Anonops #14: All about control

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Op vrijdag 7 december 2012 14:32 schreef Mint_Clansell het volgende:
Die DDOS'jes niet nee, althans niet op de langere termijn.

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Dallas man linked to hacker group Anonymous faces new charges related to Stratfor attack

A Texas man who has described himself as a spokesman for the hacker-activist group Anonymous faces new charges over data stolen from the private intelligence firm Stratfor last Christmas.

Federal prosecutors said Friday that Barrett Brown was indicted on a dozen charges that include aggravated identity theft and device fraud. The 31-year-old Dallas man already was in federal custody after being indicted in October for allegedly making threats on the Internet to an FBI agent.

Brown's attorney, Doug Morris, had no comment on the new charges Friday.

According to the U.S. attorney's office, Brown made public an Internet link providing access to credit card information and other data stolen from Stratfor.

Brown was a de facto spokesman for Anonymous, willing to speak for a movement that prides itself on anonymity.

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Op zaterdag 8 december 2012 00:08 schreef Mint_Clansell het volgende:
Dit gaat dan wel even wat verder dan een simpele ddos-aanval...

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Ethiopian Kids Hacked Their Donated Tablets In Just Five Months

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"We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android."

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http://www.twitlonger.com/show/k8vqj0

The World Conference on International Telecommunications – 12 (December 3 - 14)

Call to Activists by Civil Society participants

We, the physical and remote participants at The World Conference on International Telecommunications WCIT12 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, wish to call the attention of all human rights and technology activists that the recent outage of the ITU website has proved to be of considerable disadvantage to the efforts on the review of the International Telecommunications Regulations - ITRs.

The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) is a critical event that the Civil Society believes is key in shaping greater connectivity and growth in international telecommunications. The satisfactory functioning of the ITU website, is central to the success of the meeting as it serves as the document repository, primary webcast channel and orientation platform for all participants.

We therefore call on all concerned activists to refrain from any possible disruptions, hacks or attacks on the ITU website and its related domains. Such effort will be counterproductive, and will hugely disenfranchise remote participants.

The Civil Society participation in ITU deliberations is the result of a long and a hard process that requires constructive efforts for improvement.

We invite you to follow remotely on http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Pages/default.aspx

And #WCIT12 on Twitter

Dubai World Trade Center

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Friday, 7th of December 2012

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http://www.anonpaste.me/a(...)VciFy932YEfU3HM06SA=

Here are LEAKED "confidential" PDF documents from private ITU meeting. The recommendations NEVER discuss the impact of DPI.

A FEW EXAMPLES OF POTENTIAL DPI USE CITED BY THE ITU:
"I.9.2 DPI engine use case: Simple fixed string matching for BitTorrent"
"II.3.4 Example “Forwarding copy right protected audio content”"
"II.3.6 Example “Detection of a specific transferred file from a particular user”"
"II.4.2 Example “Security check – Block SIP messages (across entire SIP traffic) with specific content types”"
"II.4.5 Example “Identify particular host by evaluating all RTCP SDES packets”"
"II.4.6 Example “Measure Spanish Jabber traffic”" "II.4.7 Example “Blocking of dedicated games”" "II.4.11 Example “Identify uploading BitTorrent users”"
"II.4.13 Example “Blocking Peer-to-Peer VoIP telephony with proprietary end-to-end application control protocols”"
"II.5.1 Example “Detecting a specific Peer-to-Peer VoIP telephony with proprietary end-to-end application control protocols”"

Download: https://anonfiles.com/file/f42cd5e944e61c5152c8e34fea668606 With love, Stun https://twitter.com/57UN #Anonymous #OpWCIT #FuckITU

With love, Stun https://twitter.com/57UN #Anonymous #OpWCIT #FuckITU

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U.N. Report Reveals International Protocol for Tracking People Online

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Buried in a recent 158-page U.N. report on how terrorists use the Internet is the so-called “protocol of a systematic approach.” The protocol, which was authored by an elite Italian special operations unit called the Raggruppamento, is significant because it has been implemented by authorities across the world, according to the United Nations.

The document outlines the stages law enforcement agencies should go through when conducting electronic surveillance of suspects: first, by obtaining data and “cookies” stored by websites like Facebook, Google, eBay and Paypal; second, by obtaining location data from servers used by VoIP Internet phone services (like Skype); then, by conducting a “smart analysis” of these data before moving on to the most serious and controversial step: intercepting communications, exploiting security vulnerabilities in communications technologies for “intelligence-gathering purposes,” and even infecting a target computer with Trojan-horse spyware to mine data.

Almost without exception, law enforcement agencies around the world refuse to talk publicly about these tactics and how they use them because they say doing so could compromise security. Despite civil liberties groups pushing for more transparency, internal police surveillance manuals or guidelines are closely guarded, and on the rare occasions they are released, they will tend to be heavily redacted.

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The Rise and Fall of Jeremy Hammond: Enemy of the State

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A member of the online activist movement Anonymous, sup_g was part of a small team of politically motivated hackers who had breached Stratfor's main defenses earlier that month – ultimately "rooting," or gaining total access to, its main web servers.

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Pirate Bay Founder Released From Solitary Confinement

After three months in solitary confinement Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm will be released from custody. The prosecutor suspects Gottfrid of being involved in several hacking and fraud cases but he has yet to be charged in any of these cases. The Pirate Bay founder will now be transferred to a new prison which he will leave as a free man in five months if no new charges are brought against him.

Following his arrest late August, Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was deported from Cambodia to Sweden.

Initially it was assumed that Gottfrid was sent to Sweden because of the outstanding one year prison sentence in the Pirate Bay case.

However, once he touched down at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport, the authorities said he was suspected of being involved in the hacking of Logica, a Swedish IT company that works with the local tax authorities.

Immediately after his arrival in Sweden, Gottfrid was put into custody awaiting the hacking related charges. Since then the Pirate Bay founder has been kept in solitary confinement, locked up 23 hours a day for weeks on end.

The prosecution kept extending custody and later implicated him in second hacking case along with accusations of four instances of serious fraud and four attempted frauds. Again, no official charges were filed.

Yesterday, after three months in custody, things changed for the better. Gottfrid’s mother Kristina Svartholm informed TorrentFreak that her son will no longer be kept in solitary confinement and will soon be released from custody.

“The prosecutor decided this morning that Gottfrid should be released from custody, which is great news. This means of course a much better situation for him, as he will no longer be kept in isolation,” Kristina said.

The authorities are currently looking for a prison where Gottfrid will serve the rest of his Pirate Bay sentence.

“Until then he will stay at the custody facility, but without any restrictions. This means that he can meet other people, not only his old mom,” Kristina told TorrentFreak.

The suspicions in the hacking and fraud cases haven’t been dropped but Gottfrid has not yet been charged for any of these offenses yet. If there is no change his prison term will end in May, as the time served in custody will be credited to his Pirate Bay sentence.

While Gottfrid wasn’t allowed to meet anyone except his mother during his solitary confinement, he was able to read many of the letters TorrentFreak readers and Gottfrid supporters everywhere wrote to him.

Kristina is grateful for this overwhelming support and told us previously that she is proud of what The Pirate Bay represents.

“I have learned so much about what TPB means to people. I feel so proud not only of what Gottfrid did but also of the other guys and what they created together. I am also proud of the crew that works on it today,” she said.

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Downloadverbod lijkt definitief van de baan

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Er lijkt definitief geen downloadverbod te komen en ook de blokkering van sites als The Pirate Bay wordt mogelijk voorkomen. D66 gaat daarvoor volgende week twee moties indienen tijdens het auteursrechtendebat in de Tweede Kamer, die waarschijnlijk door een meerderheid van de Kamer gesteund worden, meldt NU.nl.

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Internet remains unregulated after UN treaty blocked

Failure to sign agreement at ITU conference stops governments having greater powers to control phone calls and data

A proposed global telecoms treaty that would give national governments control of the internet has been blocked by the US and key western and African nations. They said they are "not able to sign the agreement in its current form" at the end of a International Telecoms Union (ITU) conference in Dubai.

The proposals, coming after two weeks of complex negotiation, would have given individual governments greater powers to control international phone calls and data traffic, but were opposed as the conference had seemed to be drawing to a close late on Thursday.

The move seems to safeguard the role of the internet as an unregulated, international service that runs on top of telecoms systems free of direct interference by national governments.

