Its Over 9000!!! [Original Video and Audio]

LOLPRAH: OVER 9000 PENISES!

Tom Cruise Scientology Video - ( Original UNCUT )

Message to Scientology

Operation Payback #Anonymous Message RE: ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, Internet Censorship & Copyright

Anonymous Hacks Westboro Baptist Church Website During Live Confrontation

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http://www.thinq.co.uk/20(...)persecute-anonymous/
NATO leaders have been warned that WikiLeaks-loving 'hacktivist' collective Anonymous could pose a threat to member states' security, following recent attacks on the US Chamber of Commerce and defence contractor HBGary - and promise to 'persecute' its members.

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From a single hashtag, a protest circled the world

(Reuters) - It all started innocuously enough with a July 13 blog post urging people to #OccupyWallStreet, as though such a thing (Twitter hashtag and all) were possible.

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Gabriella Coleman Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication

Trained as an anthropologist, Gabriella (Biella) Coleman examines the ethics of online collaboration/institutions as well as the role of the law and digital media in sustaining various forms of political activism. Between 2001-2003 she conducted ethnographic research on computer hackers primarily in San Francisco, the Netherlands, as well as those hackers who work on the largest free software project, Debian. Her first book, "Coding Freedom: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Hacking" is forthcoming with Princeton University Press and she is currently working on a new book on Anonymous and digital activism. She is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and awards, including ones from the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council and the Institute for Advanced Study.

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Anonymous: From the Lulz to Collective Action

^{Gabriella Coleman, April 6 2011}

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Our Weirdness Is Free

The logic of Anonymous—online army, agent of chaos, and seeker of justice.

_{by Gabriella Coleman, [01.13.2012]}

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Anonymous And The War Over The Internet

This article is the first in a two-part series tracing the development of the amorphous online community known as Anonymous, pranksters who have become a force in global affairs.

^{The Huffington Post, Saki Knafo. Posted: 1/30/12 12:20 PM ET | Updated: 2/1/12 07:36 PM ET}

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Op woensdag 29 februari 2012 17:52 schreef Renderclippur het volgende:
Krijg ik er deze reclame onder

[ afbeelding ]

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Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE)

Easily capture important "live" computer evidence at the scene in cybercrime investigations, without special forensics expertise.


Law enforcement agencies around the world face a common challenge in their fight against cybercrime, child pornography, online fraud, and other computer-facilitated crimes: They must capture important evidence on a computer at the scene of an investigation before it is powered down and removed for later analysis. "Live" evidence, such as active system processes and network data, is volatile and may be lost in the process of turning off a computer. How does an officer on the scene effectively do this if he or she is not a trained computer forensics expert?

To help solve this problem, Microsoft has created Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE), designed exclusively for use by law enforcement agencies. COFEE brings together a number of common digital forensics capabilities into a fast, easy-to-use, automated tool for first responders. And COFEE is being provided—at no charge—to law enforcement around the world.

With COFEE, law enforcement agencies without on-the-scene computer forensics capabilities can now more easily, reliably, and cost-effectively collect volatile live evidence. An officer with even minimal computer experience can be tutored—in less than 10 minutes—to use a pre-configured COFEE device. This enables the officer to take advantage of the same common digital forensics tools used by experts to gather important volatile evidence, while doing little more than simply inserting a USB device into the computer.

The fully customizable tool allows your on-the-scene agents to run more than 150 commands on a live computer system. It also provides reports in a simple format for later interpretation by experts or as supportive evidence for subsequent investigation and prosecution. And the COFEE framework can be tailored to effectively meet the needs of your particular investigation.

To help combat the growing number of ways that criminals use computers and the Internet to commit crimes, Microsoft is working with INTERPOL and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) to provide COFEE at no cost to law enforcement agencies in 187 countries worldwide. INTERPOL and NW3C are also working with Florida State University and University College Dublin to continue the research and development that will help ensure that COFEE serves the needs of law enforcement, even as technology evolves.

Law enforcement can get COFEE from NW3C at www.nw3c.org or by contacting INTERPOL at COFEE@interpol.int.

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The Kicker

The Stratfor password was the company name. These people are such idiots that I propose that their name be promoted to that rare category of word, where like quisling, the owner of the name has distinguished themselves as to define a whole category of behaviour and that henceforth, whenever someone hides their money under the mattress, puts their key above the door, or uses their name as their password, we will say they have pulled a stratfor.

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Privacy betrayed: Twitter sells multi-billion tweet archive

Twitter has sold billions of archived tweets believed to have vanished forever. A privacy row has erupted as hundreds of companies queue up to purchase users’ personal information from the new database.

­Every time you use social networks you become mere product – it’s an idea we will all have to get used to. So, should we give up worldly goods and hide in a Tibetan monastery till the end of our days, or start putting up a fight to protect our privacy? In the latest in a long series of scandals over social networks that profit from our private data, the UK-based DataSift firm has announced that is has bought every tweet posted since January 2010. The business intelligence and data-mining platform will be the first company to offer the archive for sale.

DataSift’s Historics is a cloud-computing social data platform that enables businesses to extract insights and trends that relate to brands, news, public opinion and … actually anything you could ever need… from Twitter's public tweets. Now entrepreneurs will have access to billions of tweets, which literally means they will purchase every Twitter user along with all his secrets, GPS-location included. Thought the law protected you from thieves? No, on the contrary – it actually helps thieves to abuse you and steal your personal data. DataSift now brings to the table what it calls “an invaluable information source” with 250 billion tweets posted in 2010 alone. Historics is available today as a limited release to existing customers and is scheduled to be generally available in April 2012.

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Last year, a group of hackers calling themselves Lulz Security (LulzSec for short) caught the internet's attention with a series of high-profile data breaches and website takedowns targeting the likes of Fox News, Sony and the US government, before apparently disbanding after 50 days of "lulz".

Throughout that period, the group's own website proved impervious to rival hacking attempts, thanks to an online security service called CloudFlare. Speaking to New Scientist in advance of his talks at the RSA conference and SXSW festival next month, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince explains why he kept the hackers online, and how attacks on their site have helped protect the internet.

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Op woensdag 29 februari 2012 19:39 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Is daar een forum? Kan je er trollen?

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FBI agent: Companies taking Anonymous 'too lightly'

Businesses are not taking Anonymous and hacktivism seriously enough, according to an FBI special agent.

The youth of alleged Anonymous hackers, who are often teenagers or in their early twenties, has lead a number of businesses to dismiss the hacking group without taking into account the ramifications of a successful hack, FBI cyber-investigator Eric Strom told the RSA Conference 2012 in San Francisco on Wednesday.

"[Businesses] are taking it too lightly," said Strom. "A lot of people think it's a bunch of kids goofing around. In reality it's not, [hacktivism] can destroy a business."

eCrime Police in the UK have been working with the FBI and international law enforcement to round up suspected 'hacktivists' — people who engage in hacking for some claimed ideological end, rather than for monetary gain. Several UK teenagers and young adults were arrested in a series of raids in 2011, including teenagers Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis, and Hartlepool student Peter David Gibson.

Some businesses and public sector organisations reputations have been damaged by Anonymous exposure of information. For example, law firm ACS-Law, which disastrously accused thousands of people of illegal file-sharing, went out of business after details of people who had allegedly illegally accessed pornography were exposed during an Anonymous hack. ACS-Law was later fined £1000 by the Information Commissioner's Office for the exposure of personal information.

The Police Central eCrime Unit at Scotland Yard, and the FBI itself, were hacked by alleged Anonymous and Lulzsec group members, who posted a recording of a telephone conversation discussing Anonymous and Lulzsec investigations. The FBI later acknowledged that the recording was bona fide.

Some people who are involved in Anonymous are minors, and so are risking lighter punishments by participating in hacking attacks, said Strom.

"There are a number of challenges involved in this, from the age that a number of people who are involved in this, to the fact of how do you define the movement's goals," said Strom.

Anonymous is an amorphous group whose goals reflected its differing membership, said academic and journalist Mischa Glenny, who was appearing in a panel discussion with Strom.

"It's worth remembering that hacktivism does have a political background," said Glenny."Although in groups like Anonymous you'll find all sorts of characters."

Glenny said that the group claimed to be political idealists, but that in certain cases those idealists had been 'hijacked' by criminal elements for their own ends. Glenny gave the example of a Greek investigative journalist who specialised in looking into organised crime who had been beaten at a demonstration after being demonised by Anonymous.

"We have a real problem here in trying to identify what is genuine idealism, what is criminality, what is a sort of anarchic attitude to the internet, and what is a cover for piracy and other intellectual copyright issues," said Glenny.

ZDNet UK understands that certain investigators looking at Anonymous believe that some attacks claimed by the organisation have been state-sponsored.

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ACLU of Massachusetts makes statement on Twitter subpoena case

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BOSTON -- After nine weeks of secret court hearings, the Suffolk Superior Court has ordered Twitter, Inc., to comply with a state administrative subpoena issued by the Suffolk District Attorney's office on December 14, 2011, seeking personally identifying information for an anonymous Twitter user during the period December 8, 2011 to December 13, 2011, for "account or accounts associated with" the names "Guido Fawkes", "@p0ison0N", "@OccupyBoston", or the Twitter hashtags "#d0xcak3" and "#BostonPD." Twitter hashtags are essentially key words used to indicate a topic of conversation.

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Anonymous hackers ratted out by infiltrators

A law enforcement operation that ended with the arrest of 25 hackers in Europe and South America was not the result of police intelligence but rather an informers’ job within the hacker community, claims Anonymous.

­As well as launching a cyber-assault on Interpol’s website, the hacker group appears to be conducting its own investigation in order to find out how police managed to break through its veil of anonymity.

In a statement on Anonymous’ Spanish-language website, the group said that the arrests were down to the “carelessness” of the parties involved. They had apparently given “personal details to spies and people who were not members” of the organization.

“This wave of arrests was not the product of intelligence or technical wizardry on the part of Interpol, like they want you to believe. They were done using a much more deplorable technique: the use of spies and informants within the collective,” says Anonymous.

According to the group, the fact that certain members had not participated in a hacking operation for some time, and were all active on the same server (anonworld.info) that “had been under surveillance as of May last year” marked them out as infiltrators.

The group of hackers that suffered the most as a result of the Interpol raid is known as Sector404. The others were unsophisticated activists who participated in denial-of-service attacks.

The hacker community is also busy verifying who exactly police arrested during the raid. The fact that they knew each other by nicknames adds an element of difficulty to their research.

According to the communiqué issued by Anonymous Iberoamerica, hackers known as “Pacotron” (Thunder) and “Troy” were arrested in Spain.

A police raid dubbed "Operation Unmask" was launched in response to coordinated cyber-attacks hackers conducted against governmental and corporate websites in Chile and Colombia, Interpol reports.

A total of 25 arrests were made in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Spain.

Chile's chief prosecutor, Marlis Pfeiffer, told The Associated Press that police specialists currently examining confiscated computers and phones have encountered difficulties, most probably because of encrypted data.

"This operation shows that crime in the virtual world does have real consequences for those involved, and that the Internet cannot be seen as a safe haven for criminal activity, no matter where it originates or where it is targeted," announced Interpol's executive director of police services, Bernd Rossbach, in a statement released by Interpol.

The organization naturally has not revealed the sources whose information led to the detention of the hackers.
Initially, the Anonymous group became known for launching denial-of-service attacks on organizations which had interfered with the activities of the whistleblowing website, Wikileaks. Some of the data they obtained from the hacked sites was passed on to Wikileaks.

The Anonymous community is a fragmented organization with no discernible structure or membership. The hackers associated with it traditionally act independently, their number and whereabouts remaining unknown.

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Artist and Hacktivists Sabotage Spanish Anti-Piracy Law

In an attempt to sabotage a new anti-piracy law that went into effect today, hundreds of websites in Spain are participating in a unique protest organized by a local hacktivist group. The websites all link to an “infringing” song by an artist loyal to the protest, who reported the sites to the authorities to overload them with requests.

Traditionally, Spain has been one of the few countries where courts have affirmed that P2P-sites operate legally. This situation was met with disapproval by the United States Government who behind closed doors proceeded to help the Spanish authorities draft new laws to protect the interests of copyright holders.

Threatened with being put on a United States trade blacklist, the Government passed the so-called ‘Sinde Law’ in a rush late last year. The law allows for the blocking of allegedly infringing sites based on reports from copyright holders, a position similar to that proposed by the US SOPA bill.

Today the Sinde law went into effect and immediately it was met with resistance from opponents. The group Hackivistas was quick to organize a rather unique form of protest. They encouraged sites to link to a copyrighted track from the artist Eme Navarro, who’s a member of the music rights group SGAE, but critical of the Sinde law.

While Navarro generally publishes his music under a Creative Commons license, he created an “all rights reserved” track specifically for the protest. Thanks to the hacktivist campaign hundreds of websites are now linking to this copyrighted song without permission, and Navarro reported a first batch of sites to the Ministry of Culture early this morning.

As a result, the commission tasked with reviewing all the requests will be overloaded with complaints. All the reported sites have to be processed on order of arrival, so the protest will significantly slow down this review process.

“The aim of this action is testing this law and being the first ones who use it in order to show the absurdity and the censorship that it will bring,” the hacktivists say commenting on their action.

The sites participating in the campaign do risk being blocked by Internet providers, but according to the law they have to be notified about the alleged infringement first. Then they get the chance to remove the infringing link to avoid being blocked.

Besides from the “sabotage” angle, another goal of the protest is to find out how the takedown process works. Right now there is still much uncertainty about how the commission will operate and how websites will eventually be blocked, a Hacktivistas member told TorrentFreak.

“Nobody knows how they will shut down websites. We suspect that they will ask Spanish companies hosting the websites to shut them down, and that Spanish service providers will block websites that are hosted outside of Spain.”

“They will also censor foreign websites, so anyone in the world can join us. We want to check what happens in every case,” the hacktivist added.

Hacktivistas is known for their controversial campaigns. In 2008 the group gathered in front of the headquarters of the socialist party to share copyrighted files in public. The police knew what was going on but didn’t touch them, suggesting that P2P downloading is legal.

In the years that followed the group wrote handbooks to avoid internet censorship, mapped copyright lobby networks, and launched fake governmental campaigns to promote copyleft and free access to cultural goods.

Joining the current protest is easy, websites can add a link to the infringing track through a simple piece of code provided on the campaign website. Just make sure not to ask Eme Navarro for permission.

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Twitter gives Boston police, prosecutors data from one subscriber in criminal inquiry

Social media giant Twitter handed over subscriber information yesterday for one Twitter account indirectly tied to the Occupy Boston protest, ending a court battle fought behind closed doors as Boston law enforcement investigated hacking attacks on the Boston police and a police union.

The administrative subpoena was first sent to Twitter last December requesting information on the following Twitter subscriber accounts and hashtags: Guido Fawkes, @pOisAnON, @OccupyBoston, #BostonPD and #dOxcak3.

In the Dec. 14 letter, a prosecutor in Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office told Twitter the information was needed to assist law enforcement in an ‘‘official criminal investigation.’’

According to Twitter spokesman Matt Graves, the company provided the subscriber information for @pOisAnON, an account that is associated with the name of Guido Fawkes. “We provided information on a single user,’’Graves said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Graves declined comment when asked how Twitter responded to the court’s order requiring the company to hand over information linked to hashtags and @OccupyBoston.

But Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said prosecutors are satisfied with Twitter’s response to the court order.

“Twitter’s recent communication with our office gave both parties a clear understanding of what information was relevant to our probe. We requested and received only that information,’’ Wark said in an email. “This is a focused investigation, not a fishing expedition.’’

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Attorney Peter Krupp and the American Civil Liberties Union have fought the request by prosecutors in Suffolk Superior Court, where court records were impounded and court hearings were held out of earshot of the public in recent weeks.

But Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre last week ruled against the ACLU’s efforts. She ordered Twitter to hand over the information this week, and Twitter has complied with the judge’s instructions.

Speaking for the ACLU, Krupp said yesterday they continue to believe that the constitutional rights of their client, who uses the Twitter name of Guido Fawkes, are being violated. The ACLU also wants the entire case file to be made available to the public; only McIntyre’s order and the subpoena have been unsealed.

‘‘We continue to believe that our client has a constitutional right to speak, and to speak anonymously,’’ Krupp said, adding that the request by prosecutors ‘‘infringed our client’s rights under the First Amendment.’’

He said there will be no more legal fights on behalf of Guido Fawkes because Twitter has provided the information to law enforcement officials.

Prosecutors and Boston police have not publicly disclosed the focus of the criminal inquiry.

Wark said that prosecutors are not targeting those who participated in the Occupy Boston takeover of Dewey Square, some of whom were arrested by police when the makeshift campground was shut down in December.

‘‘The relationship between this investigation and Occupy Boston is tangential at best,’’ Wark said. ‘‘The charges arising out of the Dewey Square protest have already been addressed by the court. [Any media report] that links this investigation to the protest movement has been, and will continue to be, completely erroneous.’’

During the past several months, the main police website and the website for the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association have been targeted by computer hackers, some of whom claimed to have acted on behalf of Occupy Boston protesters.

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AntiSec dumps Monsanto data on the Web

Anonymous continued its ongoing attack on agricultural biotech giant Monsanto today by publishing an outdated database of the company's material. This is the newest in a barrage of strikes from hackers aligned with Anonymous who operate under the "AntiSec" banner.

In a statement posted with the database on a Pastebin site, the hacktivist group wrote it was aware that exposing the database would not do much harm to Monsanto but warned it would continue to target the company for what it sees as wrong.

"Your continued attack on the worlds food supply, as well as the health of those who eat it, has earned you our full attention," wrote AntiSec. "Your crimes against humanity are too many to name on one page."

Anonymous' battle with Monsanto began last July when the hackers disrupted the company's Web site and then released data on about 2,500 individuals involved in the agriculture industry. According to Monsanto, 10 percent of this information was related to current and former Monsanto employees.

Monsanto was one of seven companies that supplied the U.S. military with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and for a while made bovine growth hormones. Now it focuses on making genetically engineered seeds and pesticides.

AntiSec says the reason for the attacks is to protest the company's lawsuits against organic dairy farmers for stating on labels that their products don't contain growth hormones.

"You have put over 9000 small-time farmers out of business by using your enormous legal team to bury them with your malicious patent lawsuits," AntiSec wrote in its statement today. "You have continually introduced harmful, even deadly products into our food supply without warning, without care, all for your own profit."

