Anonops #12: Spy on the Spyers

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Op vrijdag 9 maart 2012 18:17 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:


Norton Antivirus all Platforms source code leaks to public

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

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Curiosity Pwned the Cat

At the beginning of this week just hours before the news of Hector Monsegur’s arrest broke, many of you will have noticed that my twitter profile pic changed from the usual ‘Jester Mask’ to a QR-Code. The timing of this subtle change could not have been more favorable, as interest peaked with the news of @anonymousabu’s demise visits to my twitter profile rocketed. For posterity here’s a grab of said QR-Code:


Up until 30 minutes ago, anyone who scanned the QR-Code using their mobile device was taken to a jolly little greeting via their devices default browser hosted on some free webspace (I have since replaced all QR-Codes in the interests of opsec to point to the end of the internet website). The greeting featured my original profile pic and the word ‘BOO!‘ directly below it as per the screen grab below:


So whats up with that?

Well, the thing about QR-Codes is 99% of the time they will be accessed via a mobile device, and 99% of those will be iPhone or Android devices. This gives me a known and narrow vector to exploit.

Now before you all start freaking out it was a highly targeted and precise attack, against known bad guys, randoms were left totally unscathed. Allow me to explain further……

Embedded inside the webpage with the ‘BOO’ greeting was some UTF encrypted javascript, (I used this site to encrypt it) inside which was some code execution shellcode. When anyone hit the page the shellcode executed. The shellcode was a modified and updated version of the use-after-free remote code execution CVE-2010-1807, a known exploit for Webkit, which facilitated a reverse TCP shell connection to a ‘remote server’ which had an instance of netcat listening on port 37337.

I was going to leave it like this for a full week, however a keen eyed tweep going by the moniker @rootdial spotted the embedded code and asked about it via twitter (he wasn’t being malicious, just wondered if I knew about it.)

Webkit is an SDK component part used in both Safari for iPhone and also Chrome for Android.

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A Long Time Ago, On an Imageboard Far, Far Away....

The idea of Anonymous is simple—freedom of speech and expression. Tracing the concept is a more complicated task. The embers started to glow on various imageboards. These were websites where people could post images and have discussion. No names were used and no registration was needed. There were no rules, only guidelines. Everyone was anonymous to everyone else. Some posts would grow and memes would form, while others would fade away and die, never to be heard from again. It is this open exchange of information that allowed ideas to flourish. You were no one, yet at the same time you were everyone. The only thing that mattered were the ideas.

When you’re allowed to have a name, it takes the focus away from the content itself and puts the focus on you as the creator of that content.

The users of these boards, united together by their views and thoughts, formed the first entity that can be called Anonymous. You have to understand the motivation behind what attracted people to imageboards like these, in order to understand the motivation of the current day Anonymous. Without a check on free speech, people could say and post whatever they wanted. This free marketplace of ideas grew and prospered as more and more people started posting and discussing topics openly. Soon the sense of "anonymous" was born. The idea that you don't have to be someone to be anyone.

It's anarchy at its most vibrant core.

Not a group, but a brand. Not a club, but a franchise. Just a group of people that have the same ideas. When they come together in a united cause...

Read more: http://null-byte.wonderho(...)33700/#ixzz1oj2QynOW

twitter:

torservers twitterde op zaterdag 10-03-2012 om 15:56:26 Monday is World Day Against Internet Censorship and comes with a great announcement. reageer retweet

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Swedish Anonymous activists embark on bold trip to Syria

Activists within the Anonymous culture in Sweden headed to Syria this week amidst the chaos and inhumanity to bring much needed medical supplies and equipment to help the victims of the fragmented country.

#OpTripToSyria started trending on Twitter on Feb. 9 and has been gathering worldwide support very quickly. Supporters of the operation have had the chance to donate to the cause through a link on the triptosyria.wordpress.com web site the anons have established.

For nearly a year, constant protests have been flooding Syria's streets as citizens continue to relentlessly pressure current President Bashar al-Assad to step down. The protests have been hit with violence at the hands of al-Assad's military force. According to the UN, the conflict has claimed more than 7,500 lives.

Motivation for Anonymous's humanitarian mission to Syria had come from various factors, but most notably due to the attacks on the city of Homs.

“I think I had enough when I saw all the tweets from the Swedish activists @SyrienNyheter or more specifically of the babies who died when Assad's militia shut off the power to several incubators,” said an anon who currently goes by the handle TTS.

TTS also related a common creed of the Anonymous culture: that people shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.

Anonymous donations have come from all over the world and more than 50 people have contributed. “Donations have come from Swedes, Europeans, Asians, Russians, Americans – you name it,” said TTS.

As of March 4, the anons had raised $2,257 US that they will use to purchase the medical supplies they will be bringing. The supplies will include medical kits, water purification tablets, washcloths and antibiotics and painkillers.

Many followers of the twitter account @TriptoSyria have expressed concern about the safety of the individuals who are embarking on the trip.

“There are a lot of concerns that things might go wrong; we could be killed, captured, arrested or robbed, but we can only aim for success," said TTS. "Hopefully, our actions will inspire other people to do the same thing. Risking everything for what we believe is the right thing to do. And we know that our operation will have some kind of impact whatever happens.”

The team of activists is also well trained. Some of them have gone through military training, and have experience in first aid, trauma handling and CPR. However, they have emphasized that the mission is strictly non-violent.

This mission is still a bold endeavour as the United States and other Western embassies have suspended their actions in Syria, due to the elevated security risk.

On the international scale, Russia and China, two countries that initially vetoed the military intervention, seem to be waning in their support of Assad's regime. Both countries have decried the violence in Syria and have dispatched diplomats to the region this week. Victims of conflict in Syria can only hope that this will help bring direct action from the international community to end the loss of innocents.

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Op zaterdag 10 maart 2012 18:06 schreef Ebbao het volgende:

[..]

Ik weet niet of ik op je link wil klikken na het lezen van deze intro..

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Something Stinks in the Story of Sabu

SPOILER

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

Apparently it has not occurred to anyone that all information in the case of Sabu and the LulzSec arrests, originates from either the FBI itself, or Fox News (through some kind of ‘inside source’). Think about this for a second. What was the law enforcement organization that Anons appear to almost universally hate? The FBI. What was the news outlet known for it’s shoddy reporting and unreliable reports, despised by many Anons? Fox News.

Is it really a good idea to blindly trust information coming from these two, at best questionable, sources? Does anyone really believe that “Fox News would never make this up” or “the FBI would never issue false documents”? There does not seem to be any information whatsoever from any source other than these two, so is it really a good idea to assume the ‘official story’ is what happened?

Yet, never before have Anons and other internet creatures been seen so quickly turning on someone they idolized only days before. The #FuckSabu hashtag is widely used, people are calling for the release of all Anons ‘except for Sabu’, articles are being written detailing how he personally ratted out LulzSec, lured Anons into traps, and in the meantime killed kittens erryday.

Really, guys?

For another interesting turn of the plot: does anyone remember how Sabu was initially ‘doxed’? According to this Ars Technica article, his personal information was found when his WHOIS protection dropped after renewing the prvt.org domain, which was known to belong to Sabu.

Wait a second. Who owns Domains By Proxy?

Yes, Domains By Proxy, the WHOIS protection service used by Sabu, is part of GoDaddy. Remember how GoDaddy spoke out in support of SOPA, and was caught in backfire from ‘the internet’? Remember how they have a history of shutting down controversial domains? Remember how they are in US jurisdiction and appear to consider US law enforcement to be important, no matter how bad it may turn out for other people?

Hey, wait a second, GoDaddy has of course always had Sabu’s contact information on file, despite the WHOIS protection! Yet it’s claimed that Sabu was found because he connected to an Anonymous-related IRC network without using appropriate protection – a claim that, considering Sabu’s IRC habits, sounds quite unrealistic.

Something to think about.

Update: Peter Bright from Ars Technica clarified that the WHOIS exposure was not the source for the initial doxing of Sabu. This does not change the above conclusion that GoDaddy has always had Sabu’s contact details (even before the exposure), but it is still worth pointing out.

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Hacker: The FBI Used Our “Dox” to Arrest Sabu (Exclusive)

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A large part of the hacking community was shocked earlier this week to find out that one of the more vocal supporters of the Anonymous movement, Sabu, had been working with the FBI ever since the summer of 2011 when he was arrested.

Few internauts expected that Sabu, now known as Hector Xavier Montsegur from New York, would rat out so many hackers. However, there were some of them, such as the members of the respected TeaMp0isoN group who suspected that something was out of place with the LulzSec crew and this Sabu character.

As a result, in June 2011, TeaMp0isoN made public the true identities of the members of the LulzSec gang. At the time no one gave the incident much attention, because there was a lot of doxing going on and due to the large quantity of incorrect information many of the releases were simply ignored.

While many ignored this release, federal authorities took it very seriously, which ultimately led to the arrest of Sabu and the rest of the story as we know it.

The FBI and other involved law enforcement agencies would have a hard time admitting to have used the data provided by the hackers, but a former TeaMp0isoN member came forward with details that prove how they were able to identify the LulzSecs and how the government got into the possession of that information.