The US was first to declare its opposition to the draft treaty. "It is with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that I have to announce that the United States must communicate that it is unable to sign the agreement in its current form," Terry Kramer, head of the US delegation, told the conference, after what had looked like a final draft was approved.

"The internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without UN regulation. We candidly cannot support an ITU Treaty that is inconsistent with the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance."

The US was joined in its opposition by the UK, Canada, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Qatar and Sweden. All said they would not sign the proposed final text, meaning that although a number of other countries will sign it, the treaty cannot be effectively implemented.

"In the end, the ITU and the conference chair, having backed themselves to the edge of a cliff, dared governments to push them off," commented Kieren McCarthy, who runs the internet consultancy dot-nxt. "They duly did."

But Access Now, a lobbying group against ITU oversight of the internet, said that "despite all of the assurances of the ITU secretariat that the WCIT wouldn't discuss internet governance, the final treaty text contains a resolution that explicitly 'instructs the [ITU] secretary-general to take the necessary steps for the ITU to play and active and constructive role in... the internet.'" It urged governments not to sign it.

The ITU is a UN organisation responsible for coordinating telecoms use around the world. The conference was meant to update international treaties which have not evolved since 1988, before the introduction of the internet.

But the conference has been the source of huge controversy because the ITU has been accused of seeking to take control of the internet, and negotiating behind closed doors. Google has mounted a vociferous campaign against conference proposals that would have meant that content providers could be charged for sending data and which would have given national governments more control of how the internet works. Instead, lobbyists have said the treaties should simply not mention the internet at all because it is a service that runs atop telecoms systems.

But a bloc led by Russia, with China and the United Arab Emirates – where the conference is being held – said the internet should be part of the treaties because it travels over telecoms networks. A Russia-driven vote late on Wednesday seemed to push to include the internet in a resolution – a move the US disagreed with.

The failure to reach accord could mean that there will be regional differences in internet efficacy. "Maybe in the future we could come to a fragmented internet," Andrey Mukhanov, of Russia's Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, told the Reuters news agency. "That would be negative for all, and I hope our American and European colleagues come to a constructive position."

The US and Europe have indicated that they instead want private companies to drive internet standards.

McCarthy, who has published ITU planning documents that would otherwise have been kept out of sight on dot-nxt's website, criticised the conduct of the meeting: "attendees were stunned to find a conference style and approach stuck in the 1970s," he said.

Writing on the dot-nxt site, he said: "A constant stream of information was available only in downloadable Word documents; disagreement was dealt with by increasingly small, closed groups of key government officials; voting was carried out by delegates physically raising large yellow paddles, and counted by staff who walked around the room; meetings ran until the early hours of the morning, and "consensus by exhaustion" was the only fall-back position."

Attempts by the ITU to encourage the US to sign the proposed treaty by removing clauses – such as one that would give individual countries rights over website addresses – failed.

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Subscribe for Quick Updates BSNL telecom server hacked by Anonymous Group against Section 66A of IT Act

The Homepage of BSNL ( Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited ) http://www.bsnl.co.in/ was hacked today morning by hacking group Anonymous. BSNL is an Indian state-owned telecommunications company, the largest provider of fixed telephony and fourth largest mobile telephony provider in India, and is also a provider of broadband services.

The website's homepage was hacked saying, " Hacked by Anonymous India, support Aseem trivedi (cartoonist) and alok dixit on the hunger strike, remove IT Act 66a, databases of all 250 bsnl site has been deleted.............Do not think of BACKUP" with a images of Mr. Aseem while he was arrested by Police.

Hack was performed by Anonymous India hacking group and claiming to hack whole server, with 250 Databases. Hacker wrote on deface page, that they deleted all the databases and dump credentials of BSNL database servers in a pastebin File.



After analyzing the dump of database login information, we found that company is really unconscious about their security from several years and choosing passwords of sensitive servers like "Password123" , "p3nib2", "enquiry999" , "password" , "DelBSi666" , "vpt123". Most obvious, these passwords are easily available in any wordlist and can be bruteforced in minutes.

We can judge the lack of security from the point that, BSNL is using "Password123" as password for 9 Databases.

What is Section 66A of IT Act ?

According to Indian Laws, Section 66A of IT Act is Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service --
1.) any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device.
2.) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character or any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device.
3.) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such message.

shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

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Internet humbles UN telecoms agency

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Having turned industries and governments upside down, the Internet has claimed its first organizational scalp, subjecting the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to a humiliating failure at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai earlier today.

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The collapse will come as a severe embarrassment to the ITU. Efforts to bring its core telecom regulations into the Internet era had exposed the organization to modern realities that it was incapable of dealing with. In the end, they proved overwhelming.

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Russia first submitted, then revised, then pulled, then resubmitted an explosive contribution that effectively undermined the existing global structures that make the Internet work. The ITU's Secretary General foolishly insisted on including text on the unrelated matter of human rights in an effort to see off media criticism that some of the other proposals would allow governments to monitor people online. Old telco companies tried to rewire the Internet so they received millions of dollars in revenue from Internet companies such as Google and Facebook.

Mistake piled on mistake and yet the ITU seemed incapable of responding, relying on member states to arrive at their own solutions and ignoring civil society, the technical community and even hundreds of thousands of concerned global citizens that took to online petitions to express their disgust at decisions being made over the Internet in closed, government groups.

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North Korea: On the net in world's most secretive nation

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It's just one facet of the "internet" in North Korea, a uniquely fascinating place.

In a country where citizens are intentionally starved of any information other than government propaganda, the internet too is dictated by the needs of the state - but there is an increasing belief that this control is beginning to wane.

"The government can no longer monitor all communications in the country, which it could do before," explains Scott Thomas Bruce, an expert on North Korea who has written extensively about the country.

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China tightens 'Great Firewall' internet control with new technology

Companies and individuals affected by new system thought to 'learn, discover and block' encrypted communications

China appears to be tightening its control of internet services that are able to burrow secretly through what is known as the "Great Firewall", which prevents citizens there from reading some overseas content.

Both companies and individuals are being hit by the new technology deployed by the Chinese government to control what people read inside the country.

A number of companies providing "virtual private network" (VPN) services to users in China say the new system is able to "learn, discover and block" the encrypted communications methods used by a number of different VPN systems.

China Unicom, one of the biggest telecoms providers in the country, is now killing connections where a VPN is detected, according to one company with a number of users in China.

VPNs encrypt internet communications between two points so that even if the data being passed is tapped, it cannot be read. A VPN connection from inside China to outside it also mean that the user's internet connection effectively starts outside the "Great Firewall" – in theory giving access to the vast range of information and sites that the Chinese government blocks. That includes many western newspaper sites as well as resources such as Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Users in China suspected in May 2011 that the government there was trying to disrupt VPN use, and now VPN providers have begun to notice the effects.

Astrill, a VPN provider for users inside and outside China, has emailed its users to warn them that the "Great Firewall" system is blocking at least four of the common protocols used by VPNs, which means that they don't function. "This GFW update makes a lot of harm to business in China," the email says. "We believe [the] China censorship minister is a smart man … and this blockage will be removed and things will go back to normal."

But the company added that trying to stay ahead of the censors is a "cat-and-mouse game" – although it is working on a new system that it hopes will let it stay ahead of the detection system.

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Anonymous takes down all Cyprus government websites

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Anonymous group takes down all the websites of Cyprus government as Cyprus nears euro bail-out deal. The group claimed responsibility for the hit via facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events.



The Denial of Service attack (DDoS) affected over 50 websites as reported via twitter, which are still offline for about 30 minutes now some of them are listed below :

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Anonymous targets Westboro Baptist Church

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Anonymous hacktivists target the Westboro Baptist Church after members announce plans to picket Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman killed 20 school children and six adults on Friday, Dec. 14.

On Saturday, Dec. 15, Shirley Phelps-Roper announced that the Westboro Baptist Church would picket Sandy Hook Elementary School located in Newtown, Connecticut, with the following tweet:

twitter:

DearShirley twitterde op zaterdag 15-12-2012 om 15:20:08 Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment. reageer retweet

In response, Anonymous released the personal contact information of members of the Westboro Baptist Church, including the home address, email address and phone number of numerous church members.

Preaching a hate filled gospel so obnoxious most Christians reject their teaching, the Westboro Baptist Church is an anti-gay Christian fundamentalist church notorious for its "God Hates Fags" signs and the picketing of soldiers’ funerals.

