Anonops #14: All about control

Westboro Baptist Church Negotiating NOT Protesting Newtown Funerals, Insults Anonymous

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CitizenKBA twitterde op dinsdag 18-12-2012 om 13:27:03 Shirley Phelps of the #WBC said #Anonymous is irrelevant. She would've tweeted it, but they hacked her account. reageer retweet

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Censorship Lift for V for Vendetta Shocks China

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V for Vendetta, a thriller film produced in 2005 about a near-future dystopian society, previously censored in China, was aired on China Central Television Station (CCTV) Channel Six on December 14, 2012. Many people are surprised by the screening, in particular the mask of V, which has been used by activists all over the world as a symbol of resistance against government oppression.

V for Vendetta in China- A message to the people of China

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https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BoycottInstagram&src=hash

Instagram says it now has the right to sell your photos

In its first big policy shift since Facebook bought the photo-sharing site, Instagram claims the right to sell users' photos without payment or notification. Oh, and there's no way to opt out. Read...

news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-5…

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AnonymousPress twitterde op dinsdag 18-12-2012 om 21:35:36 Boycott Instagram: Anonymous Joins the Backlash http://t.co/8s2MnzHH #BoycottInstagram reageer retweet

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Instagram's New Terms of Service to Sell Your Photos

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Facebook subsidiary Instagram recently revised their terms of service, adding a few controversial new terms that will allow the company to monetize your photos. They broadened the license you give to the photo-sharing service to allow Instagram to sub-license your photos, adding a broad grant of permission:

. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

On its face, this sentence is not limited to public photos, though the company does retain its privacy setting options for photos. If you do not like this possibility, the only choice is to leave the service entirely.

Instagram should reconsider this policy, because it conflicts with the three key principles we developed for social networking services: informed decision making, control and the right to leave.

First, it is very hard for you to make an informed choice, since Instagram has not explained how it will implement this monetization. In effect, they are asking you to agree to allow them to do whatever they choose to do later, whether or not there is an opt-in, opt-out or user controls over the future commercialization.

Second, it violates the principle of user control, since there is no explicit opt-in permission from the user for this change in how user content will be used. When Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, ran into trouble for its privacy practices, one of the key issues was making changes where users had to opt-out. Instagram should be cautious before heading down the same road.

Third, if users are dissatisfied with a social network’s practices, they should have the ability to leave – which means being able to remove one’s entire account so that the data is no longer under the social network’s control. Here, however, if you agree to these terms (effective January 16), and then – perhaps after the commercialization feature is activated sometime next year – decide to leave the service, Instagram retains the “non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license” to all of your photos.

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Instagram rivals try to lure users away after photo rights flap

Instagram's competitors including Flickr, Blipfoto, and 23snaps are hoping to lure users by promising to do more than Facebook to respect photographers' rights.

Instagram's competitors are pouncing on the company's claim that it will be able to sell users' photos for advertising purposes without payment or notification.

They're hoping that irritation over Instagram's controversial decision -- which came three months after Facebook completed the acquisition -- will lure users away from the popular photo-sharing app, which passed the 100 million user mark in September.

"We will certainly do our best to make sure that Instagram users are aware of 23snaps as an alternative service," Meaghan Fitzgerald, head of marketing for 23snaps, a London-based company that makes an iOS and Android photo-sharing app, told CNET today.

Yahoo today pointed to its blog post titled "At Flickr, your photos are always yours." Ellen Cohn, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said: "We are seeing strong interest in our recently enhanced Flickr for iPhone app and hope our users continue to enjoy sharing photos with family, friends and the world."

Blipfoto, a daily photo journal, said today it charges a "small annual subscription" instead of trying to monetize user photos itself. "That's why Blipfoto wouldn't sell your pictures to any third parties," Blipfoto's Ryan Mullen said in e-mail.

No other major photo-sharing service appears to have language as broad as Instagram's, which claims the perpetual right to license users' photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, which could effectively transform the Web site into the world's largest stock photo agency. A hotel in Hawaii, for instance, could write a check to Instagram to license photos taken at its resort and use them for advertising purposes.