Besides going after Monsanto, AntiSec has also recently claimed responsibility for attacks on U.S. law enforcement agencies, Vanguard Defense Industries, and private prison companies. In these assaults, the hackers deface the companies' Web sites as well as release documents, e-mails, and other files.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301(...)e-web/#ixzz1nzIU3Upf

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Constitution of Voxanon

Welcome to VoxAnon!

VoxAnon is not just a mere IRC server.

It represents a community. It is a movement. It is a philosophy. VoxAnon has been forged to provide a platform to facilitate inter-Anonymous discussion and activities. We are an alternative to those dissatisfied with the current selection of IRCs that Anonymous has. We represent a home to the homeless, a hivemind to abandoned, and a temple for the unfaithful.

The Founding Fathers of VoxAnon are veteran Anons who have been seeking a new means of safe and secure communication. The creation of VoxAnon will help not only facilitate but encourage the free flow of ideas without the threat of censorship and persecution. Additionally, we seek to build an efficient, proficient, and skillful community. We offer our network services to anyone who calls themselves an Anon, or considers themselves an ally of Anonymous. VoxAnon is a place where they will be able to propagate their skills or ideas for the cause.

We encourage everyone to consider VoxAnon to be your new home and we will in turn welcome you with open arms as brothers and comrades. United as one, divided by zero!

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Anonymous supporters attacked, their bank data vulnerable

Anonymous supporters who willingly enlisted their personal computers to launch denial-of-service attacks against the groups' enemies may have unwillingly donated their personal banking information in the process.

After the Jan. 20 raid on Megaupload, a law enforcement sting that drew the immediate anger of Anonymous hackers, an unnamed attacker took a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack tool called Slowloris, popular with Anonymous supporters, and rigged it to include the Zeus Trojan, a devious piece of malware used to siphon victims' online banking credentials.

That same day, an Anonymous-backed list of several different DDoS attack tools hit the Web. Backed by numerous Anonymous-affiliated blog postings and tweets, supporters were urged to download one of the tools, which would enable them to launch DDoS attacks from their own computers against big-name Anonymous targets, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, Universal Music Group and the Recording Industry Association of America.

[Feared Banking Trojan Hits Android Smartphones]

The trojanized Slowloris link was on the list, meaning countless people who thought they were supporting Anonymous' Operation Megaupload mission — targets also included Warner Music Group, the New Zealand police and the Motion Picture Association of America — were actually compromising their own financial security, the security firm Symantec reported.

The DDoS guide, Symantec said, was called "Tools of the DDoS trade" and "Idiot's Guide to Be Anonymous."

In the following weeks, the compromised DDoS tool was used in attacks on several United States government websites to protest the government's support of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and against Syrian government websites.

And all the while, Anonymous' loyal hackers may have been transmitting their own bank account data to a remote server.

"Not only will supporters be breaking the law by participating in DoS attacks on Anonymous hacktivism targets," Symantec wrote, "but may also be at risk of having their online banking and email credentials stolen."

Symantec said this explosive mixture of financial malware and worldwide hacktivism campaigns with eager (and easily deceived) participants is "a dangerous development for the online world."

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The Department of Homeland Security Is Searching Your Facebook and Twitter for These Words

The Department of Homeland Security monitors your updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports. (Although the released PDF is generally all reader-selectable text, the list of names was curiously embedded as an image of text, preventing simple indexing. We’ve fixed that below.)

twitter:

anonops twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2012 om 19:37:38 #DHSTweets Send a funny tweet using DHS-monitored keywords from this list >> http://t.co/2cLWFKEV (via @youranonnews) reageer retweet

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Op zaterdag 3 maart 2012 19:58 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

The Department of Homeland Security monitors your updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports.

twitter:

anonops twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2012 om 19:37:38 #DHSTweets Send a funny tweet using DHS-monitored keywords from this list >> http://t.co/2cLWFKEV (via @youranonnews) reageer retweet

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Op zaterdag 3 maart 2012 20:00 schreef Schenkstroop het volgende:
Ik vind de logo van Anonymous verdacht veel lijken op die van de United Nations.. En United Nations is altijd slecht nieuws ongeacht hun mooie praatjes. Zijn mijn zorgen hierom terecht of interecht?

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Op zaterdag 3 maart 2012 20:06 schreef YuckFou het volgende:

[..]

Die gasten hebben het dan echt stervensdruk want als je die lijst bekijkt dan staat zo'n beetje alles waarover je post er wel op, weertermen, drugs, computertermen, ik bedoel, rain, hail, winter, cocaine, drugs, virus?

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Hello Big Media, Welcome to Black March where ‘we the people’ Censor You

Welcome to Black March — if you haven’t heard of it, pay attention if you want power back in the hands of ‘we the people.’ This month, achieve greatness. Most of all, fuck censorship.

Black March was a concept formed through Reddit activism, then adopted by the keyboard warriors of Anonymous in order to fight censorship.

On Shauna Myers Google+ page, this concept is broken down for us:

. After censorship bills have been thrown at us from all angles, its time to show big media corporations that we no longer have need of their services and will no longer be paying for them. That doesn’t mean no one should listen to music or watch any movies for an entire month. That means everyone should strive for independent artists.

. A list of independent, online artists of all varieties is being compiled by our own +Moan Lisa with links to YouTube profiles, DeviantArt galleries, and expositions of all varieties and sizes. (http://goo.gl/B0YJe) These independent artists are the ones who should be receiving your money this month, not the enormous corporations dominating Hollywood.

. These media corporations have already gone so far as to publicly issue threats against politicians who should dare to not fight for their wants. (http://goo.gl/vM0IX) The time has come to take matters into our own hands. If our governments will not stand up to them, then it is up to us.

. Bring money back to real people.
. Show big media that their time has come.
. Fight back against harsh censorship bills.
. Welcome to #BlackMarch

Moan Lisa compiled the list as stated above containing Indie movies, not those by Big Media trying to implement censorship. Use your money, attention and time toward something more valuable. Be a warrior.

The above image was created by: Occupy Movement which you can also find on Google+. Good job!

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Anonymous hacked?

As political parties, bank managers, and drug dealers have often found to their cost, infiltrators can be very hard to detect.

This is something that, perhaps, the members of Anonymous recently discovered for themselves, at least according to Symantec, the online security people.

For the company believes that members of the hacking collective were deceived into downloading a Zeus Trojan that gave up their banking details and other personal information.

On its blog, Symantec described how, on January 20--the day of the rather charming Kim Dotcom's sequestration by the FBI--members of Anonymous used their own personal computers to participate in DDoS attacks.

These were launched against a broad and institutional swathe of targets, such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the FBI.

Some mean-spirited--and still anonymous--individual allegedly inserted a Zeus Trojan into the Slowloris attack tool, of which many DDoS-ers are fond.

When members of Anonymous downloaded this tool, their banking details were apparently exposed like boxer shorts above low-slung pants and sent to a remote server.

I am grateful to MSNBC for discovering Symantec's troubling analysis.

However, Anonymous seems to have unloaded its own feelings about it.

For, on the YourAnonNews Twitter feed, there was posted a fierce rebuttal: "This post from @Symantec about @YourAnonNews's spreading the DDOS hijacking trojan is wrong & libelous to say the least http://goo.gl/MUVxD."

The following tweet read: "Dear @Symantec - @YourAnonNews NEVER posted the DDOS hijacker nor did we attempt to trick people; instead we WARNED of it."

And a third offered: "Also, @Symantec - maybe if you paid attention to more details and did proper due diligence, your source code wouldn't have been stolen. SMH."

So there.

Some will chortle with schadenfreude that the hackers may have themselves been hacked. But doesn't this tale, if true, offer something greater--and something sadder--about the brittleness of human trust?

In Anonymous' case, one assumes that many of its members have never met in person. Their relationship is guided entirely by their ability to trust through gadget-based means.

It is the equivalent of trying to find a lover online and only ever having dates with them online. You can't so easily look them in the eyes and see if their facial expressions and body movements betray their true thoughts. Skype doesn't quite deliver the same chance of interpreting human nuance.

Whenever you're trying to collectively build something--or even collectively trying to destroy something--a twisted being will soon waft into your day, pretend they're on your side, and then try to ruin things.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301(...)acked/#ixzz1o9RpZmoT

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Anonymous Hackers Attack Christian Websites, Declare 'Religion Sucks LOL'

Calling it a "sickness to this world," members of the formless 'hacktivist' group of computer programmers known as Anonymous declared war on religion on Friday, March 2, hacking the websites of three Christian organizations all based in and around Charlotte, North Carolina. The homepages for Bethel Outreach International Church, Charlotte International Church, and Crossfire Ministries were all replaced with the 30-minute long YouTube video, "Richard Dawkins: An Atheist's Call to Arms," and an informal declaration of war, with the title, "religion sucks lol [laugh out loud]."

The attack was announced by Twitter account @AnonymousIRC to its 276,783 followers. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is one of the several online social platforms that Anonymous uses to congregate and make plans, along with Facebook and Twitter. The first tweet, sent out at around 10 am EST read, "http://www.betheloic.org HACKED Reason:religious idiocy and foh dah lulz #Anonymous #AntiSec #OWS #ROOTED #DAWKINS." WRITER'S TRANSLATION: "The website www.betheloic.org has been hacked. The reason being the idociy of religion and because attacking them makes us laugh." Two tweets followed moments later with the same message, except for the name of the website that Anonymous had hacked, most likely with a proxy DDoS spam attack.

The video that Anonymous posted on each hacked site is a 31-minute speech by famous atheist Richard Dawkins, in which he told his fellow atheists not to hide their beliefs, and to fight against "the incursion of religion into politics and education."

This Friday's attacks are a continuation of Anonymous hacktivist's plan to launch online attacks against their perceived enemies once a week. Last Friday, Anonymous hackers took down several FBI affiliated website, including the Dayton, Ohio branch of InfraGard.

Anonymous also declared war on America in a YouTube video earlier this week, calling on US citizens to rise up against their government, although nothing much has come of this hyperbole so far.

The full text (some expletive words have been censored) that Anonymous posted reads:

Greetings fellow pirates, hey there religionf-gs! Guess what? U dun goofed! We rm'd you and your gods and saints neither't protected you nor casted some awesome thunderbolt onto us.

Let us be clear from the start: any kind of religion is a sickness to this world.
A sickness that creates hate and intolerance,
a sickness that brings people to wage war on their fellow people,
a sickness that has come to this world long time ago, when mankind wasn't educated,
a sickness that brought false hope and suppression to those who believed
and often even more terror and suppression to those who dared not to believe.
Religions are authoritarian hierarchies, designed to dominate your free
will. Religions are mind control. They're power structures that aim to convince you to give away your power for the benefit of those who enjoy dominating people. When you subscribe to a religion, you enroll in a mindless minion training program. Religions don't market themselves as such, but this is essentially how they operate. In case you ever wondered why religious teachings are invariably mysterious, confusing, and incongruent? This is no accident - it's intentional.

We see religion pretty much the same way as we see many governments. Fear mongering and making lots of money, so a small group of ppl will become insanely rich, while the believing masses can eat dirt .As long as they are afraid that "omgomg god will come and strike great vengeance upon me" all is good.

To quote Encyclopedia Dramatica (bringing you answers to life, the universe and everything since last Thursday) on this issue:

»Religion is a severe mental illness created over 9000 years ago, at the
same time as the Earth. Since then, religion has been one of the biggest sources of drama, f----try, and unwarranted self-importance in the world today, secondary only to the internet. It is responsible for such insanity as Christf-gs believing that beating someone half to death with a 2,000 year old book will heal them and Muslims believing that if they blow themselves up they will get 72 virgins. Even atheists are not immune to the psychotomimetic effects of religion; the mere mention of religion is enough to send any atheist into hours of butthurt sh-tfits.«

So people of the world, don't let religion control your life. Don't fight against each other for contrary beliefs. This world and our life can be a wonderful adventure, where you have the unique chance to help mankind and your fellow citizens. Where we can all work together to make this earth a better place for ourselves, our children and all those generations who will come after us. ^(;,;)^

quote:

Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)an_Rights#Article_18

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 16:27 schreef YazooW het volgende:

[..]

"Anonymous" heeft daar blijkbaar scheit aan...

SPOILER

Ten opzichte van de concurrentie natuurlijk.

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 16:28 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

De meeste religie's ook.

SPOILER

Ten opzichte van de concurrentie natuurlijk.

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 16:31 schreef YazooW het volgende:

[..]

Ik ben zelf ook "anti-religie" of hoe je het ook wilt noemen, maar dit soort acties slaan gewoon helemaal nergens op. Lijkt wel dat ze uit verveling niet meer weten wat ze moeten doen. De rechten van de mens waar ze eerst zo duidelijk voor stonden hebben blijkbaar geen waarde meer voor "hun".

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 16:37 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Wie weten wat ze niet meer moeten doen? Sinds wanneer is Anonymous een organisatie met een hierarchie?

Daarnaast moest ik denken aan een recent interview met Barret Brown:

http://nl.zinio.com/reader.jsp?issue=416213041&p=48

Laatste stukje van het eerste antwoord: "...things have come to such a point that I personally don't care anymore."

En dat begrijp ik. Het is oorlog, de tegenstanders hakker er zo hard en vals op in, dat ik niet op alle slakken zout ga leggen.

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 16:43 schreef YazooW het volgende:

[..]

Ik zeg nergens dat Anonymous een organisatie is, wel zeg ik dat Anonymous altijd de boodschap naar buiten bracht dat met name overheden af moeten blijven van de rechten die wij als mens hebben. Vandaar dat ik het nu raar vind dat ze nu religieuze organisaties aanvallen en daarmee dus zelf ook scheit hebben aan onze rechten.

Jessi Slaughter Apologizes [2011]

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 17:00 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Anonymous 12 jarige kinderen van 4chan's /b/ hebben ook het leven van de 11-jarig Jessy Slaughter kapot gemaakt.

Jessi Slaughter Apologizes [2011]

Haar vader is ondertussen overleden aan een zware hartaanval.

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 17:30 schreef YazooW het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 17:33 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Sorry hoor, maar dat onderscheid kan je niet maken.

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2012 17:34 schreef YazooW het volgende:

[..]

Onderscheid? Ik snap je ff niet.
100% duidelijk dat /b/ daar achter zat.

edit. overigens vroeg dat kind er zelf om

quote:

Anonymous Appears To Take Down AIPAC Website

The annual policy conference of the pro-Israel Group AIPAC is, as always, a massive show of bipartisan pro-Israel solidarity, and the target of protests from Israel's critics.

This year's protesters include newcomers: A group called "Occupy AIPAC," whose leaders seem to be drawn from the longtime anti-war group Code Pink, and the hacktivist collective Anonymous.

This morning, as President Obama speaks to the group, its website has crashed. An AIPAC spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment, but claims of responsibility could be found on Twitter.

twitter:

jonahogan twitterde op zondag 04-03-2012 om 22:26:06 #Anonymous is an anti-semite organization! reageer retweet

quote:

Hackers Winning Security War, Said Executives At RSA Conference

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Technology security professionals seeking wisdom from industry leaders in San Francisco this week saw more of the dark side than they had expected: a procession of CEO speakers whose companies have been hacked.

"It's pretty discouraging," said Gregory Roll, who came for advice and to consider buying security software for his employer, a large bank which he declined to name because he was not authorized to speak on its behalf. "It's a constant battle, and we're losing."

The annual RSA Conference, which draws to a close on Friday, brought a record crowd of more than 20,000 as Congress weighs new legislation aimed at better protecting U.S. companies from cyber attacks by spies, criminals and activists.

If the bills suggest that hackers are so far having their way with all manner of companies, the procession of speakers brought it home in a personal way.

The opening presentation by Art Coviello, executive chairman of conference sponsor and recent hacking victim RSA, set the tone with the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

RSA, owned by data storage maker EMC Corp, is the largest provider of password-generating tokens used by government agencies, banks and others to authenticate employees or customers who log on away from the office. Not long after last year's RSA conference, the company said an email with a poisoned attachment had been opened by an employee.

That gave hackers access to the corporate network and they emerged with information about how RSA calculates the numbers displayed on SecurID tokens, which was in turn used in an attack on Lockheed Martin that the defense contractor said it foiled.

Coviello said he hoped his company's misfortune would help foster a sense of urgency in the face of formidable opponents, especially foreign governments, who are being aided by the blurring of personal and professional online activities. Some 70 percent of employees in one survey he cited admitted to subverting corporate rules in order to use social networks or smartphones or get access to other resources, making security that much harder.

"Our networks will be penetrated. People will still make mistakes," Coviello said. He argued that with better monitoring and analysis of traffic inside company networks, "we can manage risk to acceptable levels."

If that didn't inspire enough enthusiasm after the worst year for corporate security in history - including the rise of activist hacks by Anonymous, numerous breaches at Sony Corp, and attacks on Nasdaq software used by corporate boards - there was more to come.

Next onstage was James Bidzos, CEO of core Internet infrastructure company VeriSign, which disclosed in an October securities filing that it had lost unknown data to hackers in 2010. [ID:nL2E8D1DFB] He was followed by Enrique Salem, CEO of the largest security company, Symantec, which recently admitted that source code from 2006 version of its program for gaining remote access to desktop computers had been stolen and published. [ID:nL4E8D77TN]

FBI Director Robert Mueller spoke on Thursday, warning that he expected cyber threats to pass terrorism as the country's top threat.

Though all sounded an upbeat call to arms, some watching grumbled that vendors with little credibility were trying to use their own shortcomings to peddle more expensive and unproven technology.

"There's some panic" among the buyers, said a security official with ING Groep NV who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Banks are very sensitive to questions about security breaches and often deny they have any significant problems in this area.

That panic contributed to vigorous panel discussions and hallway debates about who should be in charge of safeguarding defense companies, banks and utilities - private industry itself, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or the National Security Agency, which has the greatest capability but a legacy of civil liberties issues.

A pending bill backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would put DHS in the lead, with assistance from NSA. Former NSA chief Michael Hayden said in an interview at the conference that should suffice.

"The Net is inherently insecure," Hayden said. "We need to quit admiring the problem and move out. No position could be worse than the one we're in now."

Coviello said one of the few pieces of good news was that the country as a whole is now realizing the gravity of the loss of its trade and government secrets, along with the difficulty of reversing the trend.

"People have definitely talked more seriously after our breach," he said in an interview. "Maybe a sense of realism has settled in."