In addition to the release of personal information belonging to the church, Anonymous is also promoting a petition at whitehouse.gov asking the Obama administration to legally recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group. The petition notes that the church “has been recognized as a hate group by organizations, such as The Southern Poverty Law Center, and has repeatedly displayed the actions typical of hate groups.”

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'Patriot' Hacker Forces School-Massacre Twitter Feed Offline

On Friday (Dec. 14), the shadowy "patriot hacker" was instrumental in taking down a Twitter account that mocked the victims of that morning's Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre.

The account, at @z0bm13d, used a news photo of a bloodied, crying child as its wallpaper, and a photo of a little boy wearing bloody zombie makeup as its icon. Its displayed name was "Sandy Hook Victim."

"I now have more holes that my daddy can [have sex with]," the account posted. "I forgive Ryan Lanza for what he did to me."

(Ryan Lanza of Hoboken, N.J., was erroneously named by several news outlets Friday as the Newtown shooter. The killer was actually his younger brother, Adam Lanza, who appeared to have been carrying identification naming him as Ryan Lanza.)

Public outcry

It's not clear how quickly the alarm was raised, but on Friday evening a Twitter account at @GonzoPhD posted, "I never do this so listen to me this one time — report this sick piece of [garbage] .@z0mb13d for parodying today's shootings."

The Jester, whose Twitter account is @th3j35t3r, and whose activities are mostly limited to attacking Islamic extremist websites, noticed and tried to alert Twitter management directly.

"@twitter @support @safety 'FIX' THIS >> @z0mb13d," he tweeted. "Retrieve any IP details logged, pass to LEA's, I'd be happy to give perp some 'bad news'."

But it seemed the Jester, who has managed to keep his own identity secret, wasn't willing to wait for Twitter to take action.

"Only hope is a very clever SE [social engineering] attack," he tweeted. "@z0mb13d I have a very particular set of skills acquired over a long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like u."

(Twitter refused to comment for this story. The Jester did not respond to a request for comment.)

[Can Mental Screening Prevent Mass Murder?]

Connecting the dots

First, the Jester said, he looked at @z0mb13d's followers and quickly correlated them to a similarly named group in the Steam online-gaming community.

"Guy behind this despicable account >@z0mb13d is part of 'zomb13' gaming crew on steam, look at his followers, then look at steam," the Jester wrote. "How long b4 one of ur 'buddies' rats u out as pressure mounts?"

Within a couple of hours, the Jester dug up and posted a partial telephone number belonging to a friend of the @z0mb13d account owner.

Around the same time one of @z0mb13d's first followers, whose account bore the same handle as a member of the gaming crew, closed his Twitter account.

An hour later, the Jester had linked the offensive account to an Indiana college student who worked at Dairy Queen and liked the horror-rap group Insane Clown Posse — and @z0mb13d had been suspended by Twitter.

Just as soon as that small victory was achieved, however, another threat to online decency presented itself.

The Westboro Baptist Church, famed for picketing military funerals with "God Hates Fags" signs, promised via Twitter to do the same at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Soon afterwards, the Jester posted another tweet: "#WBC #Westboro baptist church site .godhatesfags.com — seems to be experiencing 'technical difficulties'."

twitter:

th3j35t3r twitterde op maandag 17-12-2012 om 05:24:38 #WBC - When truckers, bikers, hackers, preachers, teachers, soldiers Anonymous & me agree you're a piece of shit...you're a piece of shit. reageer retweet

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Westboro Baptist Church Plans to Picket Sandy Hook Elementary School, Incurs Wrath of Anonymous

After prominent Westboro Baptist Church member/professional troll/mother of illegitimate son Shirley Phelps-Roper announced her group's intention to picket Sandy Hook Elementary School "to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment," the wrath came quickly.

An anonymous offshoot promptly launched #OpWestboro with the intention of "destroying" the church and its members.

Within hours the group began posting personal contact info and credit card numbers of WBC congregants, and hacking the church's various online properties.

A coup de grâce of sort came with the takeover of Phelps-Roper's personal twitter account. The hack is attributed to notorious teen hacker Cosmo the God who appears to have violated the terms of his newly minted parole in order to take part in the operation.

Meanwhile, others are attempting a less tech-savvy method of bringing down the church: Convincing the government to label WBC a hate group. A We the People petition to do just that has already amassed nearly 100,000 signatures in less than three days.

Anonymous - Message To The Westboro Baptist Church door @kyanonymous

twitter:

Anonchimp twitterde op maandag 17-12-2012 om 07:15:12 RT: @YourAnonNewsIt's so nice of #WBC to provide the internet with a list of their twitter handles... http://t.co/VdVwigsC #OpWestboro reageer retweet

twitter:

OpPinkPower twitterde op zondag 16-12-2012 om 13:43:34 RT @lilithlela: #OPWestboro: Westboro Church members List, or, Why are they all related? http://t.co/2j85fsKF... http://t.co/E5Fl4WX3 reageer retweet

Westboro Baptist Church Negotiating NOT Protesting Newtown Funerals, Insults Anonymous

twitter:

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…

twitter:

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.

quote:

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?

quote:

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

quote:

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

[..]

[..]

quote:

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.

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Barret Brown Facing Decades in Prison for Sharing a Link

quote:

A federal grand jury has indicted Barrett Brown, an activist from Texas with links to the Anonymous hacktivist movement, on a dozen federal charges for sharing a hyperlink inside of an Internet chat room.

Brown, 31, had been in federal custody for nearly three months awaiting trial for unrelated crimes when the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, unsealed a new grand jury indictment against him on Friday, December 6.

Brown was arrested in September and charged with making online threats against a federal officer after posting a series of YouTube videos and tweets sharply criticizing an FBI agent. Now he has been charged with 12 unrelated counts stemming from his alleged involvement in the high-profile hack of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, late last year.

On top of his previous charges, Brown now faces decades of additional prison time if convicted on the newest crimes, including one count of traffic in stolen authentication features, one count of access device fraud and 10 counts of identity theft.

According to the indictment, Brown is at fault not for hacking into Stratfor during a massive security breach in 2011, but for posting a link to the hacked files while in an online chat. Prosecutors say that during last Christmas, Brown affected interstate commerce by knowingly trafficking without authorization the credit card information of 12 subscribers to the Stratfor global intelligence company’s newsletter, information authorities say he knew “were stolen and produced without lawful authority.”

Although Brown is not being pegged with personally hacking Stratfor or obtaining, collecting and categorizing the credit card data in question, the Justice Department is attacking the hacktivist for copying a link to a downloadable archive of the compromised data from one Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel and pasting it into another.

“Brown transferred the hyperlink ‘http://wikisend.com/download/597646/Stratfor_full_b.txt.gz’ from the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel called ‘#AnonOps’ to an IRC channel under Brown’s control called ‘#ProjectPM,” the authorities charge, which in turn provided access to stolen Stratfor data including “in excess of 5,000 credit card account numbers, the card holders’ identification information and the authentication featres for the credit cards known as the Card Cerficivation Values (CVV).”

“[B]y transferring and posting the hyperlink, Brown caused the data to be made available to other persons online without the knowledge and authorization of Stratfor Global Intelligence and the card holders,” the indictment continues.

Although Brown is only being charged with transferring the credit card data obtained in the Anonymous-led assault on Stratfor, his alleged role is but a very miniscule one in the grand scheme of the hack. While Brown is being charged for sharing a dozen credit card numbers, the information obtained by Anonymous included in all thousands of sensitive information as well as a trove of millions of emails from within Stratfor. That collection of correspondence was handed over to the website WikiLeaks after the hack and has been steadily published by the whistleblower site in the months since as part of the “Global Intelligence Files.”

As RT reported last month, 27-year-old activist Jeremy Hammond of Chicago has been charged with a direct role in illegally accessing Stratfor’s servers and has been told by the court that prosecutors could seek a life sentence if he’s convicted. That future of that case has been put in the air, however, after details emerged recently that the presiding judge is married to one of the thousands of Stratfor customers whose credit cards information was compromised.

When RT reported on developments in the Hammond case last month, we indirectly linked to an archived copy of the very files that Brown is alleged to have shared in an IRC channel. Further research reveals that the archive of Stratfor data has been shared countless of times since publicized last September, and is easily available across the Web without any warning that extracting the data contains information obtained without authorization and therefore in violation of federal law. Absent from the indictment, even, is a tweet from Brown sent on December 29, 2011 linking to a copy of the files hosted on Megaupload.com. As of this writing, that message has been re-tweeted dozens of times and word of his latest indictment has spawned a “RightToLink” campaign on Twitter.”