"That effectively guts the user's control over the use and exploitation of the photo," says Daniel Schaeffer, an attorney with Neal & McDevitt, a boutique law firm in Northfield, Ill., specializing in intellectual property. "The most obvious and immediate example is the ability to allow businesses to use your photos in advertising, but the actual effects could be even farther-reaching."

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Instagram co-founder: “It is not our intention to sell your photos”

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Instagram has responded to today’s outrage over its Terms of Service updates, attempting to clarify the concerns of its users. “To be clear,” says Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, “it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear.”

The point about selling images ended up being a major component of the outrage, as users were understandably irritated that Instagram felt it could do just that to advertisers. As I pointed out on Twitter and others did via well-written blog posts, Instagram’s TOS did not give it the ability to do this.

Systrom acknowledges that the language is confusing, and says that this is Instagram’s mistake.

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Internet security firm to donate revenue to charity after Anonymous protest of Westboro Baptist Church

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Black Lotus Communications, which "prevents malicious traffic from reaching" websites, such as a Denial-of-service attack (DDoS), has announced their decision to donate revenue made from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) to charity. The company has confirmed their intentions in a statement to Wikinews.

"We have received overwhelming support for donations to be given to various groups supporting the Newtown community, veterans groups like the Wounded Warrior Project, and LGBT groups like The Trevor Project", said Jeffrey Lyon, Certified Information Systems Security Professional with the Black Lotus team, to Wikinews. Lyon also says The United Way may be the first charity to receive their donation. "We've not [yet] made a formal decision," Lyon noted, but the company "supports all of these groups and will give very serious consideration in ensuring that our donations have a strong impact."

The announcement comes after the internet activist group known as Anonymous called on the companies that host and protect the Church's website to discontinue providing services to them after the Church announced their decision to protest funerals of those killed in the December 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. According to Lyon the company decided to donate revenue made from WBC to charity after, "'Anonymous' supporters began a full blown Twitter campaign boycotting any company who provides services to WBC." Lyon also said the company, "reached out to Anonymous spokespersons and asked their opinions on how the matter should be handled."

The attack on WBC has been dubbed '#OpWestBor' on the social network site Twitter. As part of the operation, the Church's website was defaced and taken offline for most of the day Monday. Twitter accounts belonging to Shirley Phelps-Roper, the Church's spokeswoman, and leader Fred Phelps, were hacked and taken over by Anonymous. At the time of this report, both accounts were still under control of the group. Roper's account has been under the control of Anonymous since early Monday morning.

On Sunday, in a video posted on YouTube, Anonymous announced their intentions saying, "From the time you have received this message, our attack protocol has past been executed and your downfall is underway. Do not attempt to delude yourselves into thinking you can escape our reach, for we are everywhere, and all-seeing, in the same sense as God. ... We will render you obsolete. We will destroy you. We are coming." As a result of the breach, Anonymous claims to have gained access to and leaked alleged personal information such as names, home addresses and telephone numbers belonging to Church members. On Wednesday, following the leak, Twitter suspended one of Anonymous' most followed accounts '@YourAnonNews', claiming, according to Anonymous, that the profile posted "private and confidential information" regarding the lawyer for WBC and Roper. The account was reinstated a short time later and that is when Black Lotus contacted Anonymous.

"As a security service, we value freedom of expression ... and have mandate to guarantee passage of data across the internet, which ultimately means that companies like Black Lotus should not interrupt services based solely on public opinion. By terminating their service, we would not actually take their sites offline. Instead, they would be without DDoS protection for a short period of time until they found another service that would harbor them. This logic did not add up for us", Lyon added. He would not elaborate on how long WBC has sought the services of Black Lotus, but stated, "they did not come to us because of any one specific attack."

Lyon didn't state how much revenue is made from WBC, but he added the amount they receive "from WBC is very small." As a result, Lyon says the company will "actually make donations well in excess" of the fees WBC pays. "These donations will be in the thousands [of dollars], but we've not come to a final decision on the exact amounts", he added. According to Lyon, WBC is aware of the company's intentions.

"We made it clear that while they have a right to expression, we have a social responsibility [to] ensure our services benefit society and to aid those in need", said Lyon. Wikinews has contacted the WBC for a statement, but as of this report, no response has been received.

