Anonops #12: Spy on the Spyers

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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