“Link Barrett accused of sharing was also posted on Cryptome + several blogs. Will these websites be indicted for ‘transferring link’ too?” UK journalist Ryan Gallagher asked on Twitter over the weekend.

When Anonymous went public with the Stratfor hack last year, Brown published a statement regarding the compromise while on his part never citing any role he may have had.

“In the wake of the recent operation by which Stratfor’s servers were compromised, much of the media has focused on the fact that some participants in the attack chose to use obtained customer credit card numbers to make donations to charitable causes. Although this aspect of the operation is indeed newsworthy, and, like all things, should be scrutinized and criticized as necessary, the original purpose and ultimate consequence of the operation has been largely ignored,” Brown wrote.

“Stratfor was not breached in order to obtain customer credit card numbers, which the hackers in question could not have expected to be as easily obtainable as they were. Rather, the operation was pursued in order to obtain the 2.7 million e-mails that exist on the firm’s servers. This wealth of data includes correspondence with untold thousands of contacts who have spoken to Stratfor’s employees off the record over more than a decade.”

“Although Stratfor is not necessarily among the parties at fault in the larger movement against transparency and individual liberty, it has long been a ‘subject of interest’ in our necessary investigation,” he wrote. “The e-mails obtained before Christmas Day will vastly improve our ability to continue that investigation and thereby bring to light other instances of corruption, crime and deception on the part of certain powerful actors based in the US and elsewhere.”

The earlier federal indictment against Brown, unsealed in early October, charges him with Internet threats, conspiracy to make publicly available restricted personal information of a federal employee and retaliation against a federal law enforcement officer.

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Argentina Ministry of Defence hacked & confidential documents leaked by LulzSecPeru

A Hacker group with online handle LulzSecPeru has managed to breach the Argentina Ministry of Defence website(www.mindef.gov.ar) and defaced the main page.

The hacker also leaked the documents that contain highly sensitive material rated SECRET (aircraft, submarines, guns). There are 3 RAR files has been uploaded in Anonfiles.

War Submarines, Radars(18MB), Classifieds Documents DEPARTMENT OF ARGENTINA DEFENSE DATABASE(55MB) and Database Dump(55MB). The database dump contains users, passwords ,secrets and name details.

"According to statements by the DEPARTMENT OF ARGENTINA DEFENSE the computer systems area say they had a system impossible to hack, thing turned otherwise." The hacker said .

"The event should not be taken as terrorism, was for the simple fact to prove that the system was totally vulnerable."

http://www.anonpaste.me/a(...)ylsLCv8EgdPCC8gbRv8=

At the time of writing, I am not able to reach Ministry of Defense site. It seems like the admin has taken down the site for Investigation.

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Opstelten komt met richtlijn voor 'ethische hackers'

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Bedrijven die slachtoffer zijn van een inbraak door een 'ethische hacker' zouden geen aangifte moeten doen, als de hacker volgens de afspraken in de leidraad heeft gehandeld. 'De zelfstandige bevoegdheid van het Openbaar Ministerie om eventueel tot vervolging over te gaan wanneer het vermoeden bestaat dat er strafbare feiten zijn gepleegd, blijft bestaan.'

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Inside the Anonymous Hacking File on the Steubenville 'Rape Crew'

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Things already sounded fishy in Steubenville, Ohio, where the alleged gang rape and kidnapping of an unconscious 16-year-old by two of the town's high-school football players has turned into a complex web of accusation, shock, and, well, Instagram photos. But conflicting reports over an already emotional case became that much more complex today when a WikiLeaks-style site dumped new information about team boosters, the town sheriff, and the alleged "Rape Crew" online — information rounded up, of course, by the anonymous hacking collective known as Anonymous.

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"Other students (including football players) who watched the alleged assaults and later tweeted rape jokes were disciplined only months afterward," reported Deadspin's Sam Eifling.

Further information, too, has been hard to come by — until today. A site called Local Leaks has rounded up leaks, anonymous tips through Anonymous, and previously undisclosed documents, all for the purpose of what it says is a project "giving a voice to the victim of this horrible crime, and began unraveling this conspiracy of silence designed to protect a group of these high school football players." Here's what you'll find inside and surrounding what the two groups are calling The Steubenville Files:

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Anonymous hackers release video of football stars bragging about rape

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Discussion has been rekindled regarding the August 2012 rape and kidnapping of a teenage girl in Ohio after members of Anonymous have published a video showing a witness making light of the crime on film only moments after.

The clip, released this week by an Anonymous cell calling itself “Knight Sec,” is reported to show former Steubenville, Ohio high school athlete Michael Colin Nodianos bragging about the sexual assault from a friend’s apartment.

For 12 minutes, Nodianos laughs about a young woman who was reportedly drugged and raped at a party earlier in the evening in the small Ohio town.

"She is so raped," he says. "Her puss is about as dry as the sun right now."

Michael Nodianos Confession #oprollredroll #occupysteubenville Steubenville Rape Case

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The victim had been intentionally drugged with a date rape intoxicant. She was photographed and video was taken of her in this condition, and there is evidence that she was hauled in a comatose state to multiple parties and almost certainly raped by more members of the local high school football team than just the two players who currently stand charged, writes a member of Knight Sec. Despite all this, it looked as though a town rife with corruption, cronyism, illegal gamblingand fixated upon their star high school football team (a major economic revenue engine) were prepared to orchestrate a major cover-up in order to sweep the entire affair under the rug. As this disclosure will document, this cover-up was perpetrated by people in the high school administration, local government and law enforcement.

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Anonymous "hacktivists" target gov't Web sites in Guatemala

Guatemala City, Jan 4 (EFE).- The hacker-activist group Anonymous claimed responsibility for attacks this week on the Web sites of Guatemala's executive and legislative branches.

Anonymous members targeted the official Internet portals to protest politicians' waste and plunder of public resources, the group said in a video posted on YouTube.

"As part of our commitment to the people of Guatemala we have carried out for three days the operation called OpDemocraciaGT, which is the result of seeing how the government of our country capriciously handles the Guatemalan patrimony," a spokesperson said on the video clip.

Anonymous threatened to "invade" Guatemalan cyberspace if President Otto Perez Molina does not govern in the interest of the people and fails to clamp down on official corruption.

The Web site of the Guatemalan government was functioning normally again Thursday after an interruption, while work to restore service on congressional site was ongoing.

The hacktivists urged Guatemalan authorities not to waste time looking for them.

"(Y)ou already know that you won't find us," Anonymous said.

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Video causes web furor over OH athletes' rape case

Associated Press= STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (AP) — An online video fueling social media reaction to the case of two eastern Ohio high school football players charged with rape isn't new evidence for state investigators handling the case, the attorney general said Friday.

The 16-year-old boys are set for trial Feb. 13 in juvenile court in Steubenville on allegations that they raped a teenage girl last August. Special prosecutors and a visiting judge are handling the case because local authorities knew people involved with the football team in the small city.

At a probable cause hearing last fall, teenagers not charged in the case testified that the victim was intoxicated and at times unresponsive on the night of the alleged assault, according to the local newspaper, the Steubenville Herald-Star.

Public interest increased this week with the online circulation of an unverified video, lasting more than 12 minutes, that purportedly shows another young man joking about the alleged rape victim, also 16. The video apparently was released by hackers who allege more people were involved and should be held accountable.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's office said state investigators aiding local police were aware of the video before it spread online. They're not commenting on details of the video or what other evidence authorities have.

DeWine criticized the video Friday and said his heart goes out to rape victims.

"I think what is unique and different about this case is that the victim continues to be victimized every time that there is some image that's posted up on the Internet, every time that you have a despicable 12-minute video like we saw yesterday," he said. "You know, I can just imagine how I would feel if this was my daughter."

Attorneys for the defendants, Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond, who played football for Steubenville High School, didn't immediately respond to Associated Press requests for comment Friday. The attorneys have denied the charges in court.

The boys were charged with rape after the teenage girl's parents contacted police about the alleged assault in mid-August. Mays also is charged with illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

Kidnapping charges against both defendants were dropped after a probable cause hearing, according to the court. The visiting judge has ruled the case will remain in juvenile court, not be moved to adult court.