For now, Lyon states only revenue received from the WBC will be considered for donation, but they hope the project can be expanded to include other customers. "While we're attributing this specific decision to WBC, our long term plan is to expand our philanthropy program to substantially offset any harm that may have been caused by those serving content over our network", said Lyon. The company hopes to formally announce their decisions in a press release at the end of the week.

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As UK Pirate Party Takes Down Pirate Bay Proxy, Two Other Pirate Parties Bring New Ones Up

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The sad defeat of yesterday was that the UK Pirate Party had succumbed to legal threats and taken down its long-used proxy for The Pirate Bay, after the copyright industry shamefully had threatened to ruin the Pirate Party’s executive personally. As a result, the Luxemburgish and Argentinian Pirate Parties have both decided to put up their own proxies in solidarity and action.

The copyright industry in the UK decided to go after the UK Pirate Party members personally over the organization’s proxy to The Pirate Bay, threatening financial ruin for them and their families in a lawsuit. This is unprecedented, unethical, and cancerous to society – in essence, a special interest putting its financial resources behind trying to destroy a political party as such because they disagree with the political direction. As a result, the PPUK decided to close the proxy and come back to fight another day. This is despicably shameful behavior on part of the copyright industry, and nothing short of corporate bullying of the “might makes right” type.

As a result of the shameful bullying from the copyright industry in the UK, we now see more proxies bloom across the world, refusing to let sharing, culture, and knowledge go silenced by corporate bullies. The Pirate Parties strike back by refusing to be silenced.

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Sandy Hook, The Westboro Baptist Church, And How We Are All Anonymous

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Anonymous is not without criticism. There are people associated with Anonymous who would steal your credit card number and hack your computer without a second thought. There are people associated with Anonymous who use the word “fag” a bit much for my liking, even if they aren’t using it as a derogatory term against homosexuals. From Wikipedia:

, A statement attributed to a member of Anonymous has described Anonymous as containing every belief and lifestyle, and that the views of “the loudest” of Anonymous aren’t necessarily the views of the rest of Anonymous.

But the thing about Anonymous, is that they are us. As likely as you are to find others associated with the group you may disagree with, you are just as likely to find those you do agree with. This hit me yesterday, and I asked on Twitter how many other moms out there love Anonymous, for their promise to protect the victims of Sandy Hook, for their work putting an end to child pornography websites, for other acts of vigilantism against things that go on in the world that we can all agree are wrong.

Within moments, I was inundated with many messages, all using my hashtag #Momsloveanonymous. And from fathers, too.

One of the credos of Anonymous is “Expect Us.”

How could we expect them? How could I expect that since writing about the Westboro Church and their plans to disrupt memorials I would receive so many messages from Anonymous, asking me if they could help, asking if I needed information, asking if I needed contacts to keep me informed? How could I expect the messages I received from an Anonymous, a father of five, who told me of his own sadness and grief over the children of Sandy Hook?

How could any of us expect CosmotheGod, the 15-year-old hacker, recently charged with computer hacking crimes, to in an instant take over one of the highest ranking members of the Westboro Church twitter feed and change the tweets posted of hate and bigotry into those of love and support for the victims? We don’t expect Anonymous. In a world where things like Sandy Hook happen we don’t expect a group to be so committed to bringing peace to a community who has suffered so greatly this last week.

How could we expect something like this, that due to pressure from Anonymous the internet security firm that hosts the WBC will donate the revenue they receive from the WBC to charity?

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Downloadverbod is definitief van de baan

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De Tweede Kamer heeft donderdag een motie van PvdA en D66 tegen een downloadverbod aangenomen. Het was een keus tussen thuiskopieheffing of een downloadverbod. Een goed alternatief voor deze twee manieren om de rechthebbenden op te kopiëren of te downloaden materiaal tegemoet te komen, is er volgens staatssecretaris Fred Teeven (Veiligheid en Justitie) niet.

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Initiatiefnemer van de motie Kees Verhoeven van D66: 'De Tweede Kamer kiest er gelukkig duidelijk voor om de broodnodige modernisering van het auteursrecht te zoeken binnen de grenzen van internetvrijheid. We moeten toe naar vergroting van het legaal aanbod, door nieuwe online verdienmodellen. Een downloadverbod lost het probleem van onbetaald downloaden niet echt op en zorgt hoe dan ook voor problemen als inperking van privacy van individuele gebruikers."