(Reporting By Joseph Menn; Editing by Richard Chang)

twitter:

AnonInfoWarfare twitterde op maandag 05-03-2012 om 00:27:37 Have an abusive significant other in your life? Document the abuse & report it to @PonyCr3w #OpYoungPony #Anonymous reageer retweet

#OpYoungPony - Engaged.

quote:

It’s Official: US Demands Extradition of Megaupload Suspects

Authorities in the United States have put in an official request to extradite Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and the three other suspects in the “Mega Conspiracy.” While the request doesn’t come as a surprise, the prosecutors waited till the official deadline last Friday before filing the paperwork. It will take a while before the fate of the accused is decided, as the first extradition hearing is planned for August.

Last Friday, US prosecutors filed an extradition request against four New Zealand-based suspects who were allegedly part of the so-called “Mega Conspiracy.”

Kim Dotcom is wanted in the United States alongside other key Megaupload employees on racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering charges.

In the battle to extradite the defendants, US authorities intend to rely on a United Nations treaty aimed at combating international organized crime.

Previously a lawyer working on behalf of the United States government admitted that no copyright offenses are specifically listed in the extradition treaty. However, he also noted that certain offenses which involve transnational crime are covered by New Zealand’s Extradition Act.

In New Zealand crimes must carry a four year prison sentence to be deemed extraditable. Under the country’s Copyright Act, distributing an infringing work carries a five year maximum sentence.

Experts and observers are predicting that due to its groundbreaking status, the extradition battle for the Megaupload defendants will be both complex and prolonged, and could even go all the way to the Supreme Court.

For now, the first extradition hearing has been scheduled for August 20.

Megaupload programmer Bram van der Kolk recently called on the New Zealand authorities to remain dignified in their extradition dealings with the United States.

“I really hope New Zealand will keep its dignity and can show that it is a sovereign state that has its own justice system,” he said, referring to the extradition process.

Talking to TorrentFreak last week, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom said that he and his co-defendants are positive that the law is on their side.

“We’re going for this and we’re confident we’re going to win,” Kim said.

quote:

DMCA: Horrors of a Broad and Automated Censorship Tool

The DMCA was once drafted to protect the interests of copyright holders, allowing them to take infringing content offline. Today, however, the system is systematically abused by rightsholders as an overbroad censorship tool. One third of the notices sent to Google are false, companies like Microsoft censor perfectly legal sites, and others use the DMCA to get back at competitors.

arlier this week one of TorrentFreak’s articles was censored by Google on behalf of a copyright holder.

The article in question was mysteriously flagged as being infringing by an automated DMCA takedown tool. An honest mistake according to the people who sent the notice, but one that doesn’t stand in isolation.

Google previously noted that that 37% of all DMCA notices they receive are not valid copyright claims.

One of the problems is that many rightsholders use completely automated systems to inform Google and other service providers of infringements. They swear under penalty of perjury that the notices are correct, but this is often an outright lie.

Microsoft, for example, has sent Google dozens of notices about the massive infringements that occur on the site Youhavedownloaded.com, a site that is completely non-infringing. As a result, many pages of the website have been de-listed from Google’s search results, directly damaging the site’s owners.

Other rightsholders make even stranger mistakes by massively taking down content that they don’t own. The adult content outfit AFS Media for example asked Google to remove links to the movies Braveheart, Monsters Inc, Green Lantern and many more titles that have nothing to do with the content they produce.

Similar mistakes are made at NBC Universal who got Google to censor the independent and free-to-share movie A Lonely Place for Dying.

Or again by Microsoft, who successfully requested Google to remove a link to a copy of the open source operating system Kubuntu.

And then there’s YouTube’s content-ID system. We previously outlined many mistakes that were made by the DMCA-style anti-piracy filter, resulting in tens of thousands of ridiculously inaccurate claims.

This week yet another example came up when YouTube labeled birds tweeting in the background of a video as copyrighted music. Again a mistake, but one that probably would have never been corrected if Reddit and Hacker News hadn’t picked it up.

Aside from the mistakes outlined above, there’s also a darker side to DMCA abuse. Google previously revealed that 57% of all the DMCA notices they receive come from companies targeting competitors.

The “competition” angle also ties into the row between Megaupload and Universal Music Group. The latter removed a promo video from the cyberlocker from YouTube on copyright grounds, without owning the rights to any of the material.

It’s safe to say that the DMCA is broadly abused. Thousands of automated notices with hundreds of links each are sent out on a daily basis, turning it into a broad censorship tool. Only the tip of the iceberg is visible to the public thanks to companies like Google who publish some of the notices online.

We can only wonder what’s happening behind the scenes at other sites, but it’s not going to be any better.

Just a few months ago the cyberlocker service Hotfile sued Warner Bros. for DMCA abuse. In the suit Hotfile accuses the movie studio of systematically abusing its anti-piracy tool by taking down hundreds of titles they don’t hold the copyrights to, including open source software.

Not good.

While we’re the first to admit that copyright holders need tools to protect their work from being infringed, mistakes and abuse as outlined above shouldn’t go unpunished. The DMCA was never intended to be an overbroad and automated piracy filter in the first place.

The above also illustrates why it’s dangerous to allow rightsholders to take entire websites offline, as the SOPA and PIPA bills would allow. The MPAA and RIAA have said many times that legitimate sites would never be affected, but didn’t they say exactly the same about the DMCA?

twitter:

AnonymousIRC twitterde op maandag 05-03-2012 om 22:41:26 Camp David is a lovely place, sorrounded by woods. Just the right place to camp and sing and have fun. #OccupyCampDavid reageer retweet

twitter:

xhdroelf twitterde op maandag 05-03-2012 om 22:45:13 #anonymous will do what goverments did not do #Syria #OpTripToSyria

TRIP TO SYRIA -- don't just watch, help Syria!

http://t.co/aGN2vYl4 READ and RT reageer retweet

twitter:

TripToSyria twitterde op zondag 04-03-2012 om 13:07:21 I have been away at @OccupyStockholm, great ppl! New update: $2257 USD #optriptosyria reageer retweet

quote:

Atari Teenage Riot / Anonymous / Sony Vita advert in the USA

My name is Alec Empire and I am from Atari Teenage Riot.

Some might think it was an evil capitalist greed thing,
others will argue it was some Jesus Christ sacrifice thing,
but let’s not overcomplicate this…

I did it only for my own amusement!

If you are new to my music or me as a person you might not know that I had some beef
with Sony in the year 1999 over a camcorder advert in South East Asia.
(a track of mine was basically used against my permission)

I felt used, exploited, ripped off…everything that a sensitive artist like myself would feel
in that situation… haha (I hope you know I am kidding here….but I have to admit it hurt a little)

if you ever tried to fight a corporation like this in court AND in another country,
let me tell you…you want to do other stuff with that time and money…

Even though the thing got settled in court kind of, I never felt they paid what they owed.

It’s the old question that is being asked again and again:
What’s a song worth? When does copyright start, when does it end?

Around the same time I came to the conclusion that men with guns
employed by the government can’t and won’t protect me from
situations like this in the future.

So when the request for the Sony Vita ad landed on my lap,
I put ‘Black Flags’ into it…it was all hectic and they okayed it.

We needed to tie up a few lose ends on this, until it became unstoppable,
that’s why we had to wait to reveal that

Atari Teenage Riot donate their $$$ to http://freeanons.org/

I cross checked they can’t stop the track from appearing in the OWS online clips of
ATR/Anonymous etc… which makes it even more fun.

Yes, I already got some hate, some even attempted to troll me (on Facebook???)….
but you know what?

I don’t care because it just FELT V E R Y GOOD! HAHA

Some Eloi might also say:

“Uh but this Zong ist an advert so u will sell more Compact Disc now”

Maybe…or maybe you can just download the track, which was free all along, here:
Atari Teenage Riot - Black Flags (feat. Boots Riley) by Alec Empire/ ATR

OR maybe for a change…you could ask yourself a question:

“Have I donated to freeanons.org yet?”

The light at the end of the tunnel is a computer screen …nothing else…

Alec Empire
(Berlin 3/3/2012)

"RAGE"-ATARI TEENAGE RIOT

quote:

A Declaration of the Independence of CyberSpace

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, we come from the Internet, the new home of Mind.
On behalf of the future, we ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one; therefore we address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty it always speaks. We declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us, nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. You are toothless wolves among rams, reminiscing of days when you ruled the hunt, seeking a return of your bygone power.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. The Internet does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

We have watched as you remove our rights, one by one, like choice pieces of meat from a still struggling carcass, and we have collectively cried out against these actions of injustice. You have neither usage nor purpose in the place we hold sacred. If you come, you will be given no more and no less power than any other single person has, and your ideas will be given the same consideration anyone else would receive You are neither special, righteous, nor powerful here.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. This claim has been used throughout the centuries by many an invading kingdom, and your claims are no different, nor do they ring any less hollow. Your so called problems do not exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours.

The Internet consists of transactions, relationships and thought itself; arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. It is the last truly free place in this world, and you seek to destroy even that freedom. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. A place where anyone, at any time, is as free to come and go, to say and be silent, and to think however they wish, without fear, as anyone else. There is no status beyond the merit of your words and the strength of your ideas.

We are creating a world where anyone anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here. There are only ideas and information, and they are free.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions.

The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you repeatedly try to pass unjust legislature in an attempt to restrict us. You disguise this legislature under a variety of different names, and pass excuses that they are for our own protection. We have watched you, time and time again; attempt to censor us under the guise of Copyright protection, or for the protection of Children. These laws come in many shapes and forms, in the name of ACTA, PIPA, COICA, SOPA, but their intentions remain the same. You seek to control what you cannot.

We scorn your attempt to pass these bills, and as a result, our discontent at your misaligned efforts grows each day.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Canada, the United States and many others you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of the Internet. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that is already blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no different than pig iron.

In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our presence in the world we have created immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in the Internet. We have created a medium where all may partake in the forbidden fruit of knowledge, where egalitarianism reigns true. May our society be more humane and fair than yours.

We are the Internet.
We are free.

quote:

Will the internet kill copyright? Here’s hoping …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

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Anonymous Campaign to Feed the Homeless

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

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

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

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

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

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FBI: Top LulzSec, Anonymous hackers arrested, 'betrayed by own leader'
Three top members of the infamous computer hacking group LulzSec have been arrested by law enforcement agencies in the UK and the United States. Two others are charged with conspiracy, Fox News reports.
The arrests were made possible, the report says, after turning the group’s senior leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur, who is believed to be a cooperative witness after the FBI unmasked him last June.
Agents arrested two men from Great Britain, two from Ireland, and an American in Chicago. Charges against them are based on a conspiracy case filed in New York federal court.
According to the report the arrests were made possible after turning the group’s senior leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur.
There have no been comments from hacktivists so far. There has no been official comment from FBI either.
http://rt.com/news/lulzsec-hacking-brought-down-977/

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

[..]

owned

quote:

Hector Xavier Monsegur

twitter:

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

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Alleged LulzSec Hackers Arrested as Leader Turns Snitch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

twitter:

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

twitter:

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

twitter:

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

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Lulzsec mastermind Sabu: an elite hacker and star FBI informant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The LulzSec hacking arrests won't make it safer online

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

twitter:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Barett Brown: On the FBI Raid

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

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

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

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

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

Barrett Brown
Project PM

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Anonymous has grown beyond LulzSec and Sabu

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

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

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

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

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

Where then does this leave Anonymous and its supporters?

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Even Topiary Didn’t Know What He Was Getting Into

quote:

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

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

Well I’d like to address this.

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

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

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

That ‘leader’ is known as ANONYMOUSABU

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

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

They dumped amongst other things:

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

In the name of #AntiSec??

* At least 62k INNOCENT USERS creds.

In the name of #AntiSec??

Really??

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

Here’s the link….

Well ladies….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s cut to the chase:

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

twitter:

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

quote:

AntiSec hacks security site to protest LulzSec arrests

quote:

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

quote:

How Anonymous plans to use DNS as a weapon

quote:

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

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

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

twitter:

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

twitter:

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

quote:

Leaked: Police Plan to Raid The Pirate Bay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cam from the TPB bust

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anonymous - KONY2012 Warning

SPOILER

To the citizens of the world.
We are Anonymous.

We would like to emphasize that we are not allying with the Invisible Children organization based on their charity funds or their shady linking with suspected factions. We are standing side by side with them only to spread the word on Joseph Kony. We have also realized, because of you, the citizens of the world, that the Kony twenty twelve campaign may be propoganda. There are other evil beings on this Earth who need to be taken care of. Now.

However, supporters of the Kony twenty twelve campaign feel the need that it is their duty to start somewhere.

It is the personal opinion of many Anons that the Kony campaign is, in fact, a distraction. An entire year, twenty twelve, devoted to taking down only one person, is frankly, quite long.

As we have all witnessed, twenty eleven showed us that many things can take place at the same time. Many leaders can fall at once. Justice can prevail simultaneously.

We want our brethren to stay vigilant.

To the people, stay cautious.

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

quote:

Norton Antivirus all Platforms source code leaks to public

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

[..]

quote:

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

[..]

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

quote:

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

[..]

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Voorafgaand aan de hack hebben de Fransen zes weken nodig gehad om deze te ontdekken.

http://www.techzine.nl/ni(...)tijdens-pwn2own.html

twitter:

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

quote:

Justitie kijkt illegaal in buitenlandse computers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

twitter:

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

quote:

Websites attacked by Anonymous #March list

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

quote:

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

quote:

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.

quote:

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.

quote:

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

quote:

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.

quote:

Op zaterdag 10 maart 2012 15:18 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Th3 J35t3r:

[..]

Zijn verhaal gaat verder.

quote:

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..

quote:

Something Stinks in the Story of Sabu

SPOILER

Spoiler: nearly all of Anonymous appears to be willing to trust information from organizations they seem to normally consider their enemies. Also, GoDaddy is suspicious.

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.

quote:

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

quote:

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]

quote:

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 donderdag 8 maart 2012 16:22 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Anonymous als idee: Je maakt informatie beschikbaar en geeft gelegenheid om er over te discussieren. Dan gebeurd er wat of niet. Dus iedereen die iets zegt of iets leest over dat idee is per definitie onderdeel van dat idee. Dus ja, jij bent Anonymous.

[..]

Zoals creditcard nummers?

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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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Op maandag 12 maart 2012 15:01 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Die informatie bestaat waarschijnlijk niet. Informatie die die rol kan spelen wordt genegeerd of niet begrepen door het grote publiek. Het "complot" bestaat niet uit grote geheimen maar uit samenwerkingsverbanden. Zoals de samenwerking tussen Rutte en het SGP. Die informatie is gewoon beschikbaar. Maar niemand doet er iets mee.

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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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Namens NU.nl bieden wij ons excuses aan aan alle bezoekers die problemen hebben ondervonden door deze hack.

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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

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http://youranonnews.tumbl(...)er-from-rose-collins

In response to an open letter from Rose Collins, the mother of arrested Anonymous hacktivist Jeremy Hammond, @YourAnonNews issues the following remarks:

First, we do not presume to speak on behalf of the entire Anonymous movement. No one can speak for everyone in Anonymous. However, when we saw the open letter from Jeremy Hammond’s mother linked above, we knew we had to issue a response of some sort. This response encapsulates the personal views of the YourAnonNews team and in no way is meant to be reflective of Anonymous as a whole. Second, Hammond was a true friend and ally in Anonymous—a fellow compatriot at electronic arms, so to say. His fierce convictions and inner strength could be strongly sensed even over nothing but text on a screen. If we can in any way help his mother understand the strongly held convictions of her son and the movement he is involved in, we will do our best. Here goes…

(1) Please Rose, for the sake of all that is good in this world, don’t EVER attempt to speak “Internet” again. Please. Don’t. (We kid, of course. We appreciated the attempt.)

(2) If you do some basic research, you would find that Anonymous has a strong legal network, with close ties to various legal organisations, including the NLG and EFF, as well as various criminal defence law firms. Your son is represented currently by attorney Liz Fink, with the NLG. We suggest that you reach out to the attorney and establish contact, if you have not done so already.

(3) Your son also has a legal defense fund and a dedicated site with constant updates on his legal proceedings. You can learn more about it here: http://freehammond.org/

(4) Some of us here knew Hammond closely online. His arrest is a great loss to us, not only as Anons, but also on a personal level. Your son is an amazing person and has a big heart. We sorely miss his online presence.

(5) We will not presume to know what your family’s personal situation is like, but whatever your political differences may be with your son, it’s probably best to reach out to him at this time. Be there for him. Support him. He believed in what he was doing. Honour that.

(6) What will we do if we meet up with Sabu? We’ll listen to his side of the story. Because we strongly believe that every story has multiple sides and each deserves a fair hearing. Perhaps many in the community were too quick to rush to judgment. Perhaps not. Only time will tell once all of the facts get laid out and properly sorted.

(7) Please get a manicure. And why are your nails poisonous? Just curious. That’s probably not a good thing…

(8) You actually make some interesting points about the feds and Sabu and raise some good questions that all of us should have asked ourselves before we hastily jumped to conclusions. It is interesting that you, out of all of us, are the one to most vocally question the how and why the feds burned Sabu as their informant asset. Thank you for reminding us of the need to remain critical and curious. We strongly encourage all Anons and other individuals to do their own research and analyse mainstream-media disseminated stories before jumping into them head first and making assumptions. We cannot say it enough: Facts, facts, facts. Research, research, research.

(9) How does one “spit a rat”? Wait…don’t answer, we don’t want to know! D:

(10) You ask, who are we to decide that all government secrets must be exposed? You should actually be asking, who are we NOT to demand this? The People have a right to know what is going on within the depths of THEIR government. The government is there to serve us, not politicians’ self interest, corporate profits, or special interest groups. If it fails in its singular goal of preserving liberty and freedom, and instead starts to impinge onto our essential rights, who are we to NOT stand up to it? Who watches the watchmen? WE DO, because frankly, no one else will.

(11) No one’s trying to force you to wear a burqa. How does ending capitalism lead to you wearing a burqa? Lady, we’d love to get inside your head and understand your reasoning.

(12) We’re not a group. Stop thinking of us as such. It seems that your arguments directed at us are actually directed at your son’s political views. Why don’t you take some time to hash them out with him? Or at least try to understand how he conceptualises Anonymous and sees himself in it?