Authorities continue pleading for anyone with information about what happened to come forward, and the investigation has spurred heated commentary online. Some support the defendants and question the character of the teenage girl, while others allege a cover-up or contend more people should be charged.

The latter group includes hacker-activists associating under the Anonymous and KnightSec labels who point to comments they say were posted around the time of the alleged attack on social media by several people who are not charged. A peaceful protest publicized by the hackers drew scores of people to the local courthouse last weekend.

In a related issue, student Cody Saltsman and his family sued a blogger and anonymous posters to her blog site in a case that arose from online comments suggesting the student might have been involved but not charged. The suit was settled with the operator of the crime blog acknowledging that there was no evidence of Saltsman's involvement in the rape, and Saltsman apologizing in a statement for tweets he sent the night of the alleged attack.

The girl, who doesn't attend Steubenville schools, is "doing as well as I guess could be expected," said Bob Fitzsimmons, an attorney for her family. He said the publicity and online commentary has been tough on her family.

It's possible she could be compelled to testify in court next month, but that decision is up to prosecutors, Fitzsimmons said. He declined to comment on any facts of the case, including whether or how the victim knew Mays and Richmond.

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Sheriff to Anonymous hacker: 'I'm coming after you'

_{STEUBENVILLE, Ohio}

In an emotionally charged 11-minute-long news conference Friday afternoon, Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla announced that his office, the Ohio Attorney General's Office and various other law enforcement agencies are now investigating a particular cell of a loosely organized computer-hacking collective known as Anonymous.

Individuals claiming to be working under the collective's name have recently emerged as critics of local law enforcement's handling of the August rape of a teenage girl.

Two teen defendants, both members of the Steubenville High School football team, have been charged and are facing a February trial in Jefferson County Juvenile Court.

The cell, identified as "KnightSec," has claimed responsibility for taking over a Steubenville football fan website on Christmas Eve and replacing it with a video featuring a person in a Guy Fawkes mask demanding a public apology to the accuser or they would reveal sensitive personal information about several people they believed should have been investigated and charged, as well as members of their families.

On Friday, Abdalla told a group of local reporters that his office has been inundated with phone calls from concerned Jefferson County residents who said they felt threatened by the hackers and people who are following them.

"Say what you want to say about me. Do character assassinations like you do and you're going to continue to do," said Abdalla. "But when you start doing a hatchet job on innocent children, putting their names out on the computers and the Internet, on Facebook, I'm coming after you. Simple as that."

Abdalla said he'd taken phone calls from parents of children under the age of 12 who had been threatened.

"Why put their names out there? Why put their addresses out there? With all the crackpots we have running around this country? With all of the sex offenders were have out there, plenty of them in Jefferson County, why put children’s names out there?” said Abdalla. "Mothers have taken their children out of school in fear of what may happen. This has gone too far. Enough is enough."

Abdalla also claimed to know the identity of the person leading the online effort.

"I'll deal with that at another time," said Abdalla. "I know where he lives. I know his name, his mother's name, his father's name, his brother's name."

Abdalla was quick to differentiate between the cell he's investigating and the larger Anonymous collective, which has gained notoriety for high-profile hacks of the computer systems of several large corporations and government agencies.

Abdalla also made it clear he has no complaint with the majority of protesters who assembled at the Jefferson County Courthouse on Dec. 29.

A similar, but more structured demonstration is planned for Jan. 5 at noon.

"I'm sure it will be peaceful," said Abdalla. If it's not peaceful, we'll deal with it at that time. The majority of people there are really and truly concerned about the victim," said Abdalla. "There are some who are not concerned. They were there to antagonize and to cuss like they were cursing last week at the Steubenville Police Department, calling them names and saying they're corrupt and what have you."

Many bloggers and participants in social media discussions about the case have criticized the local investigation, which only yielded two arrests, when some are convinced more teens and adults were complicit in the alleged assault. Many critics believe others have avoided prosecution because they are athletes.

Others have criticized Abdalla for allowing the Steubenville Police Department to lead the investigation when one of the alleged crime scenes is outside city limits. Abdalla has said he felt it was inappropriate for him to intervene since the accuser's parents made their initial report to the Steubenville Police Department.

Abdalla said he assisted in the investigation, by getting a warrant and seizing several cellphones from Steubenville High School football players during the initial investigation in August, which Abdalla said lasted between four and five days. Abdalla said those phones were turned over to the Steubenville Police Department. State investigators were able to retrieve some information from those phones and that evidence is expected to be used in the trial of the two juvenile defendants.

In his Friday news conference, Abdalla praised the investigation conducted by the Steubenville Police, who he said interviewed 59 people within four or five days after the initial report was filed by the accuser's parents.

He added that since the Steubenville Police Department's investigation concluded, no new evidence has emerged, in spite of repeated calls for tips from any witnesses. Abdalla said that included information presented by several crime bloggers.

"None of the bloggers, none of the Tweets have helped in any way in giving information and evidence that has helped with this case," said Abdalla.

Abdalla said his office fielded several calls about an Internet video clip that showed a young man describing and joking about the events alleged to have happened the night of the assault. Abdalla said that investigators have had a copy of that video since August.

"One guy called asking why is (the person in the video) not arrested," said Abdalla. "He wasn't even in the same place where the incident occurred. He made this video based on what people were telling him about (the alleged incident). This was no criminal act. I said it the other day: You can't arrest somebody for being stupid. It was disgusting and nauseating. But you can't arrest him for that."

One of the two juvenile defendants is charged with rape and dissemination of sexually oriented material depicting a minor. The other is charged with rape.

Both are scheduled to be tried jointly in Jefferson County Juvenile Court on Feb. 13, 14 and 15. Special prosecutors and an out-of-town judge have been assigned to the case.

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Student convicted over Anonymous cyber-attacks

Christopher Weatherhead had 'integral role' in hacking group's 'denial of service' attacks, one of which cost PayPal £3.5

A key member of the Anonymous hacking group has been convicted for his part in a series of cyber-attacks on Paypal and other major companies.

Christopher Weatherhead, 22, who used the name Nerdo on the internet, was described as a leading player in the "distributed denial of service" attacks. He worked with fellow Anonymous members Peter Gibson, 24, Ashley Rhodes, 28, and Jake Birchall, 18, to bring down websites by flooding them with messages and requests under the banner "Operation Payback".

Weatherhead was convicted on one count of conspiracy to impair the operation of computers, contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977.

The cyber-attacks originally targeted the music industry in response to its anti-piracy stance. But the group changed its plan after the backlash against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks following their release of classified data in December 2010.

Anonymous spent 10 days targeting Paypal, causing losses of £3.5m.

London's Southwark crown court heard that PayPal was attacked after it decided not to process payments on behalf of the Wau Holland Foundation, an organisation involved in raising funds for WikiLeaks.

Other companies targeted included Mastercard, Visa and the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI). Anyone who tried to visit their websites was directed to a page displaying the message: "You've tried to bite the Anonymous hand. You angered the hive and now you are being stung."

A jury of six men and five women deliberated for little more than two hours on Thursday before returning a guilty verdict against Weatherhead for his "integral role" in the attacks, which happened while he was studying at Northampton University.

Weatherhead looked at the floor then across to his parents when the guilty verdict was read out.

Judge Peter Testar warned him he could face jail when sentenced at a later date with his three co-accused, who pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

"I want to have as much information as possible before deciding what should happen in the case of these four men," he said. "I think these are serious offences to my mind, and I hope the defendant understands that."

The trial heard that Weatherhead spent up to 10 hours a day online and dreamed of working for Amazon or Google. He refused to admit that he had been part of the actual attacks, claiming to have been the communications manager for Anonymous and the creator of online chatrooms where the attacks were planned.

Weatherhead told the court he was an observer in October 2010 while others carried out their attack on the website of the Ministry of Sound, causing £9,000 damage.

Neil Corre, defending, asked him: "Were there times when you were observing attacks while they were happening?"

"Yes," said Weatherhead, "I was quite interested. I did not believe that what was being discussed was actually possible."

The student portrayed himself as an ideological dreamer who had come across the Anonymous group by chance and agreed with its stance against censorship on the internet.

"I like the freedom of information that is on the web. I enjoy spending a lot of time on Wikipedia reading things. When you can't get information I feel abashed by that," he told the court.

Weatherhead was freed on bail until sentencing in January on a date yet to be set.