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European Commission withdraws ACTA referral

The European Commission has withdrawn its referral of ACTA to the European Court of Justice. This spring, the commission had asked the court: “Is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) compatible with the European Treaties, in particular with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union?”

It did this in the midst of massive protests against ACTA, hoping the European Parliament would postpone its vote. After the parliament voted against ACTA, the commission kept the referral to the court alive. It hoped that the court would find no problems with ACTA, it could then send a cosmetically changed ACTA to the parliament.

With the withdrawal of the ACTA referral to the court this second change for ACTA is now impossible. ACTA is fully dead in the EU.

As Switzerland intended to follow the EU, ACTA may be dead in Switzerland as well. Other countries may still ratify ACTA.

The withdrawal of ACTA comes a few weeks after the FFII sent an amicus curiae brief on ACTA to the Court. The registry of the Court answered a few hours later that “only the Member States, the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission may participate in the Opinion procedure and submit written statements. The Court does not accept amicus curiae briefs from third parties.”

In an open letter to the President of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Mr Vassilios Skouris, the FFII asked to reconsider the court’s rules on amicus curiae briefs in opinion procedures. Since the entry into force of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the court is a human rights court. A human rights court that does not want to listen to humans, but only to states and institutions, is, well, not really convincing.

In its amicus curiae brief the FFII concludes that ACTA is not compatible with international human rights instruments, the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, or the European Treaties.

The commission feared a negative court opinion on ACTA. Earlier it has always expressed full confidence that ACTA was fully compatible with the European Treaties and fundamental rights. It can never do this any more, as it now has withdrawn its referral to the Court.

It took an unprecedented mobilisation across the globe to get rid of ACTA. Millions of people now know secret legislative processes are unacceptable, know that “free trade agreements” can threaten freedom and health.

We can expect ACTA like provisions in other EU trade agreements, with Canada (CETA), EU-India and EU – US.

At other side of the planet the US negotiates the TPP, a health and freedom threatening trade agreement the provisions of which may come to Europe as well.

ACTA is dead in the EU. Thanks everyone, nice holidays and stay tuned in the new year.

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Instagram draait nieuwe gebruiksvoorwaarden terug

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Instagram heeft de nieuwe gebruiksvoorwaarden met betrekking tot advertenties die deze week werden ingevoerd teruggedraaid. Dat schrijft Kevin Systrom, mede-oprichter van het Amerikaanse bedrijf, op zijn blog.

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Anonymous versus Westboro, hactivists claim they won

In a battle of two controversial groups, Anonymous claims victory over Westboro Baptist Church as members of the Kansas-based church traveled to Connecticut to protest the funerals of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.

Westboro members have demonstrated at funerals of U.S. service members and said they wanted to be in Newtown, Connecticut "to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment."

Anonymous was in full force with a live stream broadcast Wednesday. They took over Twitter accounts, which is easy for them, but as an added touch Anonymous also took over the DVR in the home of the Westboro spokesperson and recorded gay porn to her machine.

Some of the hacking allegedly came from a 15-year-old known as Cosmo the God.

Cosmo was behind taking down websites for NASDAQ and the CIA this year. He was arrested in June, as part of a multi-state FBI sting and was recently sentenced to probation until his 21st birthday, during which time he is prohibited from using the Internet without supervision and prior consent.

Clearly, the account takeovers in the past few days violate his probation. His online presence today is, not surprisingly, gone.

For awhile, Twitter also felt Anonymous was violating their terms of service. Twitter suspended one of the primary accounts associated with @YourAnonNews as well as the account of Westboro Baptist Church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper, which had been taken over by Anonymous.

A Twitter spokesman wouldn't comment on a specific account, but says suspensions are generally for posting an individual's private information such as a private e-mail address, physical address, telephone number, and financial documents.

The Anonymous account was later restored and emerged with over 100,000 new followers and a new message for Westboro.

"You were in our crosshairs last year, didn't you learn from your mistakes and bad judgements?"

Will this stop Westboro Baptist Church in the long run? Unknown, but on Wednesday Anonymous won.