[interview]

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LulzSec's Sabu: 'ask me about the CIA'

When the Guardian spoke to the hacker last year, he was keen to discuss claims he worked for the authorities

Last July the Guardian was investigating the elusive, mysterious individuals behind LulzSec and Anonymous – the loose hacker groups who had suddenly become front page news, as they led a wave of cyber attacks against a range major corporations and law enforcement. One individual, or one hacker name, stood out: Sabu, a proflic hacker often referred to as the leader of the groups.

Getting to Sabu was not easy; he was well aware of the illegal nature of his activities. But that month, the Guardian had a stroke of luck. Sabu objected violently to a piece we had carried, examining – and shooting down – allegations from a rival pro-US hacker that Sabu was using Anonymous and Lulzsec to push an extreme Islamic agenda.

He asked me to join him in an off-the-record internet chat – a conversation that happened seven weeks after Sabu, now unmasked as Hector Xavier Monsegur, had already been picked up by the FBI.

Given the latest revelations about Sabu's activities, that he worked as an informer from after his arrest on 7 June until just a few days ago, I think it is appropriate to publish a few extracts from our conversation.

Sabu – and we cannot even be sure that our correspondant was the real Monsegur and not a US agent – was not representing himself accurately to the newspaper. If anything, he was testing the Guardian out, openly flirting with the notion that he worked for the CIA – and then inviting me to knock him down.

Less than three weeks later, Monsegur pleaded guilty to 12 counts relating to computer hacking in secret, which carry a maximum sentence of 124 years and six months. But there is no sign in the logs of a man under pressure.

Sabu began by denouncing the Guardian's publication of the vague allegations of the supposed Islamic links of the hacker community. Then he switched tack, asking why the paper hadn't published rumours linking him to the CIA, arguing that would amount to an equivalent and equally inaccurate allegation. Given what we know now, the swerve is particularly noteworthy.

In case it is not obvious, my online name is <jamesrbuk>.

<SABU> OK. I'm waiting for the article discussing the potential of me being the leader of a CIA blackops operation and me denying it.

<SABU> can we work on it now?

<SABU> I'll begin my message

<SABU> <jamesrbuk> : I thank you for brining up this serious allegation but I deny being part of the CIA or any black operations unit/organization.

<SABU> I am an activist and security researcher. Not a CIA operative

Moments later, I strayed even closer to what had become Sabu's emerging double life (remember, the indictments released yesterday refer to Monsegur only being a member of Anonymous until 7 June 2011, the day of his arrest). I linked a recent Guardian story – unaware of any ironies – suggesting the FBI had managed to recruit a full quarter of all US hackers as informants:

<SABU> The CIA has done more blackops and terror operations than al-qaeda could ever do

<SABU> so, lets be realistic

<jamesrbuk> Something we covered: http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)hackers-fbi-informer

<SABU> That has literally nothing to do with what I'm talking about

<SABU> and I must say if your article is correct - the FBI is doin a very bad job at recruiting informants.

<jamesrbuk> Well, you were mentioning CIA blackops/etc. It's related.

<SABU> No it is not

At the time, I was bemused if not baffled by our exchange – and totally unable to see any motivation for Sabu's keenness that we start publishing what seemed to amount to little more than conspiracy theories about the operations of Anonymous and Lulzsec.

With hindsight, I wonder whether Sabu was trying in some way to set out a warning, or red flag to other hackers. Or perhaps he was goading me to see if I actually believed he might be a turncoat. Either way, these were signals I missed at that the time.

My other thought, looking back on the logs, is whether Sabu was thinking aloud as to why he was being asked to become an FBI informant rather than being publicly prosecuted. Here's more; here Sabu says some are claiming he had been working "with the CIA" although having closely followed the debate at the time this is not an allegation I can recall having seen aired:

<SABU> When can I expect an article discussing the idea of me being with the CIA and my denial?

<SABU> I'm eager to see this happen.

<jamesrbuk> So I see. May I ask why?

<SABU> Hmm...? is it not obvious?

<jamesrbuk> Not totally. And I'd prefer to hear rather than jump to wrong conclusions

<SABU> There is no wrong conclusion if you have been a part of this conversation

<SABU> You just said there was a claim that I may be a terrorist. You "researched" it and wrote the article

<SABU> There re claims I am with the CIA pushing to get tighter / stricter cyber-laws passed

<SABU> its literally the same shit, two different extremes.

Then, intriguingly, he goes onto say that UK and US goverments have been involved in covert operations, before going to say that he could not be linked to terrorism. Anonymous or LulzSec would not carry out their operations so publicly if they had an ulterior motive.

<SABU> The people are aware that our governments in the UK and the US have involved themselves in black operations in the past. it makes a lot of sense if lets say a rogue group of hackers suddenly began attaking national interests -- spawning a massive overhaul of internet security, theoretically.

<SABU> you're telling me thats not worse than some random jihadist who barely knows how to use a computer in the first place, "hacking"/

<SABU> Also heres where your entire point is flawed into oblivion

<SABU> why would a terrorist release and dump 90,000 INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY MILITARY PERSONELL PASSWORDS AND EMAILS when they can just intercept military intelligence communications for the next year using this data ?

<SABU> Why would osama bin laden go through all the work of hacking booz allan [a US government and defence consultancy], just to post a pastebin with an ascii art mocking the security of federal contractors.

<SABU> Be realistic.

<SABU> Think.

Even as an FBI informer, Sabu would not be in a position to have evidence to back up his theories that the CIA were angling for a tightening of US cyber laws. Those co-operating with the authorities to mitigate their sentancing are rarely handed US government secrets. Instead, what's interesting is Sabu's internal reasoning for why – hypothetically at least – a compromised organisation (as we know now LulzSec was) might be allowed to continue.

One factor in the decision to make some of this public was an unusual comment towards the end of the conversation, in which Sabu advised me to make sure I kept a log, or transcript, of the chat for later use:

<SABU> AS FOR THE LOG I don't do interviews or usually paste chatlogs so I'm keeping it privately

<SABU> so I suggest you do the same

At this stage, surely Sabu would have known, or at least suspected, that his agreement to turn evidence against other members of Lulzsec would eventually become public. Re-reading this now, one wonders if he was hoping that some of our conversation would eventually become public too - an interview, in effect, at the point when he couldn't speak for himself.

Just over a fortnight after these published exchanges, we now know that Monsegur – aka Sabu – secretly pleaded guilty to 12 counts of computer hacking.

From June to March this year, he – and his FBI handlers – were party to details, often in advance, of hacking attacks including the interception of an FBI conference call, and the seizure of 5m emails from the servers of UK intelligence firm Stratfor, which are currently being published by WikiLeaks.

On Tuesday, charges were lain against five individuals alleged to be core members of Anonymous and Lulzsec – and the man behind Sabu was finally publicly unmasked as a 28-year-old unemployed Puerto Rican living in New York.

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PM Project: Endgame systems

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People who have seen the company pitch its technology—and who asked not to be named because the presentations were private—say Endgame executives will bring up maps of airports, parliament buildings, and corporate offices. The executives then create a list of the computers running inside the facilities, including what software the computers run, and a menu of attacks that could work against those particular systems. Endgame weaponry comes customized by region—the Middle East, Russia, Latin America, and China—with manuals, testing software, and “demo instructions.” There are even target packs for democratic countries in Europe and other U.S. allies. Maui (product names tend toward alluring warm-weather locales) is a package of 25 zero-day exploits that runs clients $2.5 million a year. The Cayman botnet-analytics package gets you access to a database of Internet addresses, organization names, and worm types for hundreds of millions of infected computers, and costs $1.5 million. A government or other entity could launch sophisticated attacks against just about any adversary anywhere in the world for a grand total of $6 million...

Endgame’s price list may be the most important document in the collection. If the company were offering those products only to American military and intelligence agencies, such a list would be classified and would never have shown up in the HBGary e-mails, according to security experts. The fact that a nonclassified list exists at all—as well as an Endgame statement in the uncovered e-mails that it will not provide vulnerability maps of the U.S.—suggests that the company is pitching governments or other entities outside the U.S. Endgame declined to discuss the specifics of any part of the e-mails, including who its clients might be. Richard A. Clarke, former Assistant Secretary of State and special adviser to President George W. Bush on network security, calls the price list “disturbing” and says Endgame would be “insane” to sell to enemies of the U.S.

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'Censuur internet in China en Iran neemt toe'

Burgers in China en Iran hebben in toenemende mate last van censuur op internet, signaleert Reporters Zonder Grenzen. De organisatie, die zich inzet voor persvrijheid, heeft vandaag een lijst uitgebracht met 'Vijanden van het internet'. Daarop staan twaalf landen, waaronder China en Iran.

Terwijl het regime in Peking internetbedrijven dwingt mee te werken aan de digitale censuur, gaat Iran nog een stapje verder met de ontwikkeling van een eigen 'nationaal internet', dat is afgesloten van de rest van de wereld.

Gevangen
Minstens 199 bloggers en journalisten werden in 2011 gevangengezet vanwege hun activiteiten op internet, stelt Reporters Zonder Grenzen. China, Vietnam en Iran namen volgens de organisatie de meeste mensen gevangen wegens ongewenste meningen. Nieuw op de lijst van 'internetvijanden' zijn Bahrein en Wit-Rusland.