(13) Anonymous actively works toward contradictory aims. What can we say? We’re just a bag of convoluted contradictions. But don’t you see? That is the beauty of the idea and movement. Anonymous has been pro choice and pro life. Anonymous has fought for uncensored Internet and yet conducts vigilante attacks on pedophile websites. Anonymous is comprised of tens of thousands of people from all schools of political thought. And yet, despite all of that, there exists a common fibre that is woven through the social fabric within Anonymous—We care about change and we exist to challenge the status quo. We have a remarkable degree of ability to work together on common causes where they exist because we know that we are working to create a better future not just for ourselves, but for generations to come. We hope you can understand this.

(14) We’re glad that you’re just as mad at the economic situation as us. You actually raise a good point—that perhaps the economic crisis is not any one specific segment’s fault more than another, but rather, a multi-faceted endemic systemic failure of the current capitalistic economy and its supporting structures. Thank you.

(15) We are doing what we can to help your son. And we hope you are as well. Reach out to him. Be there for him. Support him. Stay strong for him. Try to understand him. Try to put his actions in context. Help him. Love him. You can do this better than any of us.

We sincerely hope we provided some sort of insight in answer of your queries. Please feel free to reach out to us or any other Anons should you have additional questions or concerns.

Best,

The YourAnonNews Team

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The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV: Agency director says it will 'transform' surveillance

> Devices connected to internet leak information
> CIA director says these gadgets will 'transform clandestine tradecraft'
> Spies could watch thousands via supercomputers
> People 'bug' their own homes with web-connected devices


When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are.

Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home - the rise of 'connected' gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people 'bug' their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.

The CIA claims it will be able to 'read' these devices via the internet - and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home.

Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps - and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells.

The resultant chorus of 'connected' gadgets will be able to be read like a book - and even remote-controlled, according to CIA CIA Director David Petraeus, according to a recent report by Wired's 'Danger Room' blog.

Petraeus says that web-connected gadgets will 'transform' the art of spying - allowing spies to monitor people automatically without planting bugs, breaking and entering or even donning a tuxedo to infiltrate a dinner party.

'Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,' said Petraeus.

'Particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters - all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.'

Petraeus was speaking to a venture capital firm about new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously 'dumb' home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.

This week, one of the world's biggest chip companies, ARM, has unveiled a new processor built to work inside 'connected' white goods.

The ARM chips are smaller, lower-powered and far cheaper than previous processors - and designed to add the internet to almost every kind of electrical appliance.

It's a concept described as the 'internet of things'.

Futurists think that one day 'connected' devices will tell the internet where they are and what they are doing at all times - and will be mapped by computers as precisely as Google Maps charts the physical landscape now.

Privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned of how information such as geolocation data can be misused - but as more and more devices connect, it's clear that opportunities for surveillance will multiply.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)e.html#ixzz1pNO5K1Jg

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Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously?

Last month it became apparent that not all VPN providers live up to their marketing after an alleged member of Lulzsec was tracked down after using a supposedly anonymous service from HideMyAss. We wanted to know which VPN providers take privacy extremely seriously so we asked many of the leading providers two very straightforward questions. Their responses will be of interest to anyone concerned with anonymity issues.

As detailed in yesterday’s article, if a VPN provider carries logs of their users’ activities the chances of them being able to live up to their claim of offering an anonymous service begins to decrease rapidly.

There are dozens of VPN providers, many of which carry marketing on their web pages which suggests that the anonymity of their subscribers is a top priority. But is it really? Do their privacy policies stand up to scrutiny? We decided to find out.

Over the past two weeks TorrentFreak contacted some of the leading, most-advertised, and most talked about VPN providers in the file-sharing and anonymity space. Rather than trying to decipher what their often-confusing marketing lingo really means, we asked them two direct questions instead:

1. Do you keep ANY logs which would allow you or a 3rd party to match an IP address and a time stamp to a user of your service? If so, exactly what information do you hold?

2. Under what jurisdictions does your company operate and under what exact circumstances will you share the information you hold with a 3rd party?

This article does not attempt to consider the actual quality of service offered by any listed provider, nor does it consider whether any service is good value for money. All we are interested in is this: Do they live up to claims that they provide a 100% anonymous service? So here we go, VPN providers in the file-sharing space first.

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#InfoSec: How The NSA Intends to Eliminate Privacy on Earth

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1 Geostationary satellites

Four satellites positioned around the globe monitor frequencies carrying everything from walkie-talkies and cell phones in Libya to radar systems in North Korea. Onboard software acts as the first filter in the collection process, targeting only key regions, countries, cities, and phone numbers or email.

2 Aerospace Data Facility, Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado

Intelligence collected from the geostationary satellites, as well as signals from other spacecraft and overseas listening posts, is relayed to this facility outside Denver. About 850 NSA employees track the satellites, transmit target information, and download the intelligence haul.

3 NSA Georgia, Fort Gordon, Augusta, Georgia

Focuses on intercepts from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Codenamed Sweet Tea, the facility has been massively expanded and now consists of a 604,000-square-foot operations building for up to 4,000 intercept operators, analysts, and other specialists.

4 NSA Texas, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio

Focuses on intercepts from Latin America and, since 9/11, the Middle East and Europe. Some 2,000 workers staff the operation. The NSA recently completed a $100 million renovation on a mega-data center here—a backup storage facility for the Utah Data Center.

5 NSA Hawaii, Oahu

Focuses on intercepts from Asia. Built to house an aircraft assembly plant during World War II, the 250,000-square-foot bunker is nicknamed the Hole. Like the other NSA operations centers, it has since been expanded: Its 2,700 employees now do their work aboveground from a new 234,000-square-foot facility.

6 Domestic listening posts

The NSA has long been free to eavesdrop on international satellite communications. But after 9/11, it installed taps in US telecom “switches,” gaining access to domestic traffic. An ex-NSA official says there are 10 to 20 such installations.

7 Overseas listening posts

According to a knowledgeable intelligence source, the NSA has installed taps on at least a dozen of the major overseas communications links, each capable of eavesdropping on information passing by at a high data rate.

8 Utah Data Center, Bluffdale, Utah

At a million square feet, this $2 billion digital storage facility outside Salt Lake City will be the centerpiece of the NSA’s cloud-based data strategy and essential in its plans for decrypting previously uncrackable documents.

9 Multiprogram Research Facility, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Some 300 scientists and computer engineers with top security clearance toil away here, building the world’s fastest supercomputers and working on cryptanalytic applications and other secret projects.

10 NSA headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland

Analysts here will access material stored at Bluffdale to prepare reports and recommendations that are sent to policymakers. To handle the increased data load, the NSA is also building an $896 million supercomputer center here.

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We were down a few hours earlier today. There's no need to worry, we haven't been raided this time. We're only upgrading stuff since we're still growing.

One of the technical things we always optimize is where to put our front machines. They are the ones that re-direct your traffic to a secret location. We have now decided to try to build something extraordinary.

With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we're going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air. This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war.

We're just starting so we haven't figured everything out yet. But we can't limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore. These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we're building, that's more than enough.

But when time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy's most resilient system. And all of the parts we'll use to build that system on will be downloadable.

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Rogers’ “Cybersecurity” Bill Is Broad Enough to Use Against WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay

Congress is doing it again: they’re proposing overbroad regulations that could have dire consequences for our Internet ecology. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 3523), introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, allows companies or the government1 free rein to bypass existing laws in order to monitor communications, filter content, or potentially even shut down access to online services for “cybersecurity purposes.” Companies are encouraged to share data with the government and with one another, and the government can share data in return. The idea is to facilitate detection of and defense against a serious cyber threat, but the definitions in the bill go well beyond that. The language is so broad it could be used as a blunt instrument to attack websites like The Pirate Bay or WikiLeaks. Join EFF in calling on Congress to stop the Rogers’ cybersecurity bill.

Under the proposed legislation, a company that protects itself or other companies against “cybersecurity threats” can “use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property” of the company under threat. But because “us[ing] cybersecurity systems” is incredibly vague, it could be interpreted to mean monitoring email, filtering content, or even blocking access to sites. A company acting on a “cybersecurity threat” would be able to bypass all existing laws, including laws prohibiting telcos from routinely monitoring communications, so long as it acted in “good faith.”

The broad language around what constitutes a cybersecurity threat leaves the door wide open for abuse. For example, the bill defines “cyber threat intelligence” and “cybersecurity purpose” to include “theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.”

Yes, intellectual property. It’s a little piece of SOPA wrapped up in a bill that’s supposedly designed to facilitate detection of and defense against cybersecurity threats. The language is so vague that an ISP could use it to monitor communications of subscribers for potential infringement of intellectual property. An ISP could even interpret this bill as allowing them to block accounts believed to be infringing, block access to websites like The Pirate Bay believed to carry infringing content, or take other measures provided they claimed it was motivated by cybersecurity concerns.

The language of “theft or misappropriation of private or government information” is equally concerning. Regardless of the intent of this language, the end result is that the government and Internet companies could use this language to block sites like WikiLeaks and NewYorkTimes.com, both of which have published classified information. Online publishers like WikiLeaks are currently afforded protection under the First Amendment; receiving and publishing classified documents from a whistleblower is a common journalistic practice. While there’s uncertainty about whether the Espionage Act could be brought to bear against WikiLeaks, it is difficult to imagine a situation where the Espionage Act would apply to WikiLeaks without equally applying to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and in fact everyone who reads about the cablegate releases. But under Rogers' cybersecurity proposal, the government would have new, powerful tools to go after WikiLeaks. By claiming that WikiLeaks constituted “cyber threat intelligence” (aka “theft or misappropriation of private or government information”), the government may be empowering itself and other companies to monitor and block the site. This means that the previous tactics used to silence WikiLeaks—including a financial blockade and shutting down their accounts with online service providers—could be supplemented by very direct means. The government could proclaim that WikiLeaks constitutes a cybersecurity threat and have new, broad powers to filter and block communication with the journalistic website.

Congress is intent on passing cybersecurity legislation this year, and there are multiple proposals in the House and the Senate under debate. But none is as poorly drafted and dangerously vague as the Rogers bill. We need to stop this bill in its tracks, before it can advance in the House and before the authors can negotiate to place this overbroad language into other cybersecurity proposals.

Internet security is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. But we don’t need to sacrifice our civil liberties to do so. Help us safeguard the web by contacting Congress today.

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Syrian activists targeted by fake YouTube

Spoof site can plant malware on PCs of people who leave comments on videos, pressure group warns

Syrian activists are being targeted by a fake version of Google's YouTube video site which plants malware on the PCs of people who leave comments on videos shown there, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned.

The EFF, a pressure group for free speech online, said that the site has been used to target people watching videos showing the conflict inside Syria, and that it may have captured the login details for Google accounts belonging to activists inside or outside the country. It also warns that the site offers a fake "update" to the Flash software used on most PCs to view video content.

The discovery ratchets up the online attacks against Syrian anti-government activists, who have been increasingly targeted by malware which is capable of capturing webcam details, turning off antivirus programs and capturing passwords.

The organisation warned last week that it had found two cases of pro-Syrian government malware – which can take over a machine or silently watch everything that the user types – being sent as web links in emails and chat.

It found that that malware sent back details to an internet address, 216.6.0.28, which has been assigned to the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment – indicating that unlike the vast majority of malware, which is used by criminals to download bank or other details and controlled via machines on the wider web, this one connects back to an official address inside Syria. That makes it likely that it is controlled by agencies acting for the Syrian government. The online security company Symantec detailed the effects of the malware in February.

The EFF warns people who have recently viewed such videos that they should check the security of their Google account, including the enabling of "two-factor authentication" – which requires special login details and will send a warning to the user's phone if the account is accessed from a different machine than the one which they normally use.

The fake YouTube uses the same layout as the official one, with Arabic script as Syrian users would expect.

YouTube has become an important channel for Syrian activists trying to get news about attacks by the government on citizens and locations out to the rest of the world. Videos uploaded to the site have revealed detail about the effects of shelling on cities and the killing of citizens. By targeting those who watch such videos, pro-government activists might be able to build up information about the networks and members of activist groups.

In a statement, the EFF noted that "EFF is deeply concerned about this pattern of pro-government malware targeting online activists in authoritarian regimes. We will continue to keep a close eye on future developments in this area."

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Doc outrage: Anonymous 'behind' web-siege on Russian TV channel

The Russian faction of Anonymous has claimed responsibility for a cyber-attack on a Russian TV station's website. The outage follows a controversial documentary about Russian protestors produced by NTV.

One of Russia's major TV channels, NTV says its website was down for eleven hours Monday after DDoS attacks 'claimed by Anonymous.'

The site was under continuous threat of serious hacker attacks since last Friday, after the network showed a controversial documentary on the Russian opposition's protests that sparked a wave of outrage.

Anonymous admitted it was behind the cyber attack on March 16. “ntv.ru Tango down!” one member of Russian Anonymous posted to their twitter account.

“Protests Anatomy,” the documentary which sparked the attacks, was first aired last Thursday. Focusing on protests that have been taking place in Moscow ever since the 2011 parliamentary election, NTV speculated about whether protestors were paid from outsideof the country.

The documentary features a number of 'exposing videos' which are said to prove that many protestors were taking part in opposition mass-rallies for money. The reaction was explosive – shortly after the broadcast, a hashtag in Russian – #НТВлжет (#NTVlies) – made it to the top of worldwide trends on Twitter. Many were quick to label the program as outright propaganda, accusing NTV of fabrications and disinformation.

On Sunday, people angry at the channel gathered outside Moscow’s main TV center, which headquarters NTV, for an unsanctioned protest. Dozens were detained, but were released shortly after.

Gazprom-Media Holding, the owner of the channel, has slammed the hackers' attacks: "NTV is an informational and publicist channel that covers all aspects of societal life, and presents a palette of opinions and moods. Programs broadcasted are a matter of discussions of issues of the day. I believe the attacks violate democratic mechanisms and freedom of speech," said Nikolay Senkevich, general director of Gazprom Media.

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Obama zet zich in voor vrij internet in Iran

Obama wil zich sterker inzetten voor het vrije internet in Iran. De Amerikaanse president beschuldigt Iran ervan een ‘elektronisch gordijn’ te hebben opgetrokken. Burgers hebben er geen toegang tot vrije informatie, zegt de president.

De Verenigde Staten zullen het makkelijker gaan maken voor Amerikaanse bedrijven om software Iran in te krijgen. Met die software moeten Iraniërs makkelijker van internet gebruik kunnen maken, zei Obama vandaag volgens persbureau Reuters in een videobericht aan het Iraanse volk.

Obama meent dat Iran een ‘elektronisch gordijn’ heeft opgetrokken om een vrije uitwisseling van ideeën en informatie tegen te houden. Hij roept de Iraanse regering op te stoppen met het blokkeren van informatie voor burgers, en voor het respecteren van hun universele rechten.

Tegelijkertijd gaf Obama aan dat er geen reden is voor een verdeling tussen de Verenigde Staten en Iran. Obama zei dat hij wil dat Iraniërs weten dat Amerika de dialoog zoekt om hun visie en wensen te horen. De president gaf de videotoespraak ter gelegenheid van het Iraanse nieuwjaar.

De opmerkingen van Obama komen tijdens verhoogde spanningen tussen Iran en de VS rond het nucleaire programma van Iran. Obama zei dat als Iraanse regering een “verantwoordelijk pad” volgt, het welkom is in de internationale gemeenschap terug te keren. Iran houdt vol dat het nucleaire programma vreedzaam van aard is en dat het niet bezig is kernwapens te ontwikkelen.

quote:

Judge Lifts Twitter Ban On "Anonymous" 14

MARCH 19--Over objections from the Department of Justice, a judge has lifted a Twitter ban on 14 accused members of “Anonymous” now under indictment for their alleged roles in a coordinated online assault against PayPal, an attack prosecutors contend was carried out via the social networking site.

Ruling on motions filed by several defendants, Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal stated that since government lawyers did not sufficiently link “allegedly criminal activities to use of a Twitter account,” the defendants were free to use the microblogging service. Grewal’s order was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California.

In a January court filing, defendant Vincent Kershaw argued that bail conditions barring his use of Twitter unduly burdened his First Amendment right to engage in political discourse. Kershaw, 28, contended that the Twitter ban prohibited him from “even perusing such critical communications from our own President or engaging in the Twitter Town Halls in any manner.”

In opposing Kershaw’s motion, a prosecutor described Twitter as one of the “principle tools through which the members of the Anonymous hacking group planned and coordinated their criminal activities.”

Kershaw, pictured in the above mug shot, also sought permission to use Internet Relay Chat so that he could participate in “political debate” and “political speech” in IRC chat rooms. That motion was denied by Grewal, who ruled that Kershaw and his codefendants are allowed “substantial internet use for purposes that include political discourse.”

Kershaw, a Colorado landscaper, and his codefendants were charged last July with conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer for allegedly participating in an “Anonymous”-organized denial of service attack on PayPal. The felony counts carry a combined maximum of 15 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

The December 2010 online assault--dubbed “Operation Avenge Assange”--was prompted by the suspension of WikiLeaks’s PayPal account in the wake of the publication of classified Department of State cables by the group headed by Julian Assange. (3 pages)

twitter:

AnonOpsRomania twitterde op dinsdag 20-03-2012 om 22:05:57 Dutch biggest ISP's website Ziggo.nl Database leaked http://t.co/g2UjuI4O VIA @anonyINTRA #Anonymous #AntiSec reageer retweet

quote:

http://pastebin.com/Qpa4MMMU
#author:
AnonyINTRA
AnonbiH

#Target:
Ziggo.nl

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ya, as some proof some few costumers information.

quote:

Op dinsdag 20 maart 2012 22:11 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

twitter:

AnonOpsRomania twitterde op dinsdag 20-03-2012 om 22:05:57 Dutch biggest ISP's website Ziggo.nl Database leaked http://t.co/g2UjuI4O VIA @anonyINTRA #Anonymous #AntiSec reageer retweet

[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 21 maart 2012 14:41 schreef picodealion het volgende:

[..]

Virusmelding op die pastebin link.

quote:

NSA Chief Denies, Denies, Denies Wired’s Domestic Spying Story

NSA chief General Keith Alexander faced tough — and funny — questions from Congress Tuesday stemming from Wired’s story on the NSA’s capabalities and warrantless wiretapping program.

Congressman Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, asked Alexander whether the NSA could, at the direction of Dick Cheney, identify people who sent e-mails making fun of his inability to hunt in order to waterboard them.