Westboro was not able to make it to the funeral locations. Good Samaritans, who were following the Anonymous Twitterfeed, systematically prevented Westboro members from getting close to the funerals.

Westboro has reportedly left Connecticut.

By LINDA THOMAS

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Tyler live

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Dear Anonymous

Tyler will go live tonight at 9pm GMT 23 December 2012. To join and access Tyler Leaks or talk to the AnonFamily please do the following:-

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TYLER is finally operational, But STOP, not so fast with that leak

A Twitter message is spreading like wildfire that Operation Tyler is finally completed. The project also known as Project mayhem 2012 or PM2012 is out of Bata testing and ready for for the world. A little while ago The highly anticipated and

heavly prompted "Tyler" platform was scheduled for release on December 5th, 2012, but the project was not fully ready for release, thus the developers decided to postpone the release.

The tweet message read. "#TYLER is finally operational. Let the mayhem begin #pm2012 LEAK IT ALL"

But STOP, before going leak happy remember to Remove the META data also known as Exif data from all files.

Currently there is no easy to strip meta data aka Exif data from files in large quantities easily on cross platform using an Automation process.

Obviously if someone wants to create such a program that can automatically strip meta data from files in large batches that would be great. But for now it is strongly advised to not upload data unless you feel its clean from all meta information.

Digital forensics examiners are very aware of the benefits of identifying metadata in files from word processing documents to image files. The metadata in image files, referred to as Exif (Exchangeable image file format), has been a source of information in forensic examinations for some time. Many files, including video files, have metadata.
If metadata is important in other investigations, can video metadata be a similar potential treasure trove?

When entering the Tyler site in order to access the downloads feature you must sign in to the site. This is very easy. You don't need any real identifying information only an email which can easily be generated, a secure password, and your Anonymous name. any name will do fine.

Keep up the good work guys and remember "Government hates competition." Links are provided below explaining meta data and how to find Tyler.

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China's new law intensifies online clampdown

Further hardening its cyberlaws, China's measures allow the government to delete and censor posts it deems "illegal".

China has unveiled tighter Internet controls, including legalising the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.

The rules suggest that the new leadership, headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping, will continue muzzling the often
scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.

The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency on Friday, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.

Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what
people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.

"Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take
relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities," the rules state.

The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users,
something the government has said it is trying to encourage.

Extensive measures

Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive
topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube
are blocked.

Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina's wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to
register their real names.

The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users. "So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities.

Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?" complained one user.

"We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom," wrote another.

The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous
accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumours, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.

Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no
dissent to its authority.

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Celebrating Anonymous: The hackers’ big year
^{By Andrew Leonard}
“I love Anon.”

The comment, written by a teenage boy at Berkeley High School a few days after the Sandy Hook shootings, came in response to a Facebook post made by my own 15-year-old son.

My son was passing along the word that the hacker collective Anonymous had declared war against the Westboro Baptist Church, that clan of deranged religious fanatics who routinely seek to turn the misery of others into their own grandstanding opportunity.

Outraged at WBC’s plans to protest at the funeral of Sandy Hook Elementary’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung, on Dec. 19, in order “to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment,” Anonymous proceeded to expose the personal information of WBC members — home and email addresses, phone numbers, etc. — and started acting as a coordinating center for anti-WBC counter-protests. For teenage boys at Berkeley High, Anonymous’ direct action was the epitome of cool.

But the next morning, as WBC members and counter-protesters gathered in Newtown, Conn., and Anonymous-affiliated chat rooms buzzed with discussion of “#opWestboro” and “#opWBC,” Twitter dropped a bombshell. The social media network suspended the largest Anonymous Twitter account, @YourAnonNews.

Never mind WBC’s heinous plans! Here was another opportunity for outrage! Censorship — a sin that galvanizes Anonymous like no other. A backup Anonymous account that had been prepared for exactly this kind of dire eventuality sprung into action and solemnly intoned: “Free Speech is Dead.” The hundreds of thousands of people who followed @YourAnonNews salivated for a new showdown, anticipating an imminent clash in which the awesome might of Anonymous would hurl itself against Twitter’s infrastructure. Shit was about to get real.