In Libië is het na de val van dictator Muammar Kaddafi juist veiliger geworden om je mening te verkondigen op internet, aldus de organisatie.

Dag tegen censuur
Hier het verslag van Reporters Zonder Grenzen op de eigen website, vandaag uitgebracht ter gelegenheid van World Day Against Cybercensorship, de 'Werelddag tegen Internetcensuur'.

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Canada's Parliament summons Anonymous to testify

Idlepigeon sez, "Canada's government has moved to call Anonyomous to testify before the House Affairs Comitte, over threats made to a minister who's been pushing to pass Bill C30---online surveillance legislation. In this very funny piece from the Globe and Mail's Tabatha Southey, the entire Internet shows up to testify."

Anonymous is so nebulous that for the federal government to call Anonymous to testify is almost to call the Internet itself – something the government may regret.

“I'd to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today,” the first witness might say. “The threats against the minister are grave and on the advice of my consul, Mr. Fry, I'd just like to assure the minister that I … am never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna … ”

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Chinezen verdacht van Facebook-aanval op topman NAVO

Chinese cyberspionnen worden ervan beschuldigd via Facebook militaire geheimen te hebben proberen ontfutselen aan NAVO-topman admiraal James Stavridis.

De militaire topman blijkt herhaaldelijk het doelwit te zijn geweest in een oplichtingszaak via Facebook die zou georganiseerd zijn door cyberspionnen in China, zo meldt The Observer. De spionnen maakten valse accounts in Stavridis' naam in de hoop dat zijn intimi hem daarop zouden contacteren of antwoorden op privé-berichten.

Dit soort van vervalsing op sociale media komt steeds vaker voor. Volgens de NAVO is het niet duidelijk wie verantwoordelijk is voor de webfraude, maar andere veiligheidsbronnen wijzen met de vinger naar China.

Ook bedrijven geviseerd
Vorig jaar werden Chinese criminelen nog beschuldigd van een gelijkaardige operatie met codenaam Night Dragon. Daarbij gaven hackers zich uit voor CEO's van bedrijven in de Verenigde Staten, Taiwan en Griekenland met het oogmerk bedrijfsgeheimen te stelen.

De fraude met Facebook doet de vrees groeien dat de schaal waarop China aan cyberspionage doet groter is dan totnogtoe werd vermoed. Naast hoogeplaatste militairen zou de tactiek ook toegepast worden om op grote schaal interne informatie te verwerven van bedrijven die voor de NAVO werken.

42 miljoen voor beveiliging
De verfijning en de meedogenloosheid waarmee dergelijke cyberaanvallen worden uitgevoerd, doen geheime diensten aan beide kanten van de Atlantische Oceaan vermoeden dat die door staten worden gesponsord.

De NAVO heeft al zijn toplui gewezen op de gevaren van dergelijke impersonaties op socialenetwerksites. Een gespecialiseerd bedrijf krijgt van de NAVO 42 miljoen euro om de veiligheid van het NAVO-hoofdkwartier en 50 andere militaire sites in Europa op te drijven.

Samenwerking met Facebook
Een woordvoerder van de NAVO bevestigt dat Stavridis, die topcommandant van de NAVO voor Europa is, in de voorbije twee jaar verscheidene keren doelwit is geweest. Facebook werkte mee aan het blokkeren van de valse accounts. De NAVO houdt inmiddels regelmatig contact met de account managers bij Facebook, de valse pagina's werden doorgaans binnen de 24 uur verwijderd. Het is echter extreem moeilijk de bron van dergelijke valse accounts te traceren.

Stavridis, die ook de leiding heeft over de Amerikaanse troepen in Europa, is een fervent gebruiker van sociale media. Hij heeft ook een échte Facebookpagina die hij vaak gebruikt om te melden wat hij doet en waar. Vorig jaar meldde hij op Facebook het einde van de militaire campagne in Libië.

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Op maandag 12 maart 2012 14:43 schreef Yuri_Boyka het volgende:

[..]

Nee gewoon informatie waar je hele regeringen, grote machtige duivelse corporaties etc. etc. opdoekt en dat dat een werkelijke grote impact heeft waardoor je serieus de wereld verbetert.

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http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/fbi/sabu-still-hiding-857902

The hacker-turned-informant whose undercover work resulted last week in criminal charges against several of his alleged “Anonymous” cohorts remained in hiding today, avoiding an appearance in a New York courthouse to answer a misdemeanor criminal charge.

When Hector Monsegur’s case was called this morning at Manhattan Criminal Court, the 28-year-old snitch was nowhere to be found. Instead, his lawyer approached the bench for an off-the-record conversation with the judge and an assistant district attorney.

At the parley's conclusion, the jurist announced that, due to “extraordinary circumstances,” Monsegur’s case was being adjourned for an arraignment next month. Outside the courtroom, Peggy Cross-Goldenberg, Monsegur’s lawyer, declined to discuss what transpired at the bench, and politely deflected other TSG questions about her client, including whether he was currently under protection by federal officials.

Last month, during the course of his vigorous cooperation with agents, Monsegur--who is known online as “Sabu”--was arrested by the NYPD outside his apartment building in the Jacob Riis housing project on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. According to a criminal complaint, when a cop asked him for ID, Monsegur reportedly said, “Relax. I’m a federal agent. I am an agent of the federal government.”

Monsegur--a federal informant, not a federal agent--was subsequently busted on a misdemeanor criminal impersonation charge.

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Onderzoek: bedrijven slecht voorbereid op cybercriminaliteit

Nederlandse bedrijven en instellingen zijn slecht voorbereid op aanvallen door cybercriminelen. Uit maandag gepubliceerd onderzoek van adviesbureau KPMG onder ruim 170 bestuurders blijkt dat slechts één op de vijf organisaties zichzelf in staat acht om met succes een digitale aanval af te slaan.

De afgelopen maanden zijn diverse incidenten naar buiten gekomen. Zo waren onder meer de websites van Philips, KPN en Bavaria doelwit van hackers, die vele persoonsgegevens buit wisten te maken. Het overgrote merendeel van de cybercriminaliteit wordt echter niet naar buiten gebracht.

Van de door KPMG onderzochte bedrijven was bijna de helft het afgelopen jaar slachtoffer van cybercriminelen. Ruim 60 procent geeft aan dat de schade zich jaarlijks beperkt tot een bedrag van 100.000 euro. Bij ruim 10 procent overstijgt de schade een bedrag van 1,5 miljoen euro. Phishing (met misleidende e-mails proberen gegevens te ontfutselen) blijkt de belangrijkste vorm van cybercriminaliteit. De financiële sector is het populairste doelwit, hier vindt 75 procent van de aanvallen plaats.

'De werkelijke omvang van cybercrime is moeilijk te achterhalen omdat de detectieprocedures mogelijk niet alles in kaart brengen', zegt John Hermans, partner bij KPMGRiskConsulting. 'De complexe IT-omgeving maakt het vrijwel onmogelijk om incidenten volledig uit te bannen. Het doel is dan ook vooral te voorkomen dat een aanval uit de hand loopt. De focus moet dus met name liggen op het beschermen van de belangrijkste bezittingen en het zeker stellen van mechanismen waarmee organisaties goed en snel op incidenten kunnen reageren.'

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How I learned to stop worrying and love Anonymous

I am 25 year veteran of the Internet as a profitable concern and today, I would like to add my voice in support of #Anonymous.

This is a strange and perhaps career-limiting admission to make. But I no longer believe Anonymous is some gang of cyber terrorists, nor is it a Mafia-like criminal organization or a pack of cowards hiding in their parents’ basement. Those who publicly claim otherwise are, in my opinion, being alarmist and intellectually lazy to the point of negligence or duplicity.

Yes, the Anonymous movement is made up of a broad International coalition of online communities spanning the sometimes dark corners of AntiSec hackers, the wider world of DDoS (distributed denial of service) activists and even some prominent human rights and freedom of information advocates like Julian Assange.

That said, sometimes “Anonymous” is just a single person with a cellphone camera or a YouTube account making sure evil does not go unwitnessed.

There are divergences within this coalition of ideologies, but I can agree with one basic tenet of the movement: It posits that, as worldwide connectivity tops 2 billion, the Internet has evolved into something new and greater than the sum of its parts, with rights, rules, obligations and a culture unique unto itself.

It also believes action is needed to defend those rights.

Last month – eSentire's Travis Barlow invited me to host a session at the Atlantic Security Conference regarding Anonymous and its implications for both the security community and small business.

I stood up in front of 200 of my peers, some of the finest security minds this country has to offer, and suggested to them this so-called hacktivist fringe has the power to be a force for great good.

Hactivism, as undertaken by Anonymous, sees no buildings burned, no kids are clubbed and no officers pelted with rocks. It is non-violent protest that deliberately targets nothing more, and nothing less, than reputation.

The most dangerous outcome of the Anonymous movement, perhaps the most important thing it can do, is the embarrassment of people unaccustomed to being embarrassed.

Given the grandstanding around Bill C-30, it is easy to forget that it was an Anonymous crew that executed a campaign called #OpDarkNet in which it publicly released e-mail accounts and server locations for some of the largest child porn operations on the Internet. Clearly, that operation was not “with the child pornographers” and you may have read about several actual arrests in Canada around that time.