Alexander said “No,” adding that the “NSA does not have the ability to do that in the United States.” Elaborating, Alexander added: “We don’t have the technical insights in the United States. In other words, you have to have [...] some way of doing that either by going to a service provider with a warrant or you have to be collecting in that area. We’re not authorized to do that, nor do we have the equipment in the United States to collect that kind of information.”

That statement seemingly contradicts James Bamford’s story, The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say), as well as stories from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Wired, which collectively drew a picture of the NSA’s post-9/11 foray into wiretapping the nation’s telecommunication’s infrastructure to spy on Americans without getting warrants.

Bamford writes:

. In the process — and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration — the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it’s all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.

But in testimony Tuesday in front of the House Armed Services subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Alexander responded to questions about the program, saying the NSA did not have the capability to monitor, inside the United States, Americans’ text messages, phone calls and e-mails. He added that if the NSA were to target an American, the FBI would take the lead and fill out the paperwork. (That’s an odd statement, since the process for targeting an American by the intelligence services is for the NSA to fill out the paperwork, submit it to the Justice Department and then send it to a secret court, according to statements by former Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell.)

Alexander and Johnson both mispronounced Bamford’s name as Bashford (a Freudian slip). But it’s an odder mistake by Alexander, given that Bamford is the premier chronicler of the NSA.

It’s hard to tell here whether Alexander is parsing the questions closely, misspeaking or telling the truth. The heads of the intelligence service have a long tradition of misspeaking or telling untruths that advance their agenda. President George Bush himself on the re-election campaign trail said that no American had been wiretapped without a warrant, which was plainly false, according to numerous news stories and the government’s own admissions of the program.

In the aftermath of those half-truths, the Congress passed, and Bush signed into law, the FISA Amendments Act, which re-wrote the nation’s surveillance laws to give the NSA a much freer hand to wiretap American infrastructure wholesale.

Court challenges to the program, brought by the EFF and the ACLU, attempted to argue that even allowing the NSA to harvest Americans’ communications alongside foreigners into giant databases violated American law and the US Constitution. However, those challenges have never survived the Bush and Obama administration’s invocation of the “state secrets” privilege to have them thrown out of court.

Which is another way of saying that Americans have no idea what’s going on. Given the choice between an administration official saying nothing is going on and a respected reporter with inside sources saying something wicked this way comes, I know where my trust would lie.

Hank asks NSA director tough questions about wiretaps, e-mail intercepts

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DHS Turns Over Occupy Wall Street Documents to Truthout

quote:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) closely monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement, providing agency officials with regular updates about protests taking place throughout the country, responding to requests from fusion centers for intelligence on the group and mining Twitter for information about Occupy's activities, according to hundreds of pages of documents DHS released to Truthout Wednesday morning in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

quote:

http://truth-out.org/file(...)elease_OWS_Part1.pdf

I left both of you voice mail messages in which I described this issue in greater detail.
There is attached to this email a threat bulletin being disseminated by the Office of Emergency Management in Pittsburgh in which it discusses the threat posed by the Occupy Pittsburgh campaign and the hackers’ group: Anonymous. Both myself and (IO deployed to the PACIC Center in Harrisburg) are somewhat concerned that several items contained in this Intel Bulletin might be advocating surveillance and other countermeasures to be employed against activities protected under the 1st Amendment. Would either one or both of you be able to see what could be developed from this document that could take back to the Intel staff that produced this so that in the future they have a greater awareness of how to develop intelligence assessments that don’t undermine Constitutionally protected speech and assembly rights? Thanks in advanced, really appreciate all your help.

quote:

Documents Show Homeland Security Was Tracking Occupy Wall Street Even Before The First Protest

The Department of Homeland Security has been tracking the Occupy Wall Street movement since well before protesters first took Zuccotti Park last September, according to internal DHS memos obtained by Business Insider through a Freedom of Information Act Request.

The documents show that DHS alerted its agents to the Wall Street protests — and specifically the involvement of the hacker group Anonymous in organizing the protests — sometime before the Sept. 17 kickoff of the protests in downtown Manhattan.

In an undated memo, titled "Details On 'Anonymous' Upcoming Operations: 17 September 2011: Occupy Wall Street; U.S. Day of Rage," the DHS Office of Intelligence notes that the hacker group had came out in support of the planned Sept. 17 Wall Street protests. The memo provides details of a YouTube video released by Anonymous that called on protesters "to adopt a non-violent 'Tahrir-acampadas model,'" and to "flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months."

The memo warns that AdBusters, the original organizers of the OWS protests, had also planned a demonstration on the National Mall to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq in October 2011.

Another DHS Intelligence memo provides further warnings about the impact and likelihood of upcoming Anonymous Operations.

According to that memo, DHS cybersecurity analysts considered it "likely" that that peaceful OWS protests would occur on Sept. 17, and that "those protests may be accompanied by malicious cyber activity conducted by Anonymous."

The memo says analysts considered it unlikely that Anonymous would follow through with threats to launch a coordinated attack against Facebook on Nov. 5 2011.

On Anonymous's "Project Mayhem," — a year-long effort that will end with an "unveiling of secrets" on Dec. 21 2012 — the DHS warns that "inconsequential physical mischief and potentially disruptive malicious cyber activities" are expected, but "specific tactics, techniques, and procedures are unknown."

The memo also mentions an "Operation Halliburton" but says that "little is known" about the potential operation, which presumably targets the U.S. oilfield services giant.

Two other memos obtained by BI warn about Anonymous' threats to take down the New York Stock Exchange and to hack Fox News' website over the network's coverage of the OWS movement.

The documents were released to Business Insider today in response to a FOIA request we filed when reports first started circulating that DHS helped coordinate the nationwide OWS crackdown last November.

Although we have only made it through some of the 408 documents, what we've seen so far indicates that while the agency reluctant to get involved in the Occupy protests (at least initially), Homeland Security was definitely keeping tabs on the movement from the outset.

Read the memos below.

Read more: http://www.businessinside(...)2012-3#ixzz1pmgAeMeE

quote:

Brein wil omzeilen van verbod Pirate Bay aanpakken

Stichting Brein sommeert mensen die het klanten van Ziggo en Xs4all via een omweg het mogelijk maken om toch op The Pirate Bay te komen om hier onmiddellijk mee te stoppen.

Enkele Nederlandse beheerders van zogeheten proxyservers hebben een brief gekregen van de auteursrechtenorganisatie. Dat meldt de website Tweakers.net.

Ziggo en XS4ALL blokkeerden onlangs al de toegang tot torrentsite The Pirate bay, nadat de rechtbank in Den Haag ze daar toe had verplicht in een door Brein aangespannen zaak. Abonnees zouden muziek, films of games uitwisselen via The Pirate Bay en daarmee inbreuk maken op auteursrechten.

Volgens Brein-directeur Tim Kuik bieden de beheerders van proxyservers opzettelijk omzeiling van een rechterlijk verbod aan. “Als zij niet voldoen houden wij ze aansprakelijk voor schade”, zegt hij aan Tweakers.net. Onduidelijk is hoeveel mensen een beschikking en een sommatie hebben gekregen.

Brein daagde vorige maand internetproviders UPC, KPN, Tele2 en T-Mobile voor de rechter in een poging ook deze bedrijven ertoe te bewegen de website The Pirate Bay te blokkeren. De zaak dient 19 april.

quote:

Op woensdag 21 maart 2012 15:34 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Ik kreeg geen melding, ben ik nu besmet?

quote:

T E L E C O M I X opsyria has established a secure dropbox

quote:

#opsyria has established a secure dropbox, administrated by LulzPanda, where you can put informations and files to publish without fear of being identified.

quote:

Exposed: Inside the NSA’s Largest and Most Expansive Secret Domestic Spy Center in Bluffdale, Utah

A new exposé in Wired Magazine reveals details about how the National Security Agency is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah, as part of a secret NSA surveillance program codenamed "Stellar Wind." We speak with investigative reporter James Bamford, who says the NSA has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. The Utah spy center will contain near-bottomless databases to store all forms of communication collected by the agency. This includes 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." "The NSA has constantly denied that they’re doing things, and then it turns out they are doing these things," Bamford says in response to NSA Director General Keith Alexander’s denial yesterday that U.S. citizens’ phone calls and emails are being intercepted. "A few years ago, President Bush said before camera that the United States is not eavesdropping on anybody without a warrant, and then it turns out that we had this exposure to all the warrantless eavesdropping in the New York Times article. And so, you have this constant denial and parsing of words." [includes rush transcript]

quote:

Sarkozy wil bezoek terroristische sites bestraffen – ‘campagne weer begonnen’

Sarkozy wil het bezoeken van terroristische websites en het reizen naar terroristische kampen in Afghanistan en Pakistan strafbaar stellen. Daarnaast wil hij strafrechtelijke maatregelen tegen “indoctrinatie” van islamisten, zei hij vanmiddag in een verklaring na de dood van de Franse schutter.

Sarkozy reageerde vanmiddag in een verklaring op het nieuws dat de schutter die zeven mensen in Frankrijk heeft vermoord, vanochtend gedood is bij een hevig vuurgevecht.

De Franse president zei dat Frankrijk het bezoeken van websites die oproepen tot terrorisme, haat of geweld strafbaar gaat maken. “Frankrijk zal geen rekrutering en ideologische indoctrinatie op zijn grondgebied tolereren”, zei Sarkozy. Daarnaast wil hij onderzoeken of gevangenissen gebruikt worden om extremisme in Frankrijk te propaganderen.

quote:

Anonymous Hacks Christian Websites In Mexico: “POPE is not welcome, out out!!!!!”

Anonymous Hispano, the Mexican branch of the online hacktivist collective based in Latin America lay siege to two Mexican websites on Tue, March 20 in protest of Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit in an cyber-operation referred to as #opFariseo (hypocrite) on Twitter. The hackers succeeded in temporarily knocking the websites offline and defacing them with their own message: "Hacked system. The POPE is not welcome, out out!!!!!"

Both hacked websites were linked to the Pope's planned visit to the country this Friday through Monday, before the religious leader continues his tour in Cuba. The website of the Achdiocese of Mexico was down for several hours on Tue. March 20 as was the website of the Institute of Communications and Philosophy (Comfil), which is usually devoted to teaching philosophy.

On their Facebook page, Anonymous Hispano confirmed that the websites were "hacked for supporting Benedict XVI). In a corresponding YouTube video the hacktivists claimed that the Pope's visit was connected to political campaigning for the upcoming Mexican presidential elections on July 1, and is an effort to throw the Catholic Church's support behind the current ruling party and to "keep the population shrouded in lies."

They also argue that the Pope's visit will not include any chances to witness the country's intense poverty and violence. Instead he will only see "a country of lies and facades where everything will apparently be wonderful."

In an explanatory message on Pastebin in Spanish, Anonymous Hispano posted a manifesto of sorts, titling the cyber-attack "Operation Freeloader," in a reference to the Pope. The message goes on to state that the collective believes Mexico should be a secular nation, and described the alliance of church and state in Mexico as an "irrefutable fact." (Read the full translated message below).

Anonymous has conducted operations in Mexico before, targeting the notorious drug cartels in the past when members of the hacktivist collective were held captive by the Mexican warlords.

quote:

TERRORIST Facebook pages leaked from CIA.

quote:

Source: Roger Landry WTPNetwork™(312-94876)
Updated List (3/17/12) These groups, pages and websites will be added to the terrorists watch list pending investigation.

quote:

List of Partner Forums

A Free and Voluntary Society
"Action Group to Uphold the Constitution"
Anarcho-Capitalism
Columbia Missouri for Ron Paul 2012
End the War on Drugs
Growing Organic, Eating Organic

quote:

Shopping For Zero-Days: A Price List For Hackers' Secret Software Exploits

A clever hacker today has to make tough choices. Find a previously unknown method for dismantling the defenses of a device like an iPhone or iPad, for instance, and you can report it to Apple and present it at a security conference to win fame and lucrative consulting gigs. Share it with HP’s Zero Day Initiative instead and earn as much as $10,000 for helping the firm shore up its security gear. Both options also allow Apple to fix its bugs and make the hundreds of millions of iPhone and iPad users more secure.

But any hacker who happens to know one Bangkok-based security researcher who goes by the handle “the Grugq”–or someone like him–has a third option: arrange a deal through the pseudonymous exploit broker to hand the exploit information over to a government agency, don’t ask too many questions, and get paid a quarter of a million dollars–minus the Grugq’s 15% commission.

That iOS exploit price represents just one of the dozens of deals the Grugq (pictured above) has arranged in his year-old side career as a middle man for so-called “zero-day” exploits, hacking techniques that take advantage of secret vulnerabilities in software. Since he began hooking up his hacker friends with contacts in government a year ago, the Grugq says he’s on track to earn a million in revenue this year. He arranged the iOS deal last month, for instance, between a developer and a U.S. government contractor. In that case, as with all of his exploit sales, he won’t offer any other details about the buyer or the seller.

Even with the $250,000 payout he elicited for that deal, he wonders if he could have gotten more. “I think I lowballed it,” he wrote to me at one point in the dealmaking process. “The client was too happy.”

A six-figure price for a single hacking technique may sound extravagant, but it’s hardly unique. Based on speaking with sources in this secretive but legal trade, I’ve assembled a rough price list for zero-day exploits below.



Each price assumes an exclusive sale, the most modern version of the software, and, of course, not alerting the software’s vendor. Some fees might even be paid in installments, with each subsequent payment depending on the vendor not patching the security vulnerabilities used by the exploit. In some cases the techniques would need to be used in combination to be effective.

An exploit’s price factors in both how widely the target software is used as well as the difficulty of cracking it. A technique that allows a hacker to gain control of a Mac OSX machine after hacking an application might earn only a fraction of one that targets Windows, for instance, because of Windows’ greater market share. But an iOS exploit pays more than one that targets Android devices partly because it requires defeating Apple’s significantly tougher security features. That means most agencies can simply develop their own Android attacks, the Grugq says, while ones that can penetrate the iPhone are rare and pricey. For the Jailbreakme 3 iOS exploit created by the hacker Comex last year, the Grugq says he heard agencies would have been eager to pay $250,000 for exclusive use of the attack.

Who’s paying these prices? Western governments, and specifically the U.S., says the Grugq, who himself is a native of South Africa. He limits his sales to the American and European agencies and contractors not merely out of ethical concerns, but also because they pay more. “Selling a bug to the Russian mafia guarantees it will be dead in no time, and they pay very little money,” he says, explaining that he has no contacts in the Russian government. ”Russia is flooded with criminals. They monetize exploits in the most brutal and mediocre way possible, and they cheat each other heavily.”

As for China, he says that the country has too many hackers who sell only to the Chinese government, pushing down prices. “The market is very depressed,” he says. Other regions like the Middle East and the rest of Asia can’t match Western prices either.

As a result, the Grugq earns 80% of his revenue from the U.S., though occasionally the developers who work with him have asked that he sell only to Europeans. Over more than a decade in the hacker scene, he’s met enough federal agents to have contacts at multiple U.S. agencies, and he knows how to package his developer’s exploits for sale to those buyers, with professional marketing and support. “You’re basically selling commercial software, like anything else. It needs to be polished and come with documentation,” he says. “The only difference is that you only sell one license, ever, and everyone calls you evil.”

One of the most vocal of those critics is Chris Soghoian, a privacy activist with the Open Society Foundations, who has described the firms and individuals who sell software exploits as “the modern-day merchants of death” selling “the bullets of cyberwar.”

“As soon as one of these weaponized zero-days sold to governments is obtained by a ‘bad guy’ and used to attack critical U.S. infrastructure, the shit will hit the fan,” Soghoian warned in a talk at the Kaspersky analyst summit in February. “Security researchers should not be selling zero-days to middle man firms…These firms are cowboys and if we do nothing to stop them, they will drag the entire security industry into a world of pain.”

The Grugq sees no ethical compromise in his work. “The Chinese are conducting espionage on a massive scale. [Soghoian] wants to ban sales of software–sorry, exploits–to the U.S. and European allies?” he asks. “The only possible outcome is that the Chinese will increase their internal production and skills and the…West will fall behind.”

Anyway, he adds, he doesn’t believe banning the sale of exploit code wouldn’t make users more secure. “That’ll work just as well at eliminating exploits as the war on drugs has worked at eliminating drugs,” he says.

The Grugq is hardly alone in his industry. Small firms like Vupen, Endgame and Netragard buy and sell exploits, as do major defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

Netragard’s founder Adriel Desautels says he’s been in the exploit-selling game for a decade, and describes how the market has “exploded” in just the last year. He says there are now “more buyers, deeper pockets,” that the time for a purchase has accelerated from months to weeks, and he’s being approached by sellers with around 12 to 14 zero-day exploits every month compared to just four to six a few years ago.

Desautels won’t offer much about exactly who his customers are. But he says not every buyer aims to use his zero-days for spying. He claims to have recently sold a browser exploit for $125,000 to a private sector client for who aimed to use it merely as a proof-of-concept for marketing purposes. Other buyers use Netragard’s exploits for penetration testing, he says. “If you test a bullet proof vest, you use a bullet, not a squirt gun,” says Desautels.

Nonetheless, he says that the firm is “extremely careful” about choosing its customers. “We reject a lot more people than we accept,” he says. “Realistically, we’re selling cyberweaponry.”

And what about the option of selling the exploits to the software vendor itself, so that it can patch the targeted program? Firms like Mozilla and Facebook offer developers a few thousand dollars for reporting bugs. Google typically offers a maximum of $3,133.70 for information about the most complex flaws in its software, a number that’s meant to spell out “elite” in hacker slang.

But a four-figure price is hardly elite enough for the Grugq. ”If they want their bugs fixed, they can buy them at market rates like everyone else,” he says. “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs? That’s communism. If they want the output, they can pay for it like anyone else. They have my email.”

quote:

Planned BitTorrent Pirate Punishments Spark Protest

In a few months, millions of alleged BitTorrent pirates in the US will risk being punished by their Internet providers. While the plan was announced a year ago, protests against it have only started to heat up this week. In just a few days more than 90,000 people have signed a petition asking their Internet providers not to participate, and many more are expected to follow.

Last year the MPAA and RIAA signed a ‘ground-breaking’ deal with all the major Internet providers in the United States.

In an attempt to deter online piracy, a third-party company will collect the IP-addresses of alleged infringers on BitTorrent and other public file-sharing networks.

The ISPs will then notify these offenders and tell them that their behavior is unacceptable. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive measures, which include cutting off the offender’s connection temporarily.

After the initial announcement things went quiet, but that changed last week when the RIAA and the Center for Copyright Information confirmed that all major ISPs will start warning BitTorrent users this summer.