Except, less than an hour later, Free Speech was Alive. Anonymous, according to Twitter, had run afoul of Twitter’s ban on posting personally identifying information about other people. But after @YourAnonNews applied for reinstatement, Twitter relented. Never mind! Nothing to see here. Back to Newtown we go.

Was the morning’s drama an instance of one of the world’s mightiest social media networks knuckling before the power of the hactivist collective? Maybe. A tempest in a teapot? More likely. Kind of hilarious in all its digital sturm und drang? Definitely. Fantastic publicity for Anonymous’ goal of shaming the Westboro Baptist Church? Absolutely, positively.

As with all of Anon’s actions, whether those be online rallies against overly harsh copyright laws or denial-of-service attacks designed to crash websites deemed the enemy for whatever reason, or straightforward gestures of organizational support for on-the-street actions like the Occupy protests, it’s always a little hard to tell exactly what, in the end, Anonymous achieved with #opWBC, just as it is always tricky to define what Anonymous actually is. Digital freedom fighters? Subversive delinquents? Run-amok pranksters?

None of the above or all of the above, depending on who you talk to. And that might be how it should be. Anonymous prides itself on its inchoate lack of definition. But underneath all the confusion, there’s still something definitely there. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be anything to merit that teenage declaration of love on Facebook. Particularly for the young, the generation that cut its teeth on the digital frontier and increasingly gets its news from nontraditional sources, Anonymous is the conscience of the Internet; doughty defenders of free speech and privacy in an era when the surveillance state has never been more powerful. So in that sense #opWBC, regardless of its success or failure, provided a sweet coda to a tempestuous year. The Westboro Baptist Church might be an easy target, but when Anonymous lined up against it, it reminded us why the hacker collective, even if it might be hard to define, is still easy to celebrate.

————-

Anonymous accompanied its announcement of hostilities against the Westboro Baptist Church with a slick, ominous video, featuring a computer-generated voice laying out the case for action.

Personally, I have to say, if I were a 15-year-old boy, Anonymous would be knocking my socks off with that kind of badass propaganda. But I’m not; I’m a 50-year-old guy, and while I won’t defer to anyone in my hatred of WBC, Anonymous’ response seemed overwrought and grandiose. “All-seeing, in the same sense as God”? Please. Such rhetoric is more appropriate for the villain in a Chris Nolan Batman movie than for the real world, here and now. Likewise, a comment made by one Anonymous sympathizer during the brief window in which @YourAnonNews was suspended that “Suspending News-Accounts is like killing Journalists (like in Mexico) for telling the Truth,” is just dumb. A Twitter suspension is not a murder.

But when the topic is Anonymous, it’s probably always a good idea to restrain one’s tendency to make totalizing judgments. It is in the nature of Anonymous that the video in question could just as easily have been the product of single person hopped up on Red Bull-fueled delusions of grandeur, instead of a carefully considered representation of the collective hacktivist will. In Anonymous, everyone gets the chance to write their own manifesto. The more, the merrier.

One thing’s for sure — the video was an artifact designed to be shared, hither and yon, and if you hadn’t already heard of Westboro Baptist Church, the video would be certain to pique your interest. My son doesn’t read the newspaper, and we’d never discussed Westboro at the dinner table. But he still found out. I blame Anonymous. No, wait, I salute Anonymous.

Gabriella Coleman, an expert in hacker culture, is writing a book about Anonymous. She told me that one of the most fruitful ways to think about Anonymous is simply as a vehicle for getting the word out.

“One of the things that is interesting about them,” said Coleman, “is that they have shown the world what large-scale protest politics online looks like. But in the end, I think their strength is publicity.”

In 2012 alone, Coleman said, Anonymous had played a significant role in publicizing the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) in the U.S., the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the government crackdown on the MegaUpload file-sharing site. The denial-of-service attacks that temporarily shut down government or corporate websites shouldn’t necessarily be seen as acts of vandalism that break things, suggested Coleman, but rather as stunts designed to get the world thinking, hey, there might be something weird and wrong, as in the case of MegaUpload, about the spectacle of a government shutting down a major website before a court has found anyone guilty of a crime.