Because the Anonymous movement is not just a gang of credit-card-stealing thugs it was not “beheaded” by the arrest of a crew within the LulzSec community. That said, the infiltration and arrests may have radicalized the vast centre of the movement.

Another example of the kind of non-violent action Anonymous takes came in response to SOPA/ACTA/TPP/C-11 and C-30 and Occupy Wall Street evictions worldwide.

Several Anonymous communities undertook an educational campaign to distribute simple tool sets and basic information to activist communities both here and abroad. This campaign was aimed at re-empowering people driven from streets by the rubber bullet and the tear gas gun while exercising their right to protest.

As a result – thousands of Anonymous DDoS activists set up digital picket lines to shut down kukluxklan.bz, ufc.com, americannaziparty.com, eolas.com, heritagefront.com, monsanto.com and godhatesfags.com.

In response to government assurances that warrantless retention of private Internet data was completely safe, Anons opened several almost completely unsecured police sites world wide to make the point that it wasn't.

While it remains to be seen if Anonymous will manage to wield their power more wisely than other revolutionaries who have come before them, there can be no argument that the stakes are small or insignificant.

I can think of one monstrous example that overwhelmingly argues that thinking people everywhere need to try to listen to Anonymous (even if you can not participate in or support its actions): The death of a 26-year-old Syrian dad named Rami Ahmad al-Sayeed.

On Feb 21, 2012 Mr. al-Sayeed was killed in a mortar attack as the Assad forces shelled BabaAmr.

Mr. al-Sayeed spent the last eight months of his remarkable life bypassing Syrian Internet censorship – with the direct technical assistance of a lot of so-called “Anonymous Cyber Terrorists” here and abroad – in order to upload video to YouTube as the shells rained down around him in Homs.

He, and Anonymous, were making sure the world could see how it ends when governments no longer serve or protect the people they govern.

His final post makes for a chilling epitaph: “I expect this will be my last message and no one will forgive you who talked but didn't act.”

Following a 20 year career pioneering digital publications, B2C/B2G/B2B e-commerce and high security mobile solutions both in Canada and abroad – Jon Blanchard spent the last 6 years as Webmaster with the Halifax Herald family of companies.

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Flying Swarm Of Robots Gives Protesters And Activists Free Wi-Fi, On The Go

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During the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the government unplugged the Internet. Protesters were left without Internet, and thereby the ability to communicate even locally, instantly.

Electronic Countermeasures is a project by Liam Young of think tank Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today and Unknown Fields Division, with assistance from Eleanor Saitta, Oliviu Lugojan-Ghenciu, and Superflux. The project is essentially an autonomous, roaming Internet swarm, constructed from repurposed UAVs.

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Flycatcher computer chip could soon connect fridges and forests to internet

Arm Holdings, UK firm whose designs feature in all smartphones and tablets, unveils new chip to enable 'internet of things'

Arm Holdings, the British technology group, has produced a low-power computer chip capable of connecting traffic lights, parking meters, fridges and even forests to the internet.

Codenamed Flycatcher, the tiny semiconductor is Arm's bid to expand its empire from smartphones and tablet computers, where its designs already feature in 100% of the devices on sale today, to the "internet of things", the 50bn everyday objects which it is predicted will be connected to the internet by the end of the decade.

With connected parking meters, on trial in San Francisco, motorists can identify free spaces from their mobile phone, reserve the spot, and pay over the internet without having to scramble for loose change.

Internet-controlled traffic lights could be co-ordinated to ease congestion after accidents, or change to green to allow emergency vehicles and VIP motorcades fast passage through city centres.

Arm hopes its chip, which measures less than a millimetre square, will find its way into white goods and motors, as well as wireless sensors for home and office lighting, heating and burglar alarms.

Medical devices, such as stethoscopes or blood pressure and glucose monitors, could also use it to transmit information to the doctor's surgery.

Flycatcher, whose official name is the Cortex-M0+, is designed for devices which cannot be attached to an electricity supply and must run off batteries.

It could be attached to sensors on trees in the Amazon to monitor rainfall, or to irrigation pipes on African farms to reduce water wastage.

"By enabling the connection of everyday devices we are pushing the edge of the internet out," said Arm director Gary Atkinson. "By connecting rooms or motors to the internet, you could significantly reduce the amount of energy consumed worldwide." Atkinson said around half of the world's electricity is used by motors, many of which have an efficiency rating of between 40% and 85%.

Arm, which designs rather than manufactures chips, already produces micro-processors for washing machines, street lights and motors. But the new product is 50% less power-hungry, cheaper and faster at processing information. It is one of a new generation of 32-bit micro-processors, also produced by Renesas Electronics Corporation in Japan and Microchip Technology in the US, which can run for years at a time without needing a change of battery.

Inhabiting devices which automatically switch power off when not being used, the speed at which they process and transmit information, via Wi-Fi or a mobile phone signal, is crucial. To save energy, power can be switched off many times a second, or for hours at a time.

Today, there are an estimated 12.5bn internet connected devices, an average of two per person, and many of these are phones or computers. In 2025, according to IT firm Cisco, there will be 1 trillion such devices.

Arm has been producing 8 and 16-bit micro-processors since 2007, but they were slower and much of the internet now communicates using 32-bit protocol. This means code for operating Flycatcher is easier to write or use off-the-shelf. While earlier Arm micro-processors cost half a dollar each, the new design will be closer to 20 cents (13 pence).

The product will see Arm pitching for a share of the entire $15bn micro-controller market, Atkinson said, rather than the third it addresses today. The group's royalty revenues from such units totalled $16m in 2010, out of total royalties of $335m, but Morgan Stanley forecasts this will more than double to $37m by the end of 2012.

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Inside the Stratfor Attack

Last December, a group of hackers quietly orchestrated an attack on Stratfor Global Intelligence Service, a company based in Austin, Tex., that analyzes geopolitical risk and publishes a newsletter for various clients, among them the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense. The hackers breached the company’s network and, once inside, confided in their fellow hacker, Hector Xavier Monsegur, and, as it turns out, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Six months earlier, in June, the F.B.I. had arrested Mr. Monsegur and turned him into an informant. With his help, four hackers in Britain and Ireland were charged last Tuesday with computer crimes; a fifth man was arrested Monday in Chicago. Using the information he passed along, F.B.I. officials said it was able to thwart attacks on roughly 300 private companies and government agencies.

But with Stratfor, they were not so lucky.

Conspiracy theorists across the Internet surmise that federal agents sat back and let the Stratfor attack occur to collect evidence, or perhaps net a juicier target — say, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, which later released the five million internal e-mails that hackers obtained in the Stratfor hack.

“That’s patently false,” said one F.B.I. official, who would speak only on anonymity because the investigation was continuing. “We would not have let this attack happen for the purpose of collecting more evidence.”

F.B.I. officials said they learned of the Stratfor breach on Dec. 6, after hackers had already infiltrated the company’s network and were knee-deep in Stratfor’s confidential files. On that date, F.B.I. officials said, Jeremy Hammond, suspected as the attack’s ringleader, informed Mr. Monsegur he had found a way into Stratfor’s network and was already working to decrypt its data.

The F.B.I. said that it immediately notified Stratfor, but said that at that point it was too late. Over the next several weeks, hackers rummaged through Stratfor’s financial information, e-mail correspondence and subscribers’ personal and financial information, occasionally deleting its most valuable data — all in full view of F.B.I. agents.

In addition to monitoring hackers’ chat logs, the F.B.I. managed, with Mr. Monsegur’s help, to persuade Mr. Hammond and Stratfor’s other attackers to use one of the agency’s own computers to store data stolen from Stratfor. The hackers complied and transferred “multiple gigabytes of confidential data,” including 60,000 credit card numbers, records for 860,000 Stratfor clients, employees’ e-mails and financial data, to the F.B.I.’s computers, according to the complaint against Mr. Hammond.

The F.B.I. said it told Stratfor to delay notifying customers while it completed its investigation — a demand that later made Stratfor the target of a class-action lawsuit from subscribers who complained the company did not inform them of the breach until it was too late. Stratfor had little choice but to go public with the breach on Dec. 24, when hackers defaced its Web site and began posting receipts online for donations they had made with customers’ stolen credit card information.

Over the following days, hackers released credit card details for thousands of Stratfor clients, made at least $700,000 in fraudulent purchases using their credit cards, and exploited their e-mail addresses for malware attacks. Stratfor was forced to stop charging for subscriptions to its newsletter — its principal source of revenue. All told, Stratfor estimates the breach cost it $2 million in damages and lost revenue, according to the complaint.

And that’s just the financial cost. Two weeks ago, the company suffered further embarrassment when, three months after the breach, hackers funneled its internal e-mails to WikiLeaks, for widespread publication.

Conspiracy theorists wonder why, with ample evidence, the F.B.I. waited three months to arrest Mr. Hammond after the Stratfor breach. Some suggest that the F.B.I. purposely waited to net a bigger target: Mr. Assange.

But F.B.I. officials said it simply took that long to collect the evidence to support their case. Cybercrime investigators and former federal prosecutors say that this makes sense, and that the time frame between Stratfor’s attack and subsequent arrests is not unusual.