The hacker is banned from using internet chat relays or posting online under the pseudonym Nerdo or any other name but his own.

Testar ordered him to be electronically tagged and subject to a midnight to 4am curfew at his parents' home.

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Hackers keren zich tegen ‘Hoerenpagina's'

BRUGGE - Een vernederende Facebookpagina waarop Brugse tienermeisjes te kijk werden gezet als prostituees, is gisteren plots van het internet gehaald. Een groep hackers die zich voorstellen als ‘de Vlaamse Anonymous' eisen de eer op. ‘We hebben de oprichter ontmaskerd: een Nederlander.' Ze kondigden aan ook een Mechelse variant van de pagina aan te pakken.

Vlaanderen reageerde vorige week geschokt op een handvol Facebookpagina's, waarop onbekenden foto's van Vlaamse tienermeisjes plaatsten en hen als ‘hoeren' bestempelden. Terwijl veel pagina's meteen weer verdwenen, bleef de oprichter van de pagina ‘ Brugse hoeren ' tot zaterdag koppig foto's plaatsen.

Zondagochtend was de pagina plots weg. ‘Ze is door de eigenaar verwijderd', verklaarde Linda Griffin, woordvoerster van Facebook aan deze krant. Tientallen mensen dienden de dagen voordien een klacht in bij Facebook, maar blijkbaar trad de website niet zelf op.

‘Er liep een onderzoek', legde Griffin uit. ‘We kijken of de inhoud in strijd is met onze regels. We geloven in vrije meningsuiting: louter een schokkende boodschap is geen reden om een pagina te verwijderen.' Later zei Griffin dat Facebook ‘enkele zaken' van de pagina had gehaald.

Anonymous

Hackers zeiden gisteravond dat zij de oprichter op de knieën kregen. ‘Eén van de slachtoffers was de dochter van een vriendin. We hebben de identiteit van de man via zijn IP-adres achterhaald', zegt de groep, die zich de Vlaamse afdeling van Anonymous noemt. Het zou gaan om een meerderjarige Nederlander die net over de grens in Zeeland woont, en vaak in Brugge is.

Via een bericht op zijn prikbord gaven ze de man de keuze: de pagina opdoeken, of zijn identiteit zou bekendgemaakt worden. ‘We zijn blij dat onze missie geslaagd is. We hebben de Belgische en Nederlandse politie ingelicht.''

De Brugse politie kon het bericht gisteravond niet bevestigen. De hackers zeggen dat ze nu de oprichters van de pagina ‘ Mechelse hoeren en homo's ' willen ontmaskeren.

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Anonymous Response to Sheriff Abdalla

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Dear Sheriff Abdalla,

Statements you made in the news conference on January 4, 2013 were quite humorous. You stated that #KnightSec isn’t the “real Anonymous”. What you don’t understand, is that everyone is Anonymous. Anonymous isn’t one person. As a matter of fact, Anonymous isn’t even a group of people. It’s an idea. An ideology of people who fight for a purpose higher than self.

To quote you, “Why put their names out there? Why put their addresses out there?”. Because they’re guilty. The ones that took pictures, ones that stood around, ones that recorded, even ones that watched. They’re all guilty. To quote you ”But when you start doing a hatchet job on innocent children, putting their names out on the computers and the Internet, on Facebook, I’m coming after you. Simple as that.” Coming after us for what? What we are doing is not illegal. Publicizing already public information is legal. They don’t contain social security numbers, therfore they’re not illegal. On another note, unless my sister has grown a penis, this is quite humorous.

To quote you again, “I’ll deal with that at another time,” said Abdalla. “I know where he lives. I know his name, his mother’s name, his father’s name, his brother’s name.”, If you know so much why don’t you come question me. Ask me why I released this information. Ask me why I exposed your corrupt justice system. You can even ask me why I exposed you. The answer will be the same. No justice no peace.

We are Anonymous.

We are legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us.

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Steubenville fights growing furore over alleged high-school football rape

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Officials in the small industrial town of Steubenville in Ohio have launched a campaign to rebut claims of a cover-up in the investigation of an alleged gang rape involving stars of the "Big Red" high-school football team.

The Steubenville town authorities, in league with the local police force, have set up a website through which they attempt to counter a tidal wave of criticism that has been unleashed against them through social media sites and by hackers led by the collective Anonymous.

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In a further effort to puncture any impression of collusion, the chief prosecutor in Jefferson County, which has jurisdiction in the region, agreed to stand aside from the case as her son plays in the Big Red team. The prosecution has been handed to a team of special investigators led by the attorney general for the whole state of Ohio, Mike DeWine.

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Chinese protest against newspaper censorship - video

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Demonstrators gather outside the headquarters of Southern Weekly, a liberal-leaning newspaper, in Guangzhou on Monday. The newspaper's reporters claim its New Year's Day letter originally called for a constitutional government but was replaced with high praise for the communist party. Monday's protest marks a rare stand against censorship amidst escalating pressure on the government to increase press freedom

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Make, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), a legal form of protesting.

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Anonymous petitions U.S. to see DDoS attacks as legal protest

The hacking group claims DDoS attacks are like the Occupy movement -- only instead of physical spaces, they're occupying the Internet.

It's hard to imagine a group that adheres to anarchic ideology would want its actions legalized under U.S. law. But that is exactly what Anonymous is doing.

The loose-knit group of hackers submitted a petition to President Obama this week asking that distributed denial-of-service attacks be recognized as a legal form of protest.

The petition, which is posted on the White House's "We the People" Web site, claims that DDoS attacks are not illegal hacking but rather a way for people to carry out protests online. Similar to the Occupy movement when protesters pitched tents in public spaces, the petition says DDoS attacks also occupy public spaces in order to send a message.

. With the advance in internet techonology [sic], comes new grounds for protesting. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), is not any form of hacking in any way. It is the equivalent of repeatedly hitting the refresh button on a webpage. It is, in that way, no different than any "occupy" protest. Instead of a group of people standing outside a building to occupy the area, they are having their computer occupy a website to slow (or deny) service of that particular website for a short time.

. As part of this petition, those who have been jailed for DDoS should be immediatly [sic] released and have anything regarding a DDoS, that is on their "records", cleared.

Anonymous has claimed responsibility for many DDoS attacks over the years, the majority of which had political overtones. For example, in an effort to defend WikiLeaks in 2010, the hacking group launched a slew of DDoS attacks on companies, government agencies, and organizations it believed to be "impairing" WikiLeaks' efforts to release classified information.

This year, Anonymous has also led DDoS campaigns against Syrian government Web sites for the government's alleged shutdown of the Internet; and it has conducted a "cyberwar" against the Israeli government in protest of government attacks on Gaza.

The U.S. government may be hard pressed to accept Anonymous' plea. Just yesterday, news hit that the massive DDoS campaign that has been targeting several U.S. banks is most likely being waged by Iran. It seems that it would be difficult for the U.S. government to accept this cyberattack as merely a legal form of protest.

Since Anonymous doesn't have any particular structure or leader, it's unclear who in the movement actually sent in this petition and agrees with what it's asking of the government. So far, the request has gained little traction. It needs 25,000 signatures just for Obama to respond, and as of this writing it has only 729 signatures.

Whether Anonymous gets the ear of Obama or not, it's looking like the group's DDoS attacks will continue. Earlier this month, Anonymous announced, "Expect us 2013," and said that it has no plans of slowing down. "We are still here," it warned.

twitter:

exiledsurfer twitterde op vrijdag 11-01-2013 om 22:27:57 A free downloadable pdf of @BiellaColeman's Coding Freedom - The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking'http://t.co/MNAnsses reageer retweet

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Bekende computerprogrammeur Aaron Swartz pleegt zelfmoord

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Swartz, mede-oprichter van Reddit en een van de uitvinders van RSS, was de belichaming van open access, een beweging die kennis en informatie via internet wil ontsluiten voor een groot publiek.

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Swartz kwam in de zomer van 2011 in het nieuws toen hij werd opgepakt omdat hij te veel academische artikelen had gedownload.

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Swartz kopieerde de JSTOR-database niet omdat hij de artikelen zelf wilde hebben of de informatie wilde doorverkopen, maar om ze voor iedereen toegankelijk te maken, schreef Eva de Valk vorig jaar in nrc.next:

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Anonymous hacks MIT

MIT’s network fell to a denial-of-service attack Sunday evening, allegedly by the Internet activist group called Anonymous, cutting campus users off from Internet access to most websites for nearly three hours. The attack came in the wake of accusations that MIT’s role in the pending litigation against Internet activist Aaron Swartz contributed to his Friday suicide.