In 2012, Coleman wrote earlier this year, Anonymous “began to be portrayed as an open-source brand of radical protest politics and not necessarily as hooligans hell-bent on unleashing extremist, chaotic acts… Anonymous is a distinct, emerging part of this diverse and burgeoning political landscape. Its real threat may lie not so much in its ability to organize cyberattacks but in the way it has become a beacon, a unified front against censorship and surveillance.

What’s not to love? Go get ‘em, Anonymous.

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Could Belgium Bring Down Scientology?

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Scientologists may be facing their most daunting court case yet, and all it took was for someone to stop calling them a cult. After a years long legal battle, federal prosecutors in Belgium now believe their investigation is complete enough to charge the Church of Scientology and its leaders as a criminal organization on charges of extortion, fraud, privacy breaches, and the illegal practice of medicine. "The decision follows years of investigation that was triggered by a complaint by the Labour Mediation Service in the Brussels Region. Labour mediators were unhappy with a number of labour contracts," reads the report from Flanders News. "The matter ended up on the desk of examining magistrate Michel Claise, who ordered raids on Church of Scientology premises in 2008. During the raids police managed to seize a wealth of evidence," they add. And (with the help of Google translate) Belgian newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo are both reporting that the Belgian federal attorney is now seeking prosecution.

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Anonymous threatens to take down California police department

Members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous are demanding that a California police department remove an officer from the force after video has surfaced of the cop in question firing at a civilian 11 times at point-blank range.

The Manteca Police Department says that Officer John Moody was in the right when he shot nearly a dozen bullets at Ernesto Duenez Jr. last year, killing the man on the spot. Others aren’t so certain, though.

Duenez, a 34-year-old parolee, led police on a car chase last year after he became wanted for questioning in a domestic violence incident earlier that day, June 8, 2011. When he pulled up to a residence and exited the vehicle, however, Moody fired 11 shots, killing him.

Officer Moody claims the suspect was welding a knife at the time of the encounter, although evidence reveals that the weapon was left in the bed of the truck during the shooting. Despite being unarmed while exiting the vehicle, Moody unleashed nearly a dozen rounds at Duenez, including several in his back as he laid on the ground dying.

Earlier this month, the San Joaquin County district attorney’s office concluded that Moody had been legally justified in killing Duenez, but that decision has been called into question since video of the incident has been published on YouTube in the days since. Rosemary Duenez, the victim’s mother, agreed to release the video after the court decided to clear Moody of the crime.

“As heartbreaking as it is, people need to see what happened,” she told the Chronicle. “They need to know what we see, and what we’re fighting for.”

Now with discussion of the case rekindled by the video, members of Anonymous say they will retaliate for Duenez’s death unless Moody’s role with the police department is terminated.

“Having a badge does not give you legal permission to murder freely,” recites a self-proclaimed member of the hacktivist collective in a video uploaded recently to the Web. “Manteca police department, we demand as a final resort that you disband your corrupted Officer John Moody and serve justice for his despicable act of violence.” Otherwise, the actor warns, Anonymous will wage a cyberattack against the Mantec Police Department, including “a complete shutdown of the official website.”

The victim’s sister, Reyna Duenez, says she was unfamiliar with Anonymous up until the video was released.

"We don't even know who they are," she tells KXTV News. “They're voicing their opinion and that's their right, but we don't condone anything that's illegal."

Members of Anonymous say they will take the website offline, though, unless action is taken against the officer.

"We appreciate everyone's voices being heard and all the support and love that we've gotten, but we don't condone anything illegal done to the police department," Ms. Duenez tells the network. "We want legal action against Officer John Moody; we're not trying to do anything illegal. We want to take the right steps all the way."

The Manteca Police Department tells the Manteca Bulletin that they view the video as a valid threat against the force, but has not identified any persons with alleged involvement.

Anonymous Message | Police Brutality | U.S

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Op zaterdag 29 december 2012 17:09 schreef Mint_Clansell het volgende:

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Op zondag 30 december 2012 21:55 schreef Mint_Clansell het volgende:
Ik denk dat een internetbeveiligingsbedrijf zoals McAfee beter op de hoogte is dan een veredelde TRU poster.

Vraag me uberhaupt af waarom je die shit hier plaatst, niemand is geinteresseerd in die flauwekul.