“It’s not surprising it would take them that long to make arrests,” said Mark Seiden, a cybercrime investigator. “They have to collect evidence, and the paperwork takes between three and six months. If you don’t know exactly how hackers attacked a site, it’s difficult to bring them to justice. There’s no point in picking an unripe fruit.”

That news might disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but not nearly as much as it does Stratfor and its subscribers, whose personal and financial information was compromised as a result of the attack.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” said David White, a subscriber. Mr. White said he and his company were debating whether to renew their subscription. “At this point, it’s up in the air.”

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VoxAnon: What is Project Affinity?

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Project Affinity is an Anonymous experiment of a grand scale. If successful, it will radicalize and reinvirogate the way Anonymous functions, and allow us to operate at a much greater level of purpose and efficiency. It will solve all the problems listed above, and more. Although it may initially seem like a lot of effort, the benefits of having such a system in place would far outweigh the costs. Think of it as an Anonymous State of the Union. Every two weeks, we host an intra-Anonymous meeting between all the different Cells, Operations, and members of Anonymous.

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Eurocommissaris: sociale media medeschuldig aan mislukken ACTA-verdrag

Dat de invoering van het anti-piraterijverdrag ACTA op de lange baan is geschoven, is mede de schuld van sociale media als Facebook en Twitter. Door hun 'intense mediacampagne' hebben sommige regeringsleiders nog geen handtekening onder het verdrag willen zetten. Dat heeft Eurocommissaris Karel de Gucht van Handel gezegd tijdens een vergadering van de Europese Commissie.

Dat blijkt uit de notulen van de vergadering. Verschillende technologiesites berichten er vandaag over. De Gucht maakte op 22 februari bekend dat de Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA), een handelsovereenkomst ter bestrijding van namaak, zal worden voorgelegd aan het Europees Hof van Justitie.

Hoewel de Europese Commissie de omstreden wet al heeft aangenomen, loopt de invoering hiervan aanzienlijke vertraging op. Een aantal landen, waaronder Nederland, weigert het verdrag te tekenen zolang niet duidelijk is of de wet de internetvrijheid beperkt.

SOPA en PIPA
Ook de Amerikaanse antipiraterijwetten SOPA en PIPA zijn volgens De Gucht 'getorpedeerd' door een 'vijandige campagne' van sociale media. Het Republikeinse wetsvoorstel Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) en zijn Democratische tegenhanger Protect IP Act (PIPA) riepen een storm van protest op.

Verschillende grote sites, waaronder de Engelstalige Wikipedia, gingen zelfs enige tijd op zwart. Eind januari besloot de Amerikaanse Senaat de stemming voor beide wetsvoorstellen voor onbepaalde tijd uit te stellen.

Censuurwet
De Gucht meent dat er iets soortgelijks aan de gang is met ACTA. Die wet probeert de internationale standaarden voor de bescherming van de rechten van producenten van muziek, films, farmaceutica, mode en tal van andere producten te harmoniseren. Tegenstanders noemen het ook wel de 'censuurwet', omdat het de internetvrijheid drastisch zou beperken.

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Stratfor CEO: WikiLeaks ‘makes war more likely’

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Speaking to an audience on Tuesday at this year’s South by Southwest convention, Strategic Forecasting CEO George Friedman suggested that by publishing archives of U.S. diplomatic cables, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks actually “makes war more likely.”

And in a surprising claim, Friedman added that his company tended to engage in an “orgy of speculation” following major world events — such as the killing of Osama bin Laden and the possibility of a sealed grand jury indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — which is why Stratfor never published that information: because, he said, those claims are simply not true.

Friedman’s speech Tuesday marked the first time he has spoken in public about a devastating hack his company suffered at the end of 2011, which resulted in their entire email archives landing in the possession of WikiLeaks.

Opening his talk, Friedman was almost immediately interrupted by two activists with Occupy Austin, who “mic checked” him and offered the crowd a message about how Stratfor worked as a private spy agency on behalf of wealthy corporations. The crowd reacted negatively to the protesters, booing them loudly. Friedman quickly fell silent, waiting for security to usher them outside.

Continuing, he said that the hack on Stratfor was so completely thorough that their servers were “completely destroyed,” and that even he does not have a copy of the company’s emails anymore.

“I plan to ask the FBI to give me [a copy],” Friedman quipped.

He went on to suggest that hackers who attacked Stratfor had simply done it “for the lulz,” which Friedman called a “nihilistic” concept that he worried may be gaining traction on today’s Internet.

That led him to WikiLeaks, which he claimed to be inflating Stratfor’s profile tremendously by selectively publishing their emails. Reminiscing about the complexity of human conversation, and how that has been lost in the age of the Internet, he added that by elevating a single email from Stratfor, or diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks, as the subject of legitimate reporting, members of the press offer “complete falsification” due to a lack of human context.

“If you’re going to have diplomacy, you must have secrecy,” he said before suggesting that WikiLeaks had only served to “destroy life long relationships” between diplomats continents apart.

Again touching upon the need for more human context in online communications, he added that WikiLeaks, along with the rise of hacker groups like “Anonymous” and “LulzSec,” ultimately advances the Internet’s death march toward repression, instead of broader transparency.

Friedman transitioned into the constantly changing world of Internet security, saying that the “global commons” has evolved to become utterly crucial to business, yet the Internet is still “built with bubblegum and paper clips.”

“We’ve never had a system that so rapidly became so fundamental to what we do, which at the same time is so immature,” he said. “What is it, 20 [years old]? When the automobile was 20 years old, the Model T’s were out. [The Internet] is a Model T.”

He went on to warn that corporations and governments are much more powerful than Anonymous and WikiLeaks, meaning “they will win” in the ongoing power struggle simply by changing the rules of the conflict — I.E., changing the Internet itself.

“It’s not going to go on anymore because large corporations are getting hacked and it’s costing them large amounts of money, and these guys are powerful enough to make changes,” he warned.

“It may be, in the end, that repression is inevitable… I don’t know that Internet 1.0 — and we are still in beta — that this Internet will survive the way it is… [because] every justification for repression is being created by those who claim to oppose it.”

“Those who don’t want that to happen have to find a way to secure the Internet, because Joe McCarthy’s ghost is sitting out there waiting,” Friedman concluded.

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Anonymous-OS 0.1 : Anonymous Hackers released their own Operating System

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Yes! Its true, Anonymous Hackers released their own Operating System with name "Anonymous-OS", is Live is an ubuntu-based distribution and created under Ubuntu 11.10 and uses Mate desktop. You can create the LiveUSB with Unetbootin.

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Warning : It is not developed by any Genuine Source, can be backdoored OS by any Law enforcement Company or Hacker. You at your own Risk.

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Anonymous brings you #OpRenaissance

Welcome to phase 0

Once a week we will provide a topic. Research and discuss the topic with your peers. The hive mind will prevail and bring more important topics to the surface - if we do this together, we will not fail.

opRenaissance is a Humanist Social Experiment designed with three specific goals in mind;

1. To unite and educate human beings through exposure to alternative cultural worldviews and belief systems.

2. To provide an objective and logical outlet of humanistic thought to scientific-social sectors of society.

3. To facilitate the alleviation of all suffering.

These goals are met through a series of operations or phases which utilize funding, member volunteers and free exchange and provision of information. The key to our success thus far - is a sanskrit word called “u, pie, yah”, which is often translated as, “Skillful Means.” In a sense, the movement strives to use any and all resources, whether they be psychological and scientific knowledge, spiritual understanding, pop culture, or artistic ability and any other human faculties to the end of fulfilling, what we believe to be our human obligations to the world.

There are no requirements to become an active member of opRenaissance - though a general curiosity in the nature of existence is encouraged, the primary requirement is love for one’s fellow man.

As a member of opRenaissance your first assignment is to tell two other people about opRenaissance. The second assignment is talk about it with somebody who’s heard of opRenaissance. Make friends, meet people, talk deeply and passionately about ways to change the world. Spread the idea of Intelectual Renaissance. Everybody has something to contribute. Spread the word and await our next transmission.

We are progression.

We are becoming.

Expect The Renaissance.

Become The Renaissance.

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Anonymous finds political support in Rhode Island

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Tuesday evening was a quiet one on Twitter. At least it was, but that was before an elected official in the state of Rhode Island announced that he makes no secret about the fact he supports the idea that is Anonymous.

The Tech Herald reached out to the man who made those comments, Rhode Island State Rep. Dan Gordon, and spoke to him at length about his views and opinions. The call lasted for more than two hours, and extended far beyond the topic of Anonymous.

Gordon is a blue collar guy, and when he’s not serving his constitutes from Rhode Island’s District 71, (Portsmouth, Tiverton, Little Compton), he’s a contractor in the construction industry. This is what he was doing when he fell into politics.

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Anonymous-OS Live CD Based on Ubuntu is Fake

Four days ago someone registered a new project on the SourceForge website, called Anonymous-OS, pretending that they are the famous Anonymous hackers.

Based on Ubuntu 11.10 and powered by the new MATE desktop environment created by the Linux Mint developers, the Anonymous-OS tries to be a Linux distribution packed with hacker tools for "checking the security of web pages".

The website created on tumblr for the Anonymous-OS Live CD project looks completely believable for some, not to mention that the Live CD's artwork and theme are preatty awesome (see more screenshots below).

"The Anon OS is fake it is wrapped in trojans." confirmed the Anonymous group on their Twitter channel.