This renewed attention resulted in wide press coverage, and also sparked massive protests. Activist group Demand Progress quickly switched back to SOPA-style campaign mode and launched a petition asking ISPs to cut out of the deal.

“They’re selling us out,” the group writes.

“Just weeks after Internet users from across the globe came together to beat SOPA, the major ISPs are cutting a deal with Big Content to restrict web access for users who are accused of piracy.”

The call didn’t go unheard, and within 24 hours more than 60,000 people signed the petition. Today this number has swelled to more than 90,000 and the end still isn’t in sight.

Earlier this week the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also expressed its concerns over the so-called ‘graduated response’ system. They highlight that the agreement puts the burden of proof on the alleged file-sharers, which doesn’t seem fair considering the many wrongful accusations that can occur.

“One key problem is the arrangement shifts the burden of proof: rather than accusers proving infringement before the graduated response process starts against a subscriber, the subscriber must disprove the accusation in order to call a halt to it,” EFF writes.

“Worse, accused subscribers have to defend themselves on an uneven playing field. For example, they have only ten days to prepare a defense, and with only six pre-set options available. Of course, there’s no assurance that those who review the cases are neutral, and the plan sorely lacks consequences for an accuser who makes mistaken or fraudulent claims.”

The EFF informed TorrentFreak that they plan to launch an activism campaign in the near future to raise awareness of these issues.

How ‘bad’ the graduated warning system turns out to be largely depends on what punishments Internet providers intend to hand out. Needless to say, a temporary reduction in bandwidth is less severe than cutting people’s Internet access.

At TorrentFreak we are interested in finding out which third-party company will be hired to monitor people’s BitTorrent downloads, and how solid their evidence gathering methods are.

This is important, because the RIAA’s previous partner MediaSentry used rather shoddy techniques which resulted in many false accusations. The RIAA’s current partner DtecNet also has shortcomings as they fail to understand how BitTorrent works.

As we move closer to the July deadline more details should emerge. At the same time the online protests are also expected to increase, both through public initiatives and various advocacy groups. While it’s doubtful that they will ever get the same exposure as the SOPA revolt, there is no doubt that these protests will be noticed.

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DOJ Signs New Rules To Let Intelligence Officials Access, Store And Search More Info About US Citizens

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The Obama administration is moving to relax restrictions on how counterterrorism analysts may access, store and search information about Americans gathered by government agencies for purposes other than national security threats.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Thursday signed new guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center, which was created in 2004 to foster intelligence sharing and to serve as a clearinghouse for terrorism threats.

The guidelines will lengthen to five years — from 180 days — the center’s ability to retain private information about Americans when there is no suspicion that they are tied to terrorism, intelligence officials said. The guidelines are also expected to result in the center making more copies of entire databases and “data-mining them” — using complex algorithms to search for patterns that could indicate a threat — than it currently does.

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An Answer to Rose Collins, Mother of Jeremy Hammond

This letter is in response to http://finance.townhall.c(...)for_anonymous/page/2

Hello Rose,

I have read your open letter and would like to provide a response. Before I do that please understand the following: I am merely one Anon of many and I can only speak for myself. I do not know how many fellow Anons do agree with this, some may, others may in part while even more may totally disagree. But this does not matter, this is just the way Anonymous works.

I will not go into my involvement in Anonymous Operations but I can say that I have communicated with both Sabu and the online identity who is alleged to be your son Jeremy on more than one occasion. So the whole situation is not completely alien to me.

As for your first question: Yes, we do have lawyers. Within Anonymous and also outside, which are willing to support and defend Anons who have been arrested. You may have seen the websites http://anonlg.com/, http://freeanons.org/, and http://freehammond.org.

These are just the ones I can think of right now, there are more. Additionally the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation, http://www.eff.org) is willing to help. So yes, there is much help on the legal front and if you want to provide your son with additional legal help, I suggest you contact one of these volunteers.

To your second question: "If you do not forget or forgive, are you in agreement with Jeremy regarding imprisonment of those convicted of crimes?"

This is a tough one, but I will give you my own answer: I guess you won't find many lawyers that would argue that AntiSec related actions are not illegal at all, but I do *not* consider them criminal. This is an important difference. I think his actions were morally justifiable because he did not hack for his profit - never. He did it out of conviction, because he believed in a good cause. He is sick of the system we live in, which certainly is a view that many Anons share. While there are a large group of Anons that do not share the methods he used, this is not relevant to me (and my opinion on this does not matter). What is important is that Jeremy - in my belief - acted out of a conviction that is ethically honorable and I respect that.

Coming to Sabu. A very delicate subject, as you can imagine. From what I can see, the majority of Anons despise Sabu with all their guts and some may even want to do him physical harm. I do not consider myself one of them, mostly because there is so much information missing (and some information reported in the media may be outright false) so I dare not judge on this incident without having access to the full facts. Secondly, I believe that Sabu was also fighting for a good cause and I would think (and hope) that he hates himself for what he has done. If what the FBI claims is all true, I am certainly disappointed in him, as I would have never expected that Sabu - of all! - would commit such a treason. It was a very sad day for Anonymous when this came out.

Next question: "Who are you to decide that all government secrets must be exposed?"

Well, I am Anonymous and again, I can only speak for myself. As I said above, many Anons do not condone the actions done by groups such as LulzSec and AntiSec; these operations were certainly controversial. But many Anons believe that governments must become more transparent and less secretive, especially because we learn every day that the Government is filled with corruption, lies and greed. There are very good reasons that almost every Anon is also a strong supporter of Wikileaks.

As for your last question: I agree. While the banks and bankers certainly play a major role in all the problems the system has, and certainly are to blame for much suffering of the majority of the people, they are only part of the machinery. There are also politicians, mighty international companies, manipulating mass media and lobbies - they all have their role in the fuckup we are living in. But in the end it all comes down to money. And this is why bankers are one of the most obvious targets.

I hope this answer helps you in any way. As a final word I wish to say that I hope that Jeremy will have the best possible result in court and I wish you both the very best for the future.

Kindly,

An Anon

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Barendrechter aangehouden voor hacken KPN

De Nationale Recherche heeft vorige week dinsdag in Barendrecht een zeventienjarige jongen aangehouden op verdenking een digitale inbraak bij KPN in januari. Hij zou het computersysteem van het telecombedrijf met kwaadaardige software hebben beschadigd.

De Barendrechter verkreeg zo van enkele honderden servers de hoogste toegangsrechten. Dat meldt het Openbaar Ministerie. Ook werd in Australië een zestienjarige hacker aangehouden die in contact stond met de Nederlandse verdachte.

Verdachte hackte ook universiteitsnetwerken

De Nationale Recherche legde beslag op een versleutelde computer, twee laptops en gegevensdragers van de Nederlandse verdachte. Ze kwamen hem op het spoor nadat hij in een chatkanaal tegen studenten van de Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kaist) had opgeschept over zijn inbraak. De verdachte is vermoedelijk ook binnengedrongen in computers van de Tokohu University in Japan, de universiteit van Trondheim in Noorwegen en de Kaist in Zuid-Korea. Bovendien lijkt de jongen een website te beheren waarop gegevens van gestolen creditcards worden verhandeld.

Volgens het OM blokkeerde KPN na de ontdekking van de hack uit voorzorg twee miljoen e-mailaccounts. Volgens het telecombedrijf staan de twee zaken los van elkaar. De inloggegevens van klanten die toen op internet verschenen bleken afkomstig van thuiswinkel baby-dump.nl, meldt persbureau Novum. KPN keerde een ton aan schadevergoedingen uit aan klanten die gedupeerd werden door het afsluiten van de mailaccounts.

Het voorarrest van de Barendrechter werd vrijdag met twee weken verlengd. Het OM kwam er vanwege het belang van het onderzoek niet eerder mee naar buiten. Volgens KPN laat de leeftijd van de verdachte Barendrechter en of er al dan niet sprake is van kwade opzet onverlet dat de beveiliging optimaal moet worden georganiseerd.

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Op dinsdag 27 maart 2012 01:02 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

Anonymous: Message to YouTube

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The disappearing virtual library

The shutdown of library.nu is creating a virtual showdown between would-be learners and the publishing industry

Los Angeles, CA - Last week a website called "library.nu" disappeared. A coalition of international scholarly publishers accused the site of piracy and convinced a judge in Munich to shut it down. Library.nu (formerly Gigapedia) had offered, if the reports are to be believed, between 400,000 and a million digital books for free.

And not just any books - not romance novels or the latest best-sellers - but scholarly books: textbooks, secondary treatises, obscure monographs, biographical analyses, technical manuals, collections of cutting-edge research in engineering, mathematics, biology, social science and humanities.

The texts ranged from so-called "orphan works" (out-of-print, but still copyrighted) to recent issues; from poorly scanned to expertly ripped; from English to German to French to Spanish to Russian, with the occasional Japanese or Chinese text. It was a remarkable effort of collective connoisseurship. Even the pornography was scholarly: guidebooks and scholarly books about the pornography industry. For a criminal underground site to be mercifully free of pornography must alone count as a triumph of civilisation.

To the publishing industry, this event was a victory in the campaign to bring the unruly internet under some much-needed discipline. To many other people - namely the users of the site - it was met with anger, sadness and fatalism. But who were these sad criminals, these barbarians at the gates ready to bring our information economy to its knees?

They are students and scholars, from every corner of the planet.

Pirating to learn

The world, it should not come as a surprise, is filled with people who want desperately to learn. This is what our world should be filled with. This is what scholars work hard to create: a world of reading, learning, thinking and scholarship. The users of library.nu were would-be scholars: those in the outer atmosphere of learning who wanted to know, argue, dispute, experiment and write just as those in the universities do.

Maybe they were students once, but went on to find jobs and found families. We made them in some cases - we gave them a four-year taste of the life of the mind before sending them on their way with unsupportable loans. In other cases, they made themselves, by hook or by crook.

So what does the shutdown of library.nu mean? The publishers think it is a great success in the war on piracy; that it will lead to more revenue and more control over who buys what, if not who reads what. The pirates - the people who create and run such sites - think that shutting down library.nu will only lead to a thousand more sites, stronger and better than before.

But both are missing the point: the global demand for learning and scholarship is not being met by the contemporary publishing industry. It cannot be, not with the current business models and the prices. The users of library.nu - these barbarians at the gate of the publishing industry and the university - are legion.

They live all over the world, but especially in Latin and South America, in China, in Eastern Europe, in Africa and in India. It's hard to get accurate numbers, but any perusal of the tweets mentioning library.nu or the comments on blog posts about it reveal that the main users of the site are the global middle class. They are not the truly poor, they are not slum-denizens or rural poor - but nonetheless they do not have much money. They are the real 99 per cent (as compared to the Euro-American 1 per cent).

They may be scientists or scholars themselves: some work in schools, universities or corporations, others are doubly outside of the elite learned class - jobholders whose desire to learn is and will only ever be an avocation. They are a global market engaged in what we in the elite institutions of the world are otherwise telling them to do all the time: educate yourself; become scholars and thinkers; read and think for yourselves; bring civilisation, development and modernity to your people.

Sharing is caring

Library.nu was making that learning possible where publishers have not. It made a good show of being a "book review" site - it was called library.nu after all, and not "bookstore.nu". It was not cluttered with advertisements, nor did it "suggest" other books constantly. It gave straight answers to straightforward searches, and provided user reviews of the 400,000 or more books in the database.

It was only the fact that library.nu included a link to another site ("sharehosting" sites like ifile.it, megaupload.com, or mediafire.com) containing the complete version of a digital text that brought library.nu into the realm of what passes for crime these days.

But the legality of library.nu is also not the issue: trading in scanned, leaked or even properly purchased versions of digital books is thoroughly illegal. This is so much the case that it can't be long before reading a book - making an unauthorised copy in your brain - is also made illegal.

But library.nu shared books; it did not sell them. If it made any money, it was not from the texts themselves, but from advertising revenue. As with Napster in 1999, library.nu was facilitating discovery: the ability to search deeper and deeper into the musical or scholarly tastes fellow humans and to discover their connections that no recommendation algorithm will ever be able to make. In their effort to control this market, publishers alongside the movie and music industry have been effectively criminalising sharing, learning and creating - not stealing.

Users of library.nu did not have to upload texts to the site in order to use it, but they were rewarded if they did. There were formal rules (and informal ones, to be sure), concerning how one might "level up" in the library.nu community. The site developed as websites do, adding features here and there, and obviously expanding its infrastructure as necessary. The administrators of the site maintained absolute control over who could participate and who could not - no doubt in order to protect the site from skulking FBI agents and enthusiastic newbies alike.

Even a casual observer could have seen that the frequent changes to the site were the effects of the cat-and-mouse game underway as law authorities and publishers sought to understand and eventually seek legal action against this community. In the end, it was only by donating to the site that law authorities discovered the real people behind the site - pirates too have PayPal accounts.

Shutting down learning

The winter of 2012 has seen a series of assaults on file-sharing sites in the wake of the failed SOPA and PIPA legislation. Mega-upload.com (the brainchild of eccentric master pirate Kim Dotcom - he legally changed his name in 2005) was seized by the US Department of Justice; torrent site btjunkie.com voluntarily closed down for fear of litigation.

In the last few days before they closed for good, library.nu winked in and out of existence, finally (and ironically), displayed a page saying "this domain has been revoked by .nu domain" (the island nation of Niue). It prominently displays a link to a book (on Amazon!) called Blue Latitudes, about the voyage of Captain Cook. A story about that other kind of pirate branches off here.

So what does the shutdown of library.nu mean? One thing it means is that these barbarians - these pirates who are also scholars - are angry. We scholars have long been singing the praises of education, learning, mutual aid and the virtues of getting a good degree. We scholars have been telling the world of desperate learners to do just what they are doing, if not in so many terms.

So there are a lot of angry young middle-class learners in the world this month. Some are existentially angry about the injustice of this system, some are pragmatically angry they must now spend $100 - if they even have that much - on a textbook instead of on themselves or their friends.

All of them are angry that what looked to everyone like the new horizon of learning - and the promise of the vaunted new digital economy - has just disappeared behind the dark eclipse of a Munich judge's cease and desist order.

Writers and scholars in Europe and the US are complicit in the shutdown. The publishing companies are protecting themselves and their profits, but they do so with the assent, if not the active support, of those who still depend on them. They are protecting us - we scholars - or so they say. These barbarians - these desperate learners - are stealing our property and should be made to pay for it.

Profiteering

In reality, however, the scholarly publishing industry has entered a phase like the one the pharmaceutical industry entered in the 1990s, when life-saving AIDS medicines were deliberately restricted to protect the interests of pharmaceutical companies' patents and profits.

The comparison is perhaps inflammatory; after all, scholarly monographs are life-saving in only the most distant and abstract sense, but the situation is - legally speaking - nearly identical. Library.nu is not unlike those clever - and also illegal - local corporations in India and Africa who created generic versions of AIDS medicines.

Why doesn't the publishing industry want these consumers? For one thing, the US and European book-buying libraries have been willing pay the prices necessary to keep the industry happy - and not just happy, in many cases obscenely profitable.

Rather than provide our work at cheap enough prices that anyone in the world might purchase, they have taken the opposite route - making the prices higher and higher until only very rich institutions can afford them. Scholarly publishers have made the trade-off between offering a very low price to a very large market or a very high price to a very small market.

But here is the rub: books and their scholars are the losers in this trade-off - especially cutting edge research from the best institutions in the world. The publishing industry we have today cannot - or will not - deliver our books to this enormous global market of people who desperately want to read them.

Instead, they print a handful of copies - less than 100, often - and sell them to libraries for hundreds of dollars each. When they do offer digital versions, they are so wrapped up in restrictions and encumbrances and licencing terms as to make using them supremely frustrating.

To make matters worse, our university libraries can no longer afford to buy these books and journals; and our few bookstores are no longer willing to carry them. So the result is that most of our best scholarship is being shot into some publisher's black hole where it will never escape. That is, until library.nu and its successors make it available.

What these sites represent most clearly is a viable route towards education and learning for vast numbers of people around the world. The question it raises is: on which side of this battle do European and American scholars want to be?

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Tim Kuik: 'De echte boosdoeners zijn de Pirate Bays en Megauploads van deze wereld'

Vanuit Hoofddorp bindt de stichting Brein de strijd aan met illegale downloaders. Niet tot ieders genoegen.

'Sorry voor mijn kortademigheid', excuseert Tim Kuik zich met een wat gepijnigd gezicht. Op zijn kantoor in Hoofddorp, in het pand bij Buma/Stemra, zet hij thee neer voor zijn gast. 'Ik heb met skiën drie ribben gebroken, maar zet dat maar niet in de krant want dan wensen bepaalde groepen op internet me weer toe dat ik nog veel harder had mogen vallen.'

Welkom in de gezellige wereld waarin Tim Kuik (54), directeur van antipiraterijclub Brein zich al jaren beweegt. De stichting, bij het grote publiek vooral bekend van de waarschuwingsfilmpjes voorafgaand aan elke dvd of videofilm, bestrijdt sinds 1998 de inbreuk op auteursrechten. Dat doet ze namens en op kosten van de partijen die belang hebben bij handhaving van het auteursrecht. Naast de makers van bijvoorbeeld films en muziek zijn dat ook de uitvoerende kunstenaars, uitgevers, producenten en distributeurs.

Brein, waar elf mensen werken, zette zich de afgelopen jaren in om het overweldigende aanbod van illegaal materiaal via internet te verkleinen. Met succes. Er waren talloze rechtszaken voor nodig, maar uiteindelijk kreeg Brein vaak waarop het uit was.

De meest tot de verbeelding sprekende overwinning was de blokkering begin dit jaar van de immens populaire site The Pirate Bay. De uitspraak vormde het voorlopige sluitstuk van een jarenlange juridische strijd. De rechter beval internetproviders Ziggo en Xs4all de site te blokkeren. Het kat-en-muisspel dat Brein met zijn tegenstanders speelt, houdt nooit op, bleek afgelopen week alweer. Met de Pirate-Bay-uitspraak in de hand meldde Brein zich bij een aantal Nederlandse websites die internetters nu helpen het gerechtelijk verbod te omzeilen.