Between roughly 7 p.m. and 9:50 p.m. Sunday evening, users of MIT’s network lost access to most websites, and MIT’s own web properties — like the mit.edu homepage — were innaccessible on the Web at large. Two websites cogen.mit.edu and rledev.mit.edu were rewritten as a message from Anonymous about the Swartz case.

“Whether or not the government contributed to his suicide, the government’s prosecution of Swartz was a grotesque miscarriage of justice, a distorted and perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for ⤔ freeing the publicly-funded scientific literature from a publishing system that makes it inaccessible to most of those who paid for it ⤔ enabling the collective betterment of the world through the facilitation of sharing ⤔ an ideal that we should all support,” said the message.

The message was careful to not blame MIT directly: “We do not consign blame or responsibility upon MIT for what has happened, but call for all those feel heavy-hearted in their proximity to this awful loss to acknowledge instead the responsibility they have - that we all have - to build and safeguard a future that would make Aaron proud...”

MIT representatives were unable to be reached for comment and have not officially confirmed that the earlier outage and the Anonymous hacks were related.

Large portions of the message were taken from a post (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/farewell-aaron-swartz) from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about Swartz yesterday. The second paragraph, first “wish,” and sign-off message in the end were lifted directly from the post.

In their message, Anonymous outlined 4 wishes — they called for reform of “computer crime laws,” reform of “copyright and intellectual property laws,” greater recognition for “oppression and injustices,” and a commitment to a “free and unfettered internet.”

The message also included a link to the petition to remove U.S. District Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who has been accused by Swartz supporters for using “overreaching charges.”

Anonymous is an ill-defined organization of hackers and internet activists. Historically, it has been Anonymous’ style to launch denial-of-service, or DoS, attacks to make a political point. Anonymous likely targeted MIT over the Institute’s role in the federal government’s case against Aaron Swartz, who allegedly used an MIT network connection to download millions of articles from the online repository JSTOR. The Tech reported early Saturday morning that Aaron Swartz had died by suicide in his Brooklyn apartment.

In an online statement, the Swartz family said yesterday that “decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to [Swartz’] death,” and that “MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.”

And in a message Sunday afternoon to the MIT community, President Rafael Reif said that he asked computer science professor Hal Abelson to “lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took.”

The attack came several hours after Reif’s message was reposted by The Tech and other news organizations’ websites.

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#IDP13 – International Day for Privacy (#OpBigBrother)

The current society, stuck between economic crisis and over consumption, is gradually invaded by the technologies of surveillance.
This diffuse invasion insinuates itself into our daily life : the social networks or the connected objects are the most blatant examples. Facebook, the most popular social network, analyzes the information, the links and the photos posted by its members to adapt advertisements for the users. “Smartphones” are of fabulous tools : we receive the advertisements of the store near which we pass, we take a photo during the last barbecue between friends and we post it on the Internet with the localization of the event, or we obtain real time maps to have a walk…
In our cities, we cross every day more and more numerous cameras. In purposes of ” video protection ” of the citizens, we are filmed many times a day.

All these examples, taken in a isolated way, are, it seems, not too much “annoying”, but imagine one moment everything converges, everything crosses itself… You think that we are paranoid?

Unfortunately, no!
The ones who settle such systems show tendencies to paranoia!

INDECT-FP7, Trapwire, CleanIT, SOPA, PIPA, CETA… Many acronyms make regularly their appearance. Behind these terms are hidden systems of control and surveillance of the citizens. The inspection of the contents to reveal forgeries in certain cases; the analysis of the communications detecting possible terrorist activities on others; using a global system re-cutting the available data on the Internet (social networks, blogs, chats) with the pictures from cameras of video surveillance, from governmental databases, or from banking data (etc.).

These systems, developed and set up by private companies at the request of governments, threaten our fundamental Right to Privacy.

Unfortunately, many people are not conscious of the situation, participating even in their own control (feeding themselves the social networks of their particulars, for example) and accepting the progressive implementation of monitoring systems. As far as these projects, or laws, are presented in such a dark way, that make it impossible to understand cogs and real objectives.

Included in the global action of Anonymous, #OpBigBrother was introduced in this will to fight, worldwide, against the tools of surveillance of the population and against the liberticides projects. The operation #OpBigBrother aims at informing the citizens on such projects, systems of ultra surveillance already running, and also aims at warning the elaboration of any new plan which can restrain our personal freedoms.

#OpBigBrother chose as method of action the pedagogy. The knowledge is the best weapon against any shape of subjection.

Information regarding this operation and our fight are available here.

Today, the censorship and the surveillance are two weapons used against our fellow countrymen (cf 1984 / Big Brother – George Orwell).

Telecomix, within the framework of the project “Blue Cabinet” designed a basis of data including many information on various actors of surveillance. We invite you to take time to consult these documents, to make your own opinion.

Within the framework of its work “The Spy Files“, Wikileaks also drew up a database revealing a thick cloud of tools and companies involved in mass surveillance.

Also note the action of Anonymous via par-anoia, who broadcasts official secrets relative to this topic.

#OpBigBrother works on two axis :
- On the Internet where we reveal secrets of BigBrother
- In the real life: where we inform about the subject

February the 23rd will take place the first International Day for Privacy #IDP13.

[US] Anonymous #OpBigBrother 02/23/2013 #IDP13 International Day for Privacy

We often become aware of what we have when we lose it. We wish citizens have knowledge while there is still time!

We want the populations be able to choose to accept or refuse the implementation of such systems by having the full knowledge of the consequences of these on their daily life. The populations must be able to make thoughtful decisions, without imposing them subterfuges by means of the technological and/or scientific progress, without using the fear of the terrorism or without introducing them incomprehensible projects for non-initiated.

Everybody is concerned by this subject, citizens as well as media. An invasion on privacy will have consequences on the free speech. A possible censorship, formalized by the law or on the initiative of authors, will have a negative impact on the freedom of the media. How reporters could insure the protection of their sources in a society of ultra surveillance ? How to write a hot article on a government if the writer feels spied ?

We turn into a society of fear in which, by fear of reprisals, and much earlier that we think of it, the journalists will not be able to work freely anymore.

Make together this future doesn’t come !
Make that freedom of the media, the right to privacy and free speech get protected !

In the way such a society won’t be settled, transmit this message, spread the information and join us !

To live in a world of peace.
To leave a better world to our children.

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

Twitter : @OpBigBrother
Mail : opbigbrother@tormail.org
irc.anonops.com & irc.voxanon.net SSL: 6697 #OpBigBrother | #OpTrapwire | #INDECT | #OpWCIT

#OpBigBrother ENGAGED

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Anonymous launches OpAngel in memory of Aaron Swartz

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Internet and Open Access pioneer Aaron Swartz's suicide last week has drawn attention to the government's aggressive prosecution of pro-piracy Web activists. In support of Swartz's legacy and his family, Anonymous has launched #OpAngel, carrying on his crusade of Open Access and Internet freedom, and specifically warning the Westboro Baptist Church against their alleged plan to picket his funeral and memorial service.

While the WBC has not disseminated any official press release, still offline three weeks after Anonymous's DDoS attack, the group would have difficulty doing soit tweeted, "Praise God! Cowardly enemies of God's church. Aaron Swartz, hacker, killed himself."

#OpAngel

SPOILER

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The Death of Aaron Swartz and the New Hacker Crackdown

^{Adrian Chen}

In 1992, the sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling published The Hacker Crackdown, a riveting nonfiction book about a string of high-profile hacker busts on the early "electronic frontier" of the late '80s and early '90s. The first hacker crackdown shook the early internet to its core and helped mobilize political geeks. Today, we're in the midst of a new crackdown. And with the death this weekend of the legally and emotionally troubled 26-year-old computer genius Aaron Swartz, this one has a body count.

Before he hanged himself in his Brooklyn home on Friday, Swartz faced as many as 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines for allegedly bypassing the network security of MIT and online academic journal archive JSTOR to illegally download millions of academic articles. Prosecutors alleged that Swartz, a long-time freedom of information advocate, had hoped to release the articles for free online.

Swartz's parents have publicly blamed the federal prosecutors pursuing his case for contributing to his death. "Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach," the family said in a statement. "The US Attorney's office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims."