We are writing this piece of news just to inform the adventurous ones NOT to download this Live CD ISO image and test it, or event worse, install it on their machines!

Download Anonymous-OS 0.1? Hell no, stay away from it! Download Backtrack 5 R2 instead, if you really want to test the security of web sites.

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Vrouw (75) heeft snelste internet ter wereld

De 75-jarige Sigbritt Löthberg uit Karlstad in Zweden is de gelukkige bezitster van de snelste internetverbinding ter wereld.Zij raast met een duizelingwekkende snelheid van 40 gigabit per seconde over het net.

Met deze snelheid kan ze bijvoorbeeld een High Definition DVD-film in twee seconden downloaden. Of 1500 HD tv-kanalen tegelijk kijken.

Sigbritt dankt deze snelle verbinding aan haar zoon Peter Löthberg. Hij is een bekende internetexpert in Zweden. Löthberg experimenteert met nieuwe technieken van data-overdracht via bestaande verbindingen.

De jaloers makende snelheid wordt vooralsnog niet ten volle benut door de krasse bejaarde: zij gebruikt de computer vooral om op haar gemakje digitale kranten online te lezen.

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The corporate titans take on the Internet

The fight over copyright is not a struggle between capital and labour, but one between different factions of capital.

New York, NY - American politics is riven by an increasingly contentious debate over the status of intellectual property, especially copyright. On one side are those who argue that tougher enforcement of IP is desperately needed to protect the rights of creators, promote innovation, preserve jobs, and ensure economic growth. Opposing them are those who argue that the draconian enforcement of intellectual property rights will only curtail free speech and stifle economic activity, while entrenching the profits of a small class of digital-age rentiers.

How we resolve the tension between freedom of knowledge and intellectual property protection will have a profound impact on the kind of society and economy we become. But this debate is not merely a contest of ideologies - it is also a clash between some of the most powerful corporate actors in American politics with the rest of us caught in the middle. This is one important reason that the contending sides in this debate do not line up with the typical partisan or ideological cleavages in US politics, such as Democrat vs Republican, liberal vs conservative, left vs right.

Take, for example, the debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). The bills were promoted as necessary responses to copyright infringement, but they would also have imposed serious restrictions on Internet communication.

In order to disrupt the distribution of copyrighted material, such as music, movies, software, or books, copyright holders would have been given the power to cut off the flow of payments to allegedly infringing foreign websites, without ever having to prove their case in court. The government would have been given the power to "blacklist" sites, essentially disappearing them from the American Internet. Sites could be targeted even if they did not provide access to copyrighted material, but only to tools for circumventing these bills' censorship provisions, including tools used to circumvent government censorship in places like China and Iran. And the law would have been open to easy abuse for those who wanted to use the claim of copyright infringement as a cover for censorship, such as governments demanding that YouTube remove videos of police brutality (something Google claims has already occurred).

For those of us accustomed to seeing the copyright lobby get its way in Congress as a matter of course, the resistance to SOPA and PIPA was surprisingly strong and effective. A grassroots campaign was organised by advocacy organisations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but major Internet companies also opposed the legislation. On January 18, web sites including Wikipedia and Reddit shut down to register their opposition. A few days later, voting on SOPA was indefinitely postponed, and its lead sponsor announced that it would be re-drafted.

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Activists in Iran and Syria targeted with malicious computer software

In February 2012 we learned that activists in Iran and Syria were targeted with two different types of malicious computer software. We received a copy of each malware, and Jonathan Tomek from ThreatGRID helped with the analysis.

How you get infected

The malicious software is spread as email attachments, and as files sent via Instant Messaging and Skype. The software looks like two completely harmless files; a Microsoft PowerPoint slide show and an image file. The malicious software will silently install itself on your computer when you open one of the files.

Malicious software, such as the two copies we analyzed, is normally designed to gather sensitive information and gain unauthorized access to a computer system. The seemingly harmless PowerPoint slide show turned out to be a keylogger, while the image file was really a backdoor, providing the attacker with full access to the system.

Both the keylogger and the backdoor will transfer data to http://meroo.no-ip.org/, on port 778. This domain name used to point to a server at a government-owned telecommunications company in Syria, but was later updated to point to a Linode server in London, UK. No-IP have since pointed the domain name to an invalid IP address (0.0.0.0).

Most anti-virus software will be able to detect and remove both the keylogger and the backdoor. You may try updating your anti-virus software, running it, and using it to remove the malware if anything pops up. However, the safest course of action is to re-install the operating system on your computer.

The EFF wrote a blog post called How to Find and Protect Yourself Against the Pro-Syrian-Government Malware on Your Computer. In the post, they recommend "that you take steps to protect yourself from being infected by not running any software received through e-mail, not installing software at all except over HTTPS, and not installing software from unfamiliar sources even if recommended by a pop-up ad or a casual recommendation from a friend.".

PowerPoint slide show: keylogger

When you first try to open the PowerPoint slide show, you will get a security warning asking if you really want to allow this file to run. The Name field points to the following executable file: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMConvert32\wmccds.exe

If you ignore the warning and click Run, a self-extracting rar file will install the malware (the wmccds executable) onto your computer. The PowerPoint slide show will then open and you will see a series of images and some text in Farsi. The malware will not activate until you reboot your computer.

The first time you reboot, the malware will activate and start logging your keystrokes. If you are running Windows 7, you will see the same warning as mentioned above, and you have to click Run before the malware is actually activated. Older versions of Windows will not display this warning when you reboot.

The malware will modify the Windows startup script to ensure that the keylogger is always running when you are using the computer. The keylogger will affect your whole system, and it will even send the contents of your clipboard to the attacker. The Tor Browser Bundle does not protect you if you have a keylogger on your system.

Windows screen saver: backdoor

The Windows screen saver contains a type of malware that is a bit more complex than the one described above. When you run the Windows screen saver, it will start an image program and show you a picture (we saw a picture of a rifle, but that is not always the case). Meanwhile, the malicious software installs a backdoor onto your computer and opens a connection to http://meroo.no-ip.org/, using port 778.

The backdoor (1122333.exe in the Documents and Settings folder), which is similar to the DarkComet Remote Administration Tool, allows the attacker to connect to your computer and do anything that he or she wants, including logging keystrokes and acting as the system administrator. The malware will modify the Windows startup script to ensure that the connection is always open.

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'Mogelijk 100.000 bezoekers Nu.nl besmet met schadelijke software'

Mogelijk 100.000 computers van bezoekers van nieuwssite nu.nl zijn mogelijk besmet geraakt met malware (schadelijke software). De website verspreidde die software gistermiddag ongeveer een uur lang, na een aanval door een hacker.

Volgens de website Security.nl, die zich baseert op cijfers van beveiligingsbedrijf Fox-IT, gaat het om software die nog niet is te verwijderen is door antivirusprogramma's. Er zou wel inmiddels een nieuw pakket van de al bestaande software HitmanPro in aanmaak zijn, waarmee de malware wel wordt gedetecteerd.

Nu.nl advissert haar bezoekers intussen hun computer te controleren op virussen. Volgens de website is er vooral een verhoogd risico voor gebruikers met verouderde versies van Internet Explorer, Flash Player en Adobe Reader. Nu.nl is in de tussentijd weer veilig te gebruiken, aldus een bericht op de website.

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Anonymous’ new timeline of FBI infiltration suggests Antisec may have been an FBI creation

Today, the @YourAnonNews Twitter account theorized that Antisec, which was created just before LulzSec began retreating into Anonymous, was in fact the creation of the FBI.

At the time of Antisec’s inception, there was some chatter within the hacking community that LulzSec created Antisec in order to stage some misdirection—to get authorities looking elsewhere. Almost simultaneously, if memory serves, some observers were even suggesting that government authorities, whether in the US or UK and elsewhere, were bearing down on LulzSec.

YourAnonNews has created a document laying out the timelines of the FBI’s activity with Sabu and the rise of Antisec, and it’s a very enlightening read.

For instance, the first mention of Antisec occurs on June 4, 2011, when The Lulz Boat Twitter feed tweets, “So gather round, this is a new cyber world and we’re starting it together. There will be bigger targets, there will be more ownage. #ANTISEC.” On June 7th, as we know, the FBI paid a visit to Sabu and got him singing arias.

On June 19th, Sabu returns from an extended break and tweets, “Operation Anti-Security:http://pastebin.com/9KyA0E5v - The biggest, unified operation amongst hackers in history. All factions welcome. We are one.” The same day Operation Antisec is announced via Pastebin.

In that statement, we find this paragraph:

. Welcome to Operation Anti-Security (#AntiSec) – we encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path. We fully endorse the flaunting of the word “AntiSec” on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art. We encourage you to spread the word of AntiSec far and wide, for it will be remembered. To increase efforts, we are now teaming up with the Anonymous collective and all affiliated battleships.

If the FBI is ventriloquizing Sabu (which they were) at this time, then it would seem that the words contained in the Antisec press release are, in fact, evidence of entrapment. That is, the FBI was encouraging hackers and Anonymous supporters to “fire on,” or attack, “any government or agency.”

No, folks. Trust your government to do the right thing.

Read the entire timeline over at Scribd.