De activiteiten van Brein, en die van voorman Kuik in het bijzonder, maken hem tot vijand nummer één van velen die hun films en muziek graag gratis van internet betrekken. Ook in de wereld van voorvechters van een 'vrij en open internet' wordt hij door velen persoonlijk gehaat. De - vrijwel altijd anonieme - scheldpartijen aan het adres van Kuik op allerhande internetblogs liegen er niet om. 'We zijn maffia, we zijn nazi's, we zijn van alles. Ik kan me er niet druk om maken', aldus Kuik. Buiten schijnt de eerste echte lentezon.

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Doet de heftigheid van de reacties u helemaal niets?
'Ach, zolang ze op al die blogs dit soort teksten zitten te tikken, zijn ze in ieder geval niet illegaal aanbod aan het downloaden.'

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Maar het moet toch bijzonder onprettig zijn om doorlopend doodgewenst te worden.
'We hebben die reacties een tijd lang gevolgd en het is een vrij kleine club mensen die dat soort taal bezigt. Weet je wat het ook is? Ik vind dat soort reacties getuigen van zo'n grote domheid, dat ik het niet eens meer als storend ervaar.'

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Er is ook meer inhoudelijke kritiek van serieuzere partijen. De strijd tegen The Pirate Bay won Brein bijvoorbeeld door internetproviders Xs4all en Ziggo voor de rechter te slepen. Zijn dat nou echt de boosdoeners?
'Nee, zij zijn het sluitstuk van onze strategie. De echte boosdoeners zijn de aanbieders van illegale content, dus de Pirate Bays en Mega-uploads van deze wereld. Wij spreken in eerste instantie altijd die partijen aan. Maar vaak reageren zij niet of ze laten weten dat ze niet van plan zijn om te stoppen met wat ze doen. In zulke gevallen stappen we naar de hostingprovider. Dat is de partij die, zeg maar, onderdak biedt aan die sites. Reageert die ook niet, of verplaatsen de aanbieders hun sites naar een andere hostingprovider - in het buitenland bijvoorbeeld - dan pas komen we bij internetproviders terecht, Ziggo en Xs4all in dit geval. Die werkwijze heeft de rechter nu al meerdere malen goedgekeurd.'

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Financial services firms fear being shamed by Anonymous

Professionals in the financial services sector view reputational damage as one of the worst consequences of a successful cyber attack, a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has revealed.

Based on the responses of 3,877 companies across 78 countries, PwC found that half of the respondents from the banking sector believed the risk cybercrime posed had increased over the past 12 months.

Exceeding the 36 per cent figure recorded in other industries, the report revealed that half of financial services professionals are primarily concerned over potential damage to their company's brand and reputation.

"Cybercrime puts the financial service sector's customers, brand and reputation at significant risk" said PwC partner Andrew Clark.

The increased number of 'shame' attacks by hacktivist groups such as the Anonymous collective was highlighted as a key dilemma facing FS companies.

"The impact of social media, hacktivism and activism are widening all the time," PwC director William Beer told V3.

"Reputational damage is far more difficult to shrug off than financial."

The professionals' fears follow a marked increase in the number of online attacks targeting the financial services industry.

PwC analysts revealed that cybercrime now accounts for 38 per cent of all reported crime incidents in the finance sector. This compared to the 16 per cent average recorded in other sectors.

The paper follows on from a research paper by Verizon reporting an increase in the number of politically motivated cyber attacks being mounted against companies and governments.

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U.S. Agency Seeks Tougher Consumer Privacy Rules

The government’s chief consumer protection agency said on Monday that it intended to take direct aim at the vast industry that has grown up around the buying and selling of information about American consumers.

The agency, the Federal Trade Commission, called on Congress to enact legislation regulating so-called data brokers, which compile and trade a wide range of personal and financial data about millions of consumers from online and offline sources. The legislation would give consumers access to information collected about them and allow them to correct and update such data.

The agency also sent a cautionary signal to technology and advertising companies regarding a “Do Not Track” mechanism that allows consumers to opt out of having their online behavior monitored and shared. It warned that if companies did not voluntarily provide a satisfactory Do Not Track option, it would support additional laws that mandate it.

The recommendations, part of a sweeping set of guidelines in an F.T.C. report on Monday, represent the government’s latest move to address the issue of consumer privacy.

On one side of the debate are data brokers like Experian and Acxiom, which collect and sell information, and the huge ecosystem of technology and online advertising companies — including Google, Microsoft and Facebook — that target consumers based on their personal preferences.

On the other side are consumer groups and privacy advocates that are concerned about the volume of data being collected and how little control consumers have over that information.

The government’s Do Not Track efforts are likely to collide with the desire of companies to continue the lucrative business of collecting, using and sharing information about the people who use their services. Although these businesses say they support limits on using this information, they generally still want to be able to collect it.

One official from a prominent technology company, who declined to be named because the discussions with the government were continuing, said that “do not collect is basically death for online advertising.”

But the trade commission said unequivocally that it believed consumers who said they did not want to be tracked meant just that — no tracking at all. It said it would support legislation to require it.

“Do Not Track from our perspective certainly means ‘do not collect’ — not ‘do not advertise back,’ ” said Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the F.TC. “If a real Do Not Track option doesn’t come to fruition by the end of the year, there will be, I don’t want to say a tsunami of support for Do Not Track legislation next Congress, but certainly a lot of support.”

The F.T.C. said it intended to work with the White House and the Commerce Department on proposals they unveiled last month to develop voluntary industrywide codes of conduct that the F.T.C. can enforce.

Mr. Leibowitz said the commission did not endorse any specific Congressional legislation, but he mentioned a bill introduced in the Senate in April 2011 by John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona. That bill seeks to require companies to tell consumers what data is being collected and allow them to opt out of the practice.

At least two other bills have been introduced in Congress. But none of that legislation is likely to make it into law in this Congressional session, however, given the heavy schedule of pending matters and re-election campaigns.

Many data broker companies say much of the information they collect is available from public documents like property and voter registration records. Companies can sell their data to a variety of clients, including marketers, telecommunications companies, retailers and political campaigns.

Jennifer Barrett Glasgow, the chief privacy officer for Acxiom, said the focus on data brokers in the F.T.C. report was not a surprise. “It’s not an unreasonable request to have more transparency among data brokers,” Ms. Barrett Glasgow said. The company collects data from public records, surveys and consumer purchasing behavior both online and offline.

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Europees Parlement zal ACTA niet voorleggen aan Hof van Justitie

Een commissie van het Europees Parlement heeft dinsdag in een stemming besloten om het omstreden antipiraterijverdrag ACTA niet voor te leggen aan het Europese Hof van Justitie. Het parlement zal nu zelf een oordeel moeten vellen.

De Commissie Internationale Handel van het Europese Parlement heeft met 21 stemmen tegen en vijf voor een Brits voorstel verworpen om het ACTA-verdrag voor te leggen aan het Europese Hof van Justitie. Door deze stap zal het Europese Parlement zelf een besluit moeten nemen over het omstreden antipiraterijverdrag. Als het verdrag toch aan het Hof van Justitie zou zijn voorgelegd, dan zou de behandeling van ACTA circa 1,5 jaar vertraging hebben opgelopen.

Naar verwachting zullen de parlementariërs in juni tijdens een stemming definitief een oordeel geven over ACTA. Alleen als het Europees Parlement groen licht geeft, kan het verdrag door de Europese Commissie geratificeerd worden.

Tegenstanders van het ACTA-verdrag zijn tevreden over het besluit. Doordat de stap naar de Europese rechter nu wordt overgeslagen, verwachten de tegenstanders dat het brede verzet tegen ACTA, dat in een groot aantal landen wordt gedragen, intact blijft.

Ondanks de kritische geluiden zou de Europese Commissie nog steeds voor implementatie van ACTA zijn, zo meldt het Duitse Heise Online op basis van een rapport dat zij in handen hebben gekregen. In het rapport is een citaat te lezen van Eurocommissaris van Handel, Karel de Gucht: "Er heerst een erg agressieve pan-Europese campagne tegen het ACTA-verdrag, wat ook cyberaanvallen op Europese instanties tot gevolg heeft."

De Europese Commissie zou bang zijn voor het imago van de Europese Unie mocht het antipiraterijverdrag worden afgewezen. Ook wordt de kritiek op ACTA bestempeld als 'niet onderbouwd'. Desondanks is het verzet in veel EU-lidstaten groot: zo wil Polen niets weten van ratificatie en zijn er bedenkingen in Nederland, Duitsland en Tsjechië.

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Entertainment Industry Was Eager to Work With Megaupload

Considering the aggressive stance taken by the MPAA against Megaupload, one might be forgiven for thinking the Hollywood-backed group and file-hosting service were sworn enemies. But behind the scenes things were quite different, with companies including Disney, Warner Brothers and Fox courting Megaupload to set up content distribution and advertising deals.

“By all estimates, Megaupload.com is the largest and most active criminally operated website targeting creative content in the world,” said the MPAA in a statement issued immediately after Mega was shutdown in January.

As statements go, they don’t get much more harsh than that, so one might think that hostilities between Megaupload and the member companies of the MPAA are a long-standing thing.

But as we know, despite all the rhetoric the likes of the usually-aggressive Disney never sued the Hong Kong based file-hosting service, and instead opted to let the FBI do their work for them.

While this government-financed approach will have proven substantially cheaper than dragging Megaupload through civil court, some potentially embarrassing things would have inevitably come out in such a case – such as this selection of emails just obtained by TorrentFreak.

In an eyebrow-raising email penned by Disney attorney Gregg Pendola, the counsel contacts Megaupload not to threaten or sue the company, but to set up a deal to have Disney content posted on the Megavideo site.

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Spanish Recording Industry Lobbyists Sue Professor For Highlighting Its Monopolistic Practices

Yet again, we're left scratching our heads at the basic failure of recording industry lobbyists to think about the consequences of their actions. The latest is that Promusicae, the Spanish recording industry lobbying group that is associated with the IFPI (which, itself is associated with the RIAA) has sued Spanish professor Enrique Dans for daring to state, in his opinion, that Promusicae violated Spanish antitrust laws. The blog post in question (Google translation) is actually mostly about the legal troubles of SGAE, the Spanish collection society which was accused of being involved in a massive criminal fraud operation. In the post, he also mentioned Promusicae and how it set up a system that he believes violated antitrust laws in effectively limiting access to radio airtime to members of Promusicae.

In response, Promusicae sued him for "violating their honor," demanding either 20,000 or 50,000 euros. Professor Dans explains the details on his own site (Google translation).

It seems pretty clear that this is nothing more than a SLAPP-style lawsuit -- with the recording industry lobbyists suing Dans to shut him up and to create chilling effects to silence other critics. It's a shameful way of dealing with critics, and, as Rick Falkvinge notes in his story (the first link up top), even if Dans is legally in the right, a court battle is very costly. Again as Falkvinge notes, perhaps it's time for the EU to start setting up anti-SLAPP laws to avoid these kinds of lawsuits as well.

But, more to the point, all this really does is call much more attention to Dans' original blog post from July, and the accusations he made about Promusicae. In what world does an industry lobbyist think that it's a smart move to call attention to a respected professor's blog post that describes some of their questionable behavior? A normal, thinking, individual would either respond directly to the charges with a detailed explanation for why it's wrong, or just let it go away. Suing only makes it worse in almost every way. Not only does it call worldwide attention to this blog post and the claims against Promusicae, but it also will likely make more people look more closely at Promusicae and what it's done... all the while showing off Promusicae lobbyists for the obnoxious bullies that they are. It's really quite incredible. As Falkvinge notes:

. Perhaps what amazes me most is that the public backlash to this kind of behavior is as predictable as a grandfather clock. How can the copyright monopoly lobby’s lawyers live in so completely disconnected an ivory tower, that they thought it was a good idea to file lawsuit against a reputable professor for claiming they’re a monopoly, using monopolistic practices – when this fact is not only well-established to the point of being in dictionaries, but even legislated? What kind of survivability would such a parasitic misantropic business have in the wild, if it were not protected by obsolete laws?

Of course, I guess they're thinking that the resulting chilling effects scaring away others from commenting might be worth any backlash. Or they're so focused on protecting "their honor" that they never bothered to think at all. I am curious, of course, how "honorable" it is to sue a respected professor for expressing his opinion? How can you sue someone for violating your honor when you have no honor at all?

quote:

Op dinsdag 27 maart 2012 01:02 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

Anonymous: Message to YouTube

quote:

UPDATE! Earlier this afternoon, YouTube decided to heed the warning and unlock TheAnonMessage's account. No Censorship. Knowledge is Free. We are Anonymous.

quote:

Death of a data haven: cypherpunks, WikiLeaks, and the world's smallest nation

A few weeks ago, Fox News breathlessly reported that the embattled WikiLeaks operation was looking to start a new life under on the sea. WikiLeaks, the article speculated, might try to escape its legal troubles by putting its servers on Sealand, a World War II anti-aircraft platform seven miles off the English coast in the North Sea, a place that calls itself an independent nation. It sounds perfect for WikiLeaks: a friendly, legally unassailable host with an anything-goes attitude.

But readers with a memory of the early 2000s might be wondering, "Didn't someone already try this? How did that work out?" Good questions. From 2000 to 2008, a company called HavenCo did indeed offer no-questions-asked colocation on Sealand—and it didn't end well.

HavenCo's failure—and make no mistake about it, HavenCo did fail—shows how hard it is to get out from under government's thumb. HavenCo built it, but no one came. For a host of reasons, ranging from its physical vulnerability to the fact that The Man doesn't care where you store your data if he can get his hands on you, Sealand was never able to offer the kind of immunity from law that digital rebels sought. And, paradoxically, by seeking to avoid government, HavenCo made itself exquisitely vulnerable to one government in particular: Sealand's. It found that out the hard way in 2003 when Sealand "nationalized" the company.

For the last two years, I've researched the history of Sealand and HavenCo. I used the Wayback Machine to reconstruct long-since-vanished webpages. I dug through microfilm of newspapers back to the 1960s. I pored over thousands of pages of documents, only recently unsealed, from the United Kingdom's National Archives.

My findings have just been published in a new 80-page article in the University of Illinois Law Review, one called "Sealand, HavenCo, and the Rule of Law" (PDF). It tells the full—and very weird—story of how this micronation happened to be in the right place (the North Sea) at the right time (the late 1990s) to provide some cypherpunk entrepreneurs with the most impractical data center ever built. Here, I'll give the condensed version of the tale, hitting the important points in HavenCo's history and explaining what went wrong.

quote:

U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War

WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation's top cyber cop offered a grim appraisal of the nation's efforts to keep computer hackers from plundering corporate data networks: "We're not winning," he said.

Shawn Henry, who is preparing to leave the FBI after more than two decades with the bureau, said in an interview that the current public and private approach to fending off hackers is "unsustainable.'' Computer criminals are simply too talented and defensive measures too weak to stop them, he said.

His comments weren't directed at specific legislation but came as Congress considers two competing measures designed to buttress the networks for critical U.S. infrastructure, such as electrical-power plants and nuclear reactors. Though few cybersecurity experts disagree on the need for security improvements, business advocates have argued that the new regulations called for in one of the bills aren't likely to better protect computer networks.

Mr. Henry, who is leaving government to take a cybersecurity job with an undisclosed firm in Washington, said companies need to make major changes in the way they use computer networks to avoid further damage to national security and the economy. Too many companies, from major multinationals to small start-ups, fail to recognize the financial and legal risks they are taking—or the costs they may have already suffered unknowingly—by operating vulnerable networks, he said.

"I don't see how we ever come out of this without changes in technology or changes in behavior, because with the status quo, it's an unsustainable model. Unsustainable in that you never get ahead, never become secure, never have a reasonable expectation of privacy or security,'' Mr. Henry said.

James A. Lewis, a senior fellow on cybersecurity at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that as gloomy as Mr. Henry's assessment may sound, "I am actually a little bit gloomier. I think we've lost the opening battle [with hackers].'' Mr. Lewis said he didn't believe there was a single secure, unclassified computer network in the U.S.

"There's a kind of willful desire not to admit how bad things are, both in government and certainly in the private sector, so I could see how [Mr. Henry] would be frustrated,'' he added.

High-profile hacking victims have included Sony Corp., SNE +1.73%which said last year that hackers had accessed personal information on 24.6 million customers on one of its online game services as part of a broader attack on the company that compromised data on more than 100 million accounts. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., NDAQ -0.71%which operates the Nasdaq Stock Market, also acknowledged last year that hackers had breached a part of its network called Directors Desk, a service for company boards to communicate and share documents. HBGary Federal, a cybersecurity firm, was infiltrated by the hacking collective called Anonymous, which stole tens of thousands of internal emails from the company.

Mr. Henry has played a key role in expanding the FBI's cybersecurity capabilities. In 2002, when the FBI reorganized to put more of its resources toward protecting computer networks, it handled nearly 1,500 hacking cases. Eight years later, that caseload had grown to more than 2,500.

Mr. Henry said FBI agents are increasingly coming across data stolen from companies whose executives had no idea their systems had been accessed.

"We have found their data in the middle of other investigations,'' he said. "They are shocked and, in many cases, they've been breached for many months, in some cases years, which means that an adversary had full visibility into everything occurring on that network, potentially.''

Mr. Henry said that while many company executives recognize the severity of the problem, many others do not, and that has frustrated him. But even when companies build up their defenses, their systems are still penetrated, he said. "We've been playing defense for a long time. ...You can only build a fence so high, and what we've found is that the offense outpaces the defense, and the offense is better than the defense,'' he said.

Testimony Monday before a government commission assessing Chinese computer capabilities underscored the dangers. Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer at Mandiant, a computer-security company, said that in cases handled by his firm where intrusions were traced back to Chinese hackers, 94% of the targeted companies didn't realize they had been breached until someone else told them. The median number of days between the start of an intrusion and its detection was 416, or more than a year, he added.

In one such incident in 2010, a group of Chinese hackers breached the computer defenses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a major business lobbying group, and gained access to everything stored on its systems, including information about its three million members, according to several people familiar with the matter.

In the congressional debate over cybersecurity legislation, the Chamber of Commerce has argued for a voluntary, non-regulatory approach to cybersecurity that would encourage more cooperation and information-sharing between government and business.

Matthew Eggers, a senior director at the Chamber, said the group "is urging policy makers to change the 'status quo' by rallying our efforts around a targeted and effective information-sharing bill that would get the support of multiple stakeholders and come equipped with ample protections for the business community."

The FBI's Mr. Henry said there are some things companies need to change to create more secure computer networks. He said their most valuable data should be kept off the network altogether. He cited the recent case of a hack on an unidentified company in which he said 10 years worth of research and development, valued at more than $1 billion, was stolen by hackers.

