (including lawyer of Ntb)
+31(0)614315810
--------------------
Michiel A.B. Steenhuis-Daalhuizen - Member, Laywer, CEO Law Firm Steenhuis and CEO Rattle Records
+31(0)648102343
--------------------
Anne de Jong - Member, CEO at Challenge Records International B.V., Knockwood B.V. and Alex Merck Music B.V.
+31(0)337676110
--------------------
Berry van Sandwijk - Member, CEO at Sony Music Entertainment Netherlands B.V., also worked for EMI Music
+031(0)356298298
--------------------
Maykel M.G.J. Piron - Member, CEO at Soundpiercing Music B.V. (part of Armada Music B.v.)
+031(0)655897507
--------------------

Only if possible!:
www.twitter.com/TimKuik (owner)
www.twitter.com/Stichtingbrein (official twitter account)

HELP THE NETHERLANDS!

We are the 99 %

We are united by one, divided by zero,
We are Anonymous,
We are legion,
We do not forgive,
We do not forget,
Brein should have expected us!

Someone from #AntiSecNL

twitter:

AnonymousCenter twitterde op donderdag 19-04-2012 om 04:12:38 #Anonymous is now officially one of the 100 most influential people/ideas of the world. | #Time #Anonymous reageer retweet

quote:

Brein: mogelijk 'zwaardere maatregelen' tegen providers

quote:

Als een bokkade van de populaire downloadsite The Pirate Bay niet werkt, zal auteursrechtenorganisatie Brein 'zwaardere maatregelen' tegen internetproviders overwegen. Dat zei advocaat Joris van Manen namens Brein tijdens het kort geding tegen KPN, UPC, T-Mobile en Tele2, dat vandaag in de Haagse rechtbank dient. Om wat voor maatregelen het dan zou gaan, werd niet duidelijk.

Brein eist dat de internetproviders de populaire downloadsite The Pirate Bay blokkeren. Volgens Brein gaat het om de 'grootste auteursrechtinbreuk in de geschiedenis van de mensheid.'

quote:

In januari wist Brein een blokkade van The Pirate Bay al via een uitgebreide bodemprocedure bij Ziggo en XS4ALL af te dwingen. Volgens de auteursrechtenorganisatie is er daarom geen reden om dat niet ook van andere providers te verlangen. Brein hoopt dat dat vandaag bij de rechter in Den Haag lukt.

Effect
Maar in de tussentijd zijn er vragen gerezen over het vonnis uit januari. Zo zou de rechtbank fouten hebben gemaakt bij de interpretatie van cijfers van het aantal klanten van de providers die van The Pirate Bay gebruik maken. En onderzoekers van de UvA meldden onlangs dat de blokkade van de site nauwelijks effect sorteert.

Rond de twintig procent van de abonnees van de gedaagde providers maakt volgens Brein gebruik van The Pirate Bay. Brein baseert die gegevens op metingen van Alexa en Google AdPlanner. Brein bestrijdt ook dat de blokkade geen effect zou hebben. Er zouden inmiddels al bijna 250.000 mensen last van de blokkade hebben gekregen. Mocht desondanks blijken dat de blokkade niet werkt, dan liggen 'zwaardere maatregelen' binnen de mogelijkheden, aldus Van Manen, zonder te vermelden wat die maatregelen zouden kunnen zijn.

Momenteel zijn de providers bezig met hun verweer.

quote:

The online copyright war: the day the internet hit back at big media

quote:

In this seemingly never-ending battle, 18 January 2012 was a defining date, a day when the internet hit back. Mike Masnick, founder of TechDirt and one of Silicon Valley's most well-connected bloggers, remembers running through the corridors of the Senate in Washington, laptop open, desperately trying to find a Wi-Fi signal.

Around him was chaos. Amid a cacophony of phones, political interns were struggling to keep up with the calls and emails from angry people across the US and the world claiming Hollywood-backed legislation was about to break the internet and end its open culture forever. In an unprecedented day of action, Wikipedia and Reddit, a social news website, had gone offline in a protest organised by their communities of editors, and backed by thousands of other sites, large and small. Google had blacked out its logo in protest. Students around the world were bitching on Twitter that they couldn't get their homework done without Wikipedia. Even Kim Kardashian came out swinging.

One senator's office that Masnick visited calculated they had taken 3,000 calls. Within hours of the unprecedented assault, Sopa, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was dead and a sister act, Pipa, a neat acronym for the tortuously titled Protect IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) was sunk too. In Europe, the action buoyed up opponents of Acta, the US-backed international copyright treaty that has sparked protests across the continent. Countries including Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia have all refused to sign, arguing that Acta endangers freedom of speech and privacy, and the bill has stalled. But for how long? "The industry has this down cold," Masnick says. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Valenti's old stomping ground and one of the most powerful lobbying bodies in Washington, has emerged bruised from the battle, but few doubt it will rally.

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

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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

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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."

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The cyber misinformation campaign against USA Today

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

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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.

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‘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.”

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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

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Spain Wants To Criminalise Online Organisation Of Social Protest

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Former spy chief warns over watching social networks

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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."

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

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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.

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Copyright Lobby Hires Pro-ACTA Demonstators

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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.

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How the National Security Agency has gone rogue

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

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Anonymous Launches Their Own Music Streaming Service

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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

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IRL action: Anonymous takes to the streets to protest CISPA

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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.

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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

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Microsoft backs away from CISPA support, citing privacy

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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."

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Financial (Secret) Services

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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.

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How Call of Duty Is Making Anonymous "the Enemy"

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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.

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Commander X To Donate Book Royalties To Anonymous

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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