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ISPs to Start Throttling Pirates, More by July 12

Numerous ISPs including Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner are about to become copyright cops.

The largest Internet service providers in the nation are gearing up to be copyright cops after all -- within months, at that.

Cary Sherman, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, said on Wednesday that ISPs are getting ready to seriously crack down on piracy by July 12. These ISPs include Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other bandwidth providers. What they will be looking out for is music, movies and software illegally downloaded by subscribers.

The ISPs originally agreed to adopt policing policies back in July 2011, but nothing else has been said about the anti-piracy movement until Sherman's announcement on Wednesday during a panel discussion at the Association of American Publishers' annual meeting. That's because the ISPs needed a year to get everything up and running, and so far most of the participants are on track for the July 12 launch, he said.

"Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the system," Sherman said. "[They need this] for establishing the database so they can keep track of repeat infringers, so they know that this is the first notice or the third notice. Every ISP has to do it differently depending on the architecture of its particular network. Some are nearing completion and others are a little further from completion."

The anti-piracy program is called "graduate response," and requires that ISPs send out one or two educational notices to customers accused of downloading copyrighted content illegally. If the downloading still continues after the warnings, a confirmation notice is sent out to the suspected pirate, asking that they confirm receipt of the notice. They're also "educated" on the risks of further piracy.

If that still doesn't work, ISPs can then crank up the heat and go into "mitigation measures" mode. Here ISPs can choose to throttle down the connection speed among other penalties. The ISPs can waive the mitigation measure if they choose, CNET reports. So far there's no indication that customers will be kicked off the Internet entirely, but there's a good chance official announcements will be made in the next few months, providing plenty of details.

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Going after Anonymous for attacks against minister a waste of time, MPs told

OTTAWA - House of Commons technicians went on alert after online threats were made against Public Safety Minister Vic Toews; they even checked to ensure the menacing videos weren't coming from Parliament Hill.

But it's no use trying to track down the culprits responsible, the clerk of the Commons told a committee of MPs on Thursday.

The attacks were "unprecedented" as they came from an unknown group and there may be little to be gained from trying to figure out who is behind them, clerk Audrey O'Brien said.

"I'm not sure that seeking out a culprit as such wouldn't be a giant waste of time, because I think the nature of these attacks is that they are extremely fluid," she said.

The activist collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for a series of videos posted online last month digging into Toews' personal life and promising further attacks if he didn't kill a recently introduced online surveillance bill.

The bill has riled critics who fear it's far too intrusive and has inspired a number of online-campaigns aimed at Toews as a result.

One of those campaigns, a Twitter account that shared details of Toews' divorce, was eventually linked to a Liberal party staffer, who then resigned.

While Toews referred some of the threats against him to the RCMP, he also complained to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Speaker Andrew Scheer ruled the threats violated Toews' privilege, leaving it up to the committee on House affairs to figure out who was behind them and what to do about it.

The committee wrestled with the issue on Thursday.

"There is no way this committee has the ability to identify the culprit," said NDP Joe Comartin.

"It's going to have to be done by someone else."

It's not impossible to track down members of Anonymous.

Five were charged earlier this month in connection with attacks against government agencies and private companies in U.S., Mexico and Europe, although they were outed by one of their own.

The police need to try and find the culprits in the Toews case too, said Tory MP Laurie Hawn.

"(Anonymous) are like the Taliban, we will never run out of them, they are always going to be there," he said.

"But I think any chance we get to track one down and make an example, we should do that and I hope they are proceeding with that."

O'Brien suggested MPs could issue a formal statement on the problem.

"I think that a statement to that effect would say that you as members of Parliament take what comes with the territory of your job, you're willing to be attack on your political positions, but once the line in the sand is crossed and personal threats are uttered, that's unacceptable," she said.

"I know this would be an obvious statement, but I think that it's important that everybody come together around this fact."

In the meantime, MPs also used the hearing to ask the House of Commons' chief information officer about technology security.

Louis Bard said that when the attacks against Toews first surfaced, monitoring of online threats against Parliament was increased and overall IT security of the Hill is reviewed on a daily basis.

Bard said 70 per cent of the email sent to Parliament Hill never makes it through because it's either spam or improperly addressed.

It's also common for MPs to have their laptops and or their caucus servers infected by viruses or be the subject of an attack, he said, but the attackers have never gone far.

"Never in the last 19 years, we've lost access to our network," Bard said.

Read it on Global News: Global News | Going after Anonymous for attacks against minister a waste of time, MPs told

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The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center

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Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

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Before yottabytes of data from the deep web and elsewhere can begin piling up inside the servers of the NSAs new center, they must be collected. To better accomplish that, the agency has undergone the largest building boom in its history, including installing secret electronic monitoring rooms in major US telecom facilities. Controlled by the NSA, these highly secured spaces are where the agency taps into the US communications networks, a practice that came to light during the Bush years but was never acknowledged by the agency. The broad outlines of the so-called warrantless-wiretapping program have long been exposedhow the NSA secretly and illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was supposed to oversee and authorize highly targeted domestic eavesdropping; how the program allowed wholesale monitoring of millions of American phone calls and email. In the wake of the programs exposure, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which largely made the practices legal. Telecoms that had agreed to participate in the illegal activity were granted immunity from prosecution and lawsuits. What wasnt revealed until now, however, was the enormity of this ongoing domestic spying program.

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So the agency had one major ingredienta massive data storage facilityunder way. Meanwhile, across the country in Tennessee, the government was working in utmost secrecy on the other vital element: the most powerful computer the world has ever known.

The plan was launched in 2004 as a modern-day Manhattan Project. Dubbed the High Productivity Computing Systems program, its goal was to advance computer speed a thousandfold, creating a machine that could execute a quadrillion (1015) operations a second, known as a petaflopthe computer equivalent of breaking the land speed record. And as with the Manhattan Project, the venue chosen for the supercomputing program was the town of Oak Ridge in eastern Tennessee, a rural area where sharp ridges give way to low, scattered hills, and the southwestward-flowing Clinch River bends sharply to the southeast. About 25 miles from Knoxville, it is the secret city where uranium- 235 was extracted for the first atomic bomb. A sign near the exit read: what you see here, what you do here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here. Today, not far from where that sign stood, Oak Ridge is home to the Department of Energys Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and its engaged in a new secret war. But this time, instead of a bomb of almost unimaginable power, the weapon is a computer of almost unimaginable speed.

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A Letter to Anonymous

By Rose Collins (mother of hacktivist Jeremy Hammond)

Hi. Lulz to you. I’m Jeremy’s mom and I have a few questions. Answer them or not, but at least think about it.

1. If you are legion, do you have attorneys among you? If so, please send one to help Jeremy. I certainly don’t blame you for his behavior. He is (theoretically) an adult and knows what he is doing.

2. If you do not forget or forgive, are you in agreement with Jeremy regarding imprisonment of those convicted of crimes? He is against it for several reasons, including rehab futility, slave labor, training people for new crimes, etc. If you do feel the way he does, what will you do if/when you meet up with Sabu? Does he deserve to go to jail? If you would rip him to shreds as I have considered doing myself with my long, sharpened, poisonous, badly manicured fingernails, doesn’t that smack of the same injustices you have railed about for instance, in San Antonio? How would you be able to wear a mask superior to that of the government you detest?

3. Speaking of Sabu and our government, have you considered the possibility that Sabu himself was a victim? I cannot figure out why the feds would out him if he indeed had turned against his comrades and worked with them. It certainly won’t make protecting him any easier for them. I have seen it blamed on FoxNews, but how could they have accessed that information without a little haction on their part? And don’t you consider them liars anyway? Here’s a theory: The feds found a way to become stowaways on the Luhlzboat and got the dirt on LuhlzSec without his knowledge. And when they did arrest him, since he wouldn’t cooperate, they put the word out complete with pictures, just to distract You. In this scenario, you won’t find him because he’s busy making his little kissy-face to the fishes that are eating him piece by piece. Further, if the data stolen from Stratfor was indeed held on a server controlled by the FBI, the data is definitely compromised and therefore useless to the cause of transparency you wish.

Look, I’m a nobody and my mask is smaller than yours, as is my power. Like you, I don’t trust the government as far as I can spit a rat. Some of your shenanigans I approve of, such as the Westboro Baptist church, who gives all Christians a bad name, and the KKK morons who make all white people look like racists. But who decides what is good and bad? The government? OWS? The tea party? Westboro Baptists? You? Who are you to decide that all government secrets must be exposed? Let the wrong information out and we may all have to learn Mandarin soon. Keep working with Farakkhan’s Nation of Islam to end capitalism, and when you win that battle come over to my house and shoot me in the head, because I will never wear a burka. Better yet, free Jeremy and send him. He can even use my Baretta. He got a few luhlz when I told him that, but these people have more faith in their beliefs than I do in mine. No offense intended to Muslims, but there are those who would force their religion on a flailing nation.