He added that companies need to do more than just react to intrusions. "In many cases, the skills of the adversaries are so substantial that they just leap right over the fence, and you don't ever hear an alarm go off,'' he said. Companies "need to be hunting inside the perimeter of their network," he added.

Companies also need to get their entire leadership, from the chief executive to the general counsel to the chief financial officer, involved in developing a cybersecurity strategy, Mr. Henry said. "If leadership doesn't say, 'This is important, let's sit down and come up with a plan right now in our organization; let's have a strategy,' then it's never going to happen, and that is a frustrating thing for me,'' he said.

quote:

Megaupload proves users were legit

In light of Megaupload's upcoming court case in which the US Government has accused Megaupload of being a hotbed for illegal users, Mega has proved the majority of it's users were legitimate. Megaupload has released that a large sum of it's users were actually belonging to US Officials including over 15,000 accounts held by US Military. Of the accounts held by US Officials these included accounts held by members of the FBI, Homeland Security, NASA and the Senate.

Megaupload attorney's and users are fighting hard for the data to not be deleted at this time however there is no certainty at this time if the information will be saved.

In other Megaupload news Kim Dotcom and his wife Mona welcome their twin baby girls into the world. The twin girls are reported to be a healthy weight at 5.3 and 6.2lbs however their names have not yet been released.
This is the fourth and fifth children for the couple. While Kim Dotcom is still under house arrest leading up to his extradition case the founder can live comfortably with his $50,000 a month spending limit. When doctor's asked if the couple would like to keep the placenta Kim Dotcom responded "yes, and please send it to the FBI for forensic analysis so they can verify there is no pirate DNA ;-)". If nothing else Megaupload founder has kept his sense of humour.

quote:

Hackers in Europa straks strenger gestraft - maar alleen als ze crimineel zijn

Hackers die inbreken in ict-systemen moeten in de toekomst strenger worden gestraft. Tenminste, als het gaat om inbraken met een crimineel doeleinde. 'Ethische' hackers die alleen beveiligingslekken willen aantonen, moeten juist vrijuit gaan.

Dat staat in een herziening van een Europese richtlijn, die deze week met 50 stemmen vóór, één stem tegen en drie onthoudingen ruimschoots werd goedgekeurd in het Europees Parlement. In veel landen, waaronder Nederland, staat nu nog 1 jaar cel op computervredebreuk, maar dat moet minstens twee jaar gaan worden. Op het uitvoeren van grootschalige cyberaanvallen komt minimaal vijf jaar te staan, aldus het voorstel.

Klokkenluiders
Maar vooral het amendement waarin staat dat hackers met goede bedoelingen voortaan gevrijwaard moeten worden van vervolging, betekent een belangrijke verandering in het beleid dat tot nu toe werd gevoerd. Op dit moment lopen deze klokkenluiders het risico vervolgd te worden op basis van verschillende andere wetten. Met de vernieuwde cybercrime-wet zal dat niet langer het geval zijn, mits kan worden aangetoond dat de hack geen schadelijke gevolgen heeft gehad.

Ook in Nederland is het onderwerp 'ethisch hacken' al meermalen voorbijgekomen. Verschillende hackers wisten aan te tonen dat er instanties zijn die wel persoonsgegevens beheren, maar niet goed in staat zijn om hun websites, databases en websites te beveiligen. De website Webwereld riep de maand oktober 2011 uit tot 'lektober', waarin iedere werkdag een privacylek aan het licht werd gebracht.

In september vorig jaar kon een wetsvoorstel van de PvdA om bescherming te bieden aan goedbedoelende 'hacktivisten' al rekenen op steun van een meerderheid in de Tweede Kamer. Tot nu toe is dat er echter nog niet van gekomen - terwijl het goedbedoelende deel van de hackerswereld met smacht op een dergelijke maatregel wacht.

Whitehats
De Europese richtlijn is voor hen dus zeer welkom. Niet alleen worden goedbedoelende hackers ('whitehats' in het hackersjagon) gespaard, de kwaadwillenden ('blackhats') worden strenger aangepakt. Zo moet ondermeer ook het verspreiden van software die is bedoeld om hacken mogelijk te maken, strafbaar worden gesteld, evenals het online aannemen van de identiteit van een ander.

Helemaal definitief is het voorstel overigens nog niet. Het Europees Parlement moet de richtlijn nog intern behandelen, en vervolgens moeten ook de Europese Commissie en de Raad van Europa zich er nog over uitspreken. Tenslotte wordt de herziene richtlijn aan de individuele lidstaten voorgelegd, die er allemaal mee moeten instemmen.

quote:

Kan Anonymous morgen het hele internet platleggen?

Kan de hackersgroep Anonymous het hele internet platleggen? Dat is de vraag die nu de gemoederen op IT-sites en social media bezighoudt onder de hashtag #OpGlobalBlackout. Het beruchte hackerscollectief heeft vorige maand aangekondigd op 31 maart, morgen dus, de DNS-servers te hacken die het belangrijkst zijn voor het wereldwijde web. Of gaat het hier om een publiciteitsstunt? Zo is het op 31 maart in de Verenigde Staten in de meeste landen tenslotte allang 1 april...

Anonymous stelt dat 'Operation Global Blackout' een protest is tegen de Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), tegen politieke leiders die daarvoor verantwoordelijk zijn en tegen de financiële mensen van Wall Street. Maar waarom doen ze zo'n aanval, die als doel heeft financiële instituten en beursgenoteerde bedrijven plat te leggen, op een zaterdag als er niet wordt gehandeld? En kunnen ze het eigenlijk wel voor elkaar krijgen?

De kracht van Anonymous
De groep Anonymous verrees in 2003 en staat bekend om zijn cyberaanvallen op hooggeplaatste websites, zoals die van de overheid en CIA, miljoenenbedrijven, credit card-aanbieders en banken. Zelfs het Vaticaan moest er deze maand aan geloven, toen de website van de katholieke kerk in Rome gehackt werd. Alle aanvallen zijn waarschuwingen, om de kracht van hackers te laten zien.

Volgens de videoboodschap van Anonymous, waarvan de authenticiteit niet kan worden nagegaan, zullen alle websites morgen een foutmelding geven. Zelfs als ze het voor elkaar krijgen, is de actie tijdelijk. De stem van Anonymous belooft dat gewone individuen niet gedupeerd worden: 'Vergeet niet dat het om een protestactie gaat en dat we niet de dood van internet willen'. Waarom zouden ze ook? De organisatie zelf bestaat uitsluitend op het internet.

Hoe het werkt
De website techzine.nl, die het nieuws over de black-out in februari bracht, denkt dat zo'n aanval best mogelijk is. De site schrijft: 'De capaciteit van het aantal DNS-rootservers is inmiddels al meerdere malen uitgebreid om ervoor te zorgen dat ze niet allemaal offline gehaald kunnen worden. Op dit moment zijn er dus 13, hoewel we mogen aannemen dat al deze knooppunten over een flinke capaciteit beschikken moet ook Anonymous niet onderschat worden.' De dertien DNS-rootservers zorgen dat domeinnamen worden omgezet naar IP-adressen en geven er de juiste extenties aan, zoals .net, .com, .org, .eu .nl, etcetera.

Als die hoofdservers niet werken, kan niemand de gevraagde website dus meer vinden, zelfs als die onder een lagere server hangt. Maar om de hoofdservers te demobiliseren, moet je honderdduizenden IP-verzoeken tegelijk op ze afschieten, door duizenden verschillende DNS-servers. Heeft Anonymous wel zo'n groot bereik? Bovendien zijn de hoofdservers, volgens de experts die ze hebben ontwikkeld, ingesteld op constante cyberaanvallen en maken ze gebruik van een omweg, waardoor ze nooit direct zelf het doelwit zijn.

Operatie 'Ontmasker'
Het kan ook nog zijn dat de mensen achter Operation Global Blackout inmiddels al achter de tralies zitten. Internationale opsporingsdienst Interpol kondigde eind vorige maand in een persbericht aan dat het in vier landen 25 individuen had opgepakt die ervan worden verdacht bij hackerscollectief Anonymous te horen. Operatie 'Ontmasker' ging halverwege februari van start met als doel een serie cyberaanvallen op doelen in Latijns Amerika en Europa een halt toe te brengen. En Anomymous heeft zijn #OpGlobalBlackout-dreigingen sindsdien niet herhaald...

quote:

White Supremacist Hacks Trayvon Martin’s Email Account, Leaks Messages Online

The racist smear campaign against Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen shot to death last month in Florida, has reached a new level of ghoulishness. A white supremacist hacker says he's broken into Martin's email and social networking accounts, and leaked his private Facebook messages. We've been able to confirm that at least one email account that belonged to Martin was cracked.

The hacker, who goes by the name Klanklannon, posted what he said were Martin's private Facebook messages to the politics section (NSFW) of the anarchic message board 4chan—called "/pol/"—Tuesday afternoon at around noon. The messages were posted on four slides, strategically arranged to back up the insane racist argument that Trayvon was a Scary Black Teenager and so somehow deserved to be killed by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman that night.

A slide titled "Trayvon Martin Used Marijuana Habitually," features an exchange between Trayvon and a friend about getting high. Another slide, "Trayvon Martin was a Drug Dealer" features Facebook messages and photos that supposedly prove Martin dealt drugs, including a picture of Martin posing "aggressively with a large amount of cash in his hand." It's impossible to verify the hacked messages' authenticity—like other anti-Trayvon Martin propaganda, they're probably a mix of real and fake content— but they are now being passed around as gospel among the racist underbelly of the internet, including message boards like the neo-Nazi hive Stormfront, which Klanklannon apparently frequents.

In addition to the Facebook messages, Klanklannon posted a list of usernames and passwords for Martin's social media and email accounts as proof of his exploits. All of the passwords had been changed to racist slurs. (Gmail: "niggerniggernigger" Twitter: "coontrayvonnigger")

"I realize that some of this information might be to (sic) extreme to believe," Klanklannon writes in a copy of the original 4chan thread we've obtained. "That's why I offer you evidence. Here are my sources."

The list included login details for Martin's Gmail, Yahoo, MySpace, and Twitter accounts. A source who came across the 4chan post when it was live was able to use the information to log onto Martin's Gmail account Tuesday night. Our source panicked upon seeing that trolls had started using the account to send emails under Martin's name, and deleted the account. (An email sent to Martin's Gmail address bounced back today; Martin's Twitter account has also been deactivated. His MySpace page is still up, showing that the last login was Tuesday.)

On 4chan, Klanklannon made clear their intention to smear Trayvon. Klanklannon introduces the post with, "Today /pol/, tomorrow CNN." One 4chan user told us Klanklannon had been attempting to break into Martin's accounts for days, posting periodic updates to the board.

"Where did all the liberals go?," Klanklannon taunted after posting his slides. "Did they run off because they can't handle the facts?"

But Klanklannon included none of Martin's emails in his leak, because the picture they paint is of a normal high school junior preparing for college. A screenshot of Trayvon's Gmail inbox our source provided us is heartbreaking. Martin apparently used his Gmail account for his college search, and it's filled with emails about upcoming SAT tests and scholarship applications. ("Trayvon, now is the best time to take the SATs!") One email included the results of a career aptitude test, our source said. It "talked about his interest in aeronautics and stuff."

Klanklannon has proven nothing more than the depths to which the racist amateur detectives who have spent days obsessing over every aspect of Trayvon Martin's short life will sink in their horrible quest to vet a dead teenager.

quote:

Russia's Interior Minister Pushes For Extreme Internet Censorship Measures

Russia’s Ministry of the Interior plans to set up special centers to assess hate-mongering and extremism in mass media, including online publications, YouTube, and Facebook pages, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Friday, according to Ria Novosti.

Nurgaliyev wants to open a center in each Russian district. Two already operate in Moscow and St. Petersburg. "We are working on creating special interregional centers with expertise in electronic media, printed, audio and video features to check them for any indications of extremism," he told Gazeta. The monitoring will be done by bureaucrats who are part of the presidential administration.

The initiative is the latest in the government’s crackdown on extremism on the Internet. And while politicians and activists alike believe it needs to be dealt with, this measure seems to have touched a nerve with everyone. So much so that even those expected to implement it have washed their hands of it.

“I'm afraid it may create the total surveillance of the Russian segment of the internet," Pavel Chikov, a lawyer and head of Agora human rights watchdog, told Gazeta. He said the initiative would lead to political censorship and an increase of criminal cases against bloggers on "invented accusations connected to extremism," something Russia has been accused of before.

Duma members were also skeptical, saying it was unclear how plenipotentiaries, who are political institutions, were supposed to help fight extremism. The plenipotentiaries themselves seem surprised, too. "This idea is definitely not ours. This is important, but the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications already do this expertise," a Far Eastern representative said.

Read more: http://www.businessinside(...)2012-3#ixzz1qgRVQPiT

quote:

China blokkeert sites en sociale netwerken na coupgeruchten

Geruchten over een ophanden zijnde coup hebben in China geleid tot de sluiting van zestien websites en de blokkade van twee sociale medianetwerken. Ook zijn zes mensen gearresteerd en is een onbekend aantal mensen ondervraagd.

Op de websites en twee Twitter-achtige diensten doken volgens staatspersbureau Xinhua berichten op over militaire voertuigen die de hoofdstad zouden binnenrijden.'Er gaat iets mis in Peking', zo werd daarin geconcludeerd.

De actie, die vrijdagavond laat werd aangekondigd door verschillende staatsmedia, onderstreept de vrees van de autoriteiten voor de groeiende toegang tot internet van de Chinese bevolking en de gretigheid waarmee Chinezen, ondanks de censuur en mogelijke straffen, de politiek bespreken.

Reinigen
De twee sociale medianetwerken die getroffen zijn door de maatregelen hebben elk meer dan driehonderd miljoen gebruikers. Voor het 'reinigen' van de sites hebben de sites drie dagen uitgetrokken.

In China woedt momenteel een van de ergste politieke crises in jaren. De machthebbers zijn druk bezig om de nalatenschap van Bo Xilai uit te wissen, het politieke kopstuk dat eerder deze maand werd ontslagen als partijchef in de stad Chongqing.

quote:

Using the internet lands 'hacker' back in prison

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

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

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

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

quote:

World War 3.0

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

Yumad

quote:

Anonymous LulzChallenge

Greetings young citizens of the world,

We are Anonymous

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

Remember this is for the lulz

We are Anonymous

We are Legion

We do not Forgive

We do not forget

Operation Lulzchallenge initiated

Expect us

:: Resources ::

‘Troll masks’:

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Anonymous China arrives: Chinese government sites hacked, defaced

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

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

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

Hi all !

Message to Chinese government :

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

With no mercy.

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

Message to Chinese People :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Authorities Apprehend the Hacktivist Known as th3j35t3r

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

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

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Op zondag 1 april 2012 13:44 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

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

[..]

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

A very small snippet:



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

(my bold)

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

Thanks always to DokCak3.

quote:

Britse overheid wil toegang tot e-mailverkeer van burger

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

http://pastebin.com/jjMRFDH6

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

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

quote:

Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

How do you police the entire internet?

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

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

And the answer is: Not much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the investigators were not much more informative.

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

http://pastebin.com/mTw9Y1ea

Operation: BlackTide || #OpBlackTide

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

Message:

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

quote:

Hacker claims breach of China's CEIEC defence contractor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Hacker LulzSec bekent schuld grote kraak Sony

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

CISPA: Anonymous prepares for battle to keep Internet free

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

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

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

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

quote:

The 2012 TIME 100 Poll

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

quote:

‘Anonymous’ says it will hack more Chinese sites

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Decentralized and Open DNS To Defeat Censorship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

UK 'exporting surveillance technology to repressive nations'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revelations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Global Internet Slowdown: Is Anonymous to Blame?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Audiomicro

quote:

Hacked By Anonymous
Lol

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

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

We are Anonymous
We Are Legion
Expect Us»

quote:

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

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

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

Hackers: backstabbers backstabbing backstabbers.

quote:

Anonymous to launch Operation Cannabis 420 campaign

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

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

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

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

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

Anonymous #OpCannabis 420

quote:

Anonymous Leaks Tunisia Prime Minister’s Emails

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Anonymous wants to take down the Great Firewall of China

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

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

Two from Team Poison arrested in MI6 hotline phone hack

quote:

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

quote:

Met Denies Anti-Terrorism Hotline Hacked

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

twitter:

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

News and information about Anonymous hacker groups.

quote:

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

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

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

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

[#] Follow us on Twitter [#]

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

quote:

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

quote:

Op zondag 15 april 2012 15:51 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Anonymous is dan ook veel groter dan 4chan. En veel 4channers vinden dat politieke gedoe maar niks.

twitter:

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

The Guardian: Battle for the Internet.

Over seven days

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

quote:

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

[..]

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

twitter:

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

quote:

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

quote:

Wereldwijde storing Gmail

quote:

Cyberaanval treft 275.000 klanten XS4ALL

quote:

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

quote:

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

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

quote:

Technologie internetcensuur onder de loep

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

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

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

quote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

twitter:

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

twitter:

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

twitter:

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

twitter:

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

twitter:

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

Knife Party - Destroy Them With Lazers

quote:

Operation AAP

quote:

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

Hello world,

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

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

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

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

@CHARGE YA LAZ0RS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HELP THE NETHERLANDS!

We are the 99 %

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

Someone from #AntiSecNL

quote:

Millions around the world everyday are denied access to the open internet. But the Global Proxy Cloud allows you to safely create a pathway for citizens living in repressive regimes to bypass their countrys firewall.

twitter:

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

quote:

Brein: mogelijk 'zwaardere maatregelen' tegen providers

quote:

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

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

quote:

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

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

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

Momenteel zijn de providers bezig met hun verweer.

quote:

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

quote:

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

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

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

quote:

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

quote:

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

quote:

Hacktivists in the frontline battle for the internet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The cyber misinformation campaign against USA Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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‘Anonymous’ hacker: Legalize marijuana for the cure



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

twitter:

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

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Op zondag 22 april 2012 10:26 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

twitter:

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

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Spain Wants To Criminalise Online Organisation Of Social Protest

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

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

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

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

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


The determination of a violent event would violate privacy

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

twitter:

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

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Obama announces crackdown on Iran and Syria's cyber oppressors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Former spy chief warns over watching social networks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


As Brown notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Copyright Lobby Hires Pro-ACTA Demonstators

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

Well, then you can always hire some students.

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

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

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

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

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

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How the National Security Agency has gone rogue

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