My final question/point is this: I watched a video on YouTube saying that those who caused our economy to shatter for their own enrichment must pay. I totally agree! The question is, who are they? I believe (could be wrong) that you and the OWS crowd think it was the Wall Street Fat Cats. I personally believe that while their hands are not clean, they did not cause the housing crisis which was the first domino to fall. Look into history and you will see that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd (probably others too), had much more to do with it. Back in the 70s, these cartoon characters, along with ACORN and other protest professionals forced banks to give loans to people who could not pay it back or be labeled racist organizations. FYI it is no longer a race issue. My brother, who is of the peachy persuasion, also lost his house during the first year or so of the fallout. Here’s the question. How come you buy into one part of the answer, but fail to investigate other possibilities? Could it be that Anonymous is also susceptible to propaganda? I’m sure I have been as well, but I do try to see other views to a question. Can you?

Please don’t come at me bro-nonymous. I’m just trying to understand. More importantly, help my son!

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*Editors note: After receiving the letter from Mrs. Collins via email, she asked me to make several minor edits to the letter of not more than a dozen words, more or less. Otherwise, the letter is unedited.

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‘Russische hacker achter cyberaanval nu.nl’

Het virus dat woensdag op nu.nl stond is daar waarschijnlijk geplaatst door Russische internetcriminelen. Dat meldt de nieuwssite zojuist.

Onderzoekers van IT-beveiligingsbedrijf Fox-it hebben de zaak bestudeerd, zo meldt persbureau Novum. Een van de sporen leidt naar een Rus die sinds 2007 geregeld verantwoordelijk was voor digitale aanvallen. Ook zou hij geen onbekende zijn in de onderwereld. Hij opereert in ondergrondse fora onder de naam Piupiupo. Fox-it ontdekte daarnaast dat de server die is ingezet vaker is gebruikt voor cyberaanvallen.

Mogelijk 100.000 computers geïnfecteerd

De trojan die via de nieuwssite werd verspreid heeft mogelijk honderdduizend computers geïnfecteerd. Volgens Fox-it was het de bedoeling van de hackers dat de kwaadaardige software onderdeel zou worden van een groter netwerk. Het virus werkte echter niet goed.

Nu.nl adviseerde bezoekers eerder al om hun computers te controleren op virussen. Vooral pc’s met verouderde software zouden makkelijk geïnfecteerd kunnen zijn, zo schreef de hoofdredactie van de site online:

. “We adviseren iedereen die op woensdag 14 maart tussen 11.30 en 13.30 uur NU.nl heeft bezocht zijn of haar computer te controleren op de aanwezigheid van een virus.”

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300.000 @AnonOps Followers! Thank you all!

This communication group wants to say THANK YOU for always being there. We are from 7 different countries, and for 2 years we take you the latest Anonymous news. We hope to be doing a good job. Our main goal was and will always be freedom for all people worldwide.

^{Blog Stats: over 15 million page views // Twitter @AnonOps: +300k Followers}

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SOPA’s father gets a not-so-subtle warning

With America’s largest Internet providers only weeks from their next attempt at curbing copyright crimes by way of a coast-to-coast anti-piracy campaign, opponents of online censorship are taking their own message to the streets — literally.

At least 120 supporters have pledged a total of $15,111 by Thursday afternoon, more than enough to fund a billboard that will be erected above an avenue in the State of Texas district that is represented by Lamar Smith, the same lawmaker who introduced the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Although Representative Smith’s SOPA was killed in Congress, advocates for an open Internet still have concerns over how a partnership between Washington and Hollywood could crush the World Wide Web through other attempts at censorship. Even with SOPA and the Protect IP Act put aside, copyright violations and hacktivism continue to be topic widely debated on Capitol Hill and now the nation’s top ISPs plan to roll-out policies this summer that could cause alleged copyright criminals to have their own Internet privileges wiped away. In order to combat this and other potential ploys that would add government-sanctioned eyes over the Web, activists have successfully raised more than $15,000 to fund a billboard in Rep. Smith’s district, which includes the cities of Austin and San Antonio, Texas.

Co-opting a slogan synonymous with the Lone Star State, “Don’t mess with Texas,” the men behind the message have remixed the rally cry to read something more appropriate — the billboard, the design of which has yet to be settled on, will decry “Don’t mess with the Internet.”

If you’ve followed the fight against online censorship closely over the last few months, you shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that the billboard campaign was created by Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the popular website Reddit which was instrumental in orchestrating a protest movement earlier this year against SOPA and PIPA. Mashable.com reports that Ohanian came up with the idea just this week while brainstorming with others at a get-together at the South by Southwest conference in Austin.

“(The party) was a chance for all of us who have been talking about protecting the Internet to get together in a more relaxed setting,” Ohanian says. “There’s still plenty of work to be done. Now we can work together to protect our online rights, because nearly all of us in America value our freedom online and, well — we don’t want it messed with.”

Utilizing Crowdtilt, a website that allows an audience to donate funds towards practically any type of project, Ohanian and his associates managed to raise more than enough money to make the billboard scheme a reality in only a matter of days. He adds that even weeks after a massive Internet blackout endorsed by Reddit and Wikipedia earlier this year, he’s “really pleased” by the concern that is still rampant among Internet users skeptical of the government’s next move.

Before tossing in the towel with SOPA, Rep. Smith said, “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.” After a massive campaign made enough waves to force Washington to reconsider, Ohanian adds that more and more congressman are already siding with the online community advocating against increased censorship.

“There are now many more representatives and senators whose ear we have. The tech community is being asked what we’d like. . .we’re working on an online bill of rights — we’d like to codify the rights we enjoy offline to rights we can enjoy online,” says Ohanian.

Ohanian adds that he will be using suggestions and contributions from the Reddit community to help decide on a final design for the billboard, which was brainstormed with the help of the website’s co-founder, Erik Martin, and Holmes Wilson, co-founder of FightForTheFuture.org.

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The Secret Sharer

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The morning that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. was, coincidentally, Drake’s first full day of work as a civilian employee at the N.S.A.—an agency that James Bamford, the author of “The Shadow Factory” (2008), calls “the largest, most costly, and most technologically sophisticated spy organization the world has ever known.” Drake, a linguist and a computer expert with a background in military crypto-electronics, had worked for twelve years as an outside contractor at the N.S.A. Under a program code-named Jackpot, he focussed on finding and fixing weaknesses in the agency’s software programs. But, after going through interviews and background checks, he began working full time for Maureen Baginski, the chief of the Signals Intelligence Directorate at the N.S.A., and the agency’s third-highest-ranking official.

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In the late nineties, Binney estimated that there were some two and a half billion phones in the world and one and a half billion I.P. addresses. Approximately twenty terabytes of unique information passed around the world every minute. Binney started assembling a system that could trap and map all of it. “I wanted to graph the world,” Binney said. “People said, ‘You can’t do this—the possibilities are infinite.’ ” But he argued that “at any given point in time the number of atoms in the universe is big, but it’s finite.”

As Binney imagined it, ThinThread would correlate data from financial transactions, travel records, Web searches, G.P.S. equipment, and any other “attributes” that an analyst might find useful in pinpointing “the bad guys.” By 2000, Binney, using fibre optics, had set up a computer network that could chart relationships among people in real time. It also turned the N.S.A.’s data-collection paradigm upside down. Instead of vacuuming up information around the world and then sending it all back to headquarters for analysis, ThinThread processed information as it was collected—discarding useless information on the spot and avoiding the overload problem that plagued centralized systems. Binney says, “The beauty of it is that it was open-ended, so it could keep expanding.”

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In the weeks after the attacks, rumors began circulating inside the N.S.A. that the agency, with the approval of the Bush White House, was violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—the 1978 law, known as FISA, that bars domestic surveillance without a warrant. Years later, the rumors were proved correct. In nearly total secrecy, and under pressure from the White House, Hayden sanctioned warrantless domestic surveillance.

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When Binney heard the rumors, he was convinced that the new domestic-surveillance program employed components of ThinThread: a bastardized version, stripped of privacy controls. “It was my brainchild,” he said. “But they removed the protections, the anonymization process. When you remove that, you can target anyone.” He said that although he was not “read in” to the new secret surveillance program, “my people were brought in, and they told me, ‘Can you believe they’re doing this? They’re getting billing records on U.S. citizens! They’re putting pen registers’ ”—logs of dialled phone numbers—“ ‘on everyone in the country!’ ”

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But Susan Landau, a former engineer at Sun Microsystems, and the author of a new book, “Surveillance or Security?,” notes that, in 2003, the government placed equipment capable of copying electronic communications at locations across America. These installations were made, she says, at “switching offices” that not only connect foreign and domestic communications but also handle purely domestic traffic. As a result, she surmises, the U.S. now has the capability to monitor domestic traffic on a huge scale. “Why was it done this way?” she asks. “One can come up with all sorts of nefarious reasons, but one doesn’t want to think that way about our government.”

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In December, 2005, the N.S.A.’s culture of secrecy was breached by a stunning leak. The Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed that the N.S.A. was running a warrantless wiretapping program inside the United States. The paper’s editors had held onto the scoop for more than a year, weighing the propriety of publishing it. According to Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, President Bush pleaded with the paper’s editors to not publish the story; Keller told New York that “the basic message was: You’ll have blood on your hands.” After the paper defied the Administration, Bush called the leak “a shameful act.” At his command, federal agents launched a criminal investigation to identify the paper’s source.

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a successor to Trailblazer, code-named Turbulence

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op maandag 12-03-2012 om 18:19:01 One of our Anon brothers @Anon_Finland has been killed in Afghanistan. Rest in peace... #Anonymous reageer retweet