Though the JSTOR stunt has become his most known, Swartz was the brains behind too many projects to count: He helped develop RSS, was one of the original programmers behind Reddit, and founded DemandProgress—a non-profit that fought for internet freedom and helped defeat the terrible online piracy bill SOPA last year. But Swartz was an activist, not an entrepreneur. "Aaron had literally done nothing in his life 'to make money,'" wrote his friend Lawrence Lessig. Propelling most of his activism was the belief that knowledge is power, and that spreading knowledge as widely as possible could help bring about a more equal and just world.

In 2008 Swartz penned the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, which called for activists to "liberate" information locked up by corporations or publishers. "It's called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral —it's a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy."

If, as prosecutors allege, Swartz hacked into MIT and JSTOR's network to "liberate" the journal articles, then he was one of a growing number of hacktivists—those who hack for a cause, not for money or mischief. The causes hacktivists fight for are often noble, even if their tactics are questionable. Freedom of information is a principle anyone who has enjoyed the benefits of the internet age should stand for, and Swartz's pure belief in the power of knowledge was why the entire internet seemed to mourn when news of his death broke. It's why academics have been uploading PDFs of their papers to Twitter in tribute to Swartz, why Anonymous hacked MIT's website and why a White House petition to remove U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, head of the office that prosecuted Swartz, has already garnered more than 12,000 signatures.

But for all the public admiration, Swart's motivation didn't help him when it came to his hacking case. In fact, it probably put him more squarely in the prosecutorial crosshairs: People like Swartz are the key targets in the new Hacker Crackdown. Each arrest and conviction is not just a crime punished, but an example set. Each successful prosecution another volley by the U.S. government in the increasingly heated political battle between two ideas of the internet: The cybercop's ideal of an orderly world where corporations and their customers can safely conduct business, and the free-wheeling but risky information paradise of geek idealists like Swartz.

So it is that people like 22-year-old college student Mercedes Haefer has had her life turned upside down over her alleged role in a December, 2010 distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on PayPal. Members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, angry that Paypal shut off donations to Wikileaks, attempted to overload Paypal's servers with traffic and take its website down temporarily. This tactic causes no lasting damage and is the online equivalent of trespassing during a sit-in, but Haefer and thirteen other coconspirators face 15 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

"We want to send a message that chaos on the internet is unacceptable," the deputy head of the FBI's cyber division said last year after the PayPal hacktivists were arrested. "The Internet has become so important to so many people that we have to ensure that the World Wide Web does not become the Wild Wild West." So it is that iPad hacker Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer is headed to prison for harvesting customer data that AT&T accidentally made public themselves, then disclosing it to the press to prove a point about their lax security.

The zeal with which Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann of Massachusetts pursued the case against Swartz suggests he was keen on sending a message as well. Heymann refused any plea deal that did not include Swartz pleading guilty to all of the 13 counts against him and a prison term, according to the Wall Street Journal. This despite the fact that JSTOR, the only party which could have been substantially harmed by Swartz's stunt, declined to pursue charges after he returned the journal articles.

The vindictive nature of Swartz's persecution, more than the charges themselves, is what spurred such anger among former friends and colleagues. The U.S. Attorney's office wanted to drive home its intolerance of law-breaking dissent online by breaking Swartz. "It was a threat that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with a broader battle over systemic power," wrote the internet sociologist danah boyd, a friend of Swartz's, in an angry blog post. She continued:

. In recent years, hackers have challenged the status quo and called into question the legitimacy of countless political actions. Their means may have been questionable, but their intentions have been valiant. The whole point of a functioning democracy is to always question the uses and abuses of power in order to prevent tyranny from emerging. Over the last few years, we've seen hackers demonized as anti-democratic even though so many of them see themselves as contemporary freedom fighters. And those in power used Aaron, reframing his information liberation project as a story of vicious hackers whose terroristic acts are meant to destroy democracy.

The first crackdown described more than two decades ago by Sterling seems relatively quaint compared to what's going on today. Its focus was on a loosely connected group of underground hackers who infiltrated phone companies' networks and stole confidential documents about their systems, to publish in hacker journals Phrack, or simply keep on their hard drive like artifacts of illicit knowledge. These hackers were driven by curiosity, not politics.

But even this invoked a fearsomely paranoid response from the Secret Service at the time. In one particularly bizarre incident, overzealous agents raided the offices of a role-playing games publisher named Steve Jackson in pursuit of a hacker who had obtained a document about the 911 system. Jackson's company had recently published a hacking-themed game called Cyberpunk, and the Secret Service confiscated Jackson's computers for months, convinced the game's instruction booklet was a real-world "manual for computer crime." It wasn't the last embarrassment for law enforcement, who, as Sterling paints it, were at times comically out of their comfort zones as they chased their prey.

Hackers and law enforcement alike were burned by the first hacker crackdown, but something positive came of it nonetheless. The unjust raids, show trials, and public demonizing of hackers brought about the formation of a political vanguard for the internet age: The Electronic Freedom Foundation, an indispensable civil liberties organization, sprung from the ashes of the first crackdown and today tirelessly advocates for the rights of internet users, even those who might have incurred the wrath of the Feds. And the cyber cops began to get better, learning more about how to investigate computer crimes without causing collateral damage.

In fact Sterling ends The Hacker Crackdown on a hopeful note, with a description of "Computers, Freedom and Privacy," a 1990 meeting of the burgeoning "cyber libertarian" community, where cybercops, activists, underground hackers and came together in a sort of unlikely truce. "It is a community," Sterling wrote. "Something like Lebanon perhaps, but a digital nation. People who had feuded all year in the national press, people who entertained the deepest suspicions of one another's motives and ethics, are now in each others' laps."

Aaron Swartz's death, and the countless lives upended in recent years by hacktivist-hunting authorities, show how fleeting that moment was. But there are new calls for civility on both sides of the fight. danah boyd writes that internet activists "need to look for an approach to change-making that doesn't result in brilliant people being held up as examples so that they can be tormented by power." Lawrence Lessig has a message for those who do the tormenting: "Somehow, we need to get beyond the 'I'm right so I'm right to nuke you' ethics that dominates our time. That begins with one word: Shame."

The outpouring of grief and rage over Aaron Swartz can be boiled down to one tragic realization: That no matter how important the fight over the internet is, it's not worth even one brilliant young man's life.

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Philippines protest cyber crime law

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The Philippines Supreme Court is due to hear a challenge in the coming hours against a controversial new cyber crime law.

Protesters say its a threat to free speech - but the government maintains it is there to prevent child pornography and data theft.

Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas reports.

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Westboro Baptist Church Drops Aaron Swartz Funeral Protest After Anonymous Vows Action (VIDEO)

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After the tragic suicide of Reddit co-founder and Internet activist Aaron Swartz, hacktivist group Anonymous vowed to derail picketing efforts by the hate-mongering members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who threatened to picket Swartz's funeral on Tuesday. When members of Anonymous and supporters showed up to block the WBC's picket line, the quasi-religious group was nowhere to be seen.

Westboro Baptist Church on Sunday announced plans to protest Swarz's open funeral in a press release titled "GOD H8S Cyber Criminal THUGS."

”Cyber criminals are the latest face of this nation's and this world's raging at God and His Servants at WBC," reads the Westboro press release, via Twitter account @WBCSays. “Now the gloves are off, cyber rebels! ... We will picket the funeral, the LORD willing, so that in that Great Day of His Wrath, your blood is not on our hands."

A crowd showed up to the funeral home in Highland Park, Ill., on Tuesday, willing to stand in the way of Westboro members to prevent them from getting close to the procession, according to a tweet sent from Anon-affiliated account @Anon2World. According to a tweet from Anonymous mouthpiece account @YourAnonNews, the WBC's lawyer contacted police to say that WBC would not be attending the funeral.

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Wetenschappers 'slopen' betaalmuur als eerbetoon na zelfmoord internetactivist

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Geen bloemen, waxinelichtjes of condoleanceregister - maar duizenden gratis wetenschappelijke boeken en artikelen. Daaruit bestaat het demonstratieve saluut dat wetenschappers van over de hele wereld brengen aan Aaron Swartz, de internetactivist die vrijdag zelfmoord pleegde, 26 jaar oud.

Onder de hashtag #pdftribute zijn wetenschappers er massaal toe overgegaan om hun gepubliceerde werk gratis op internet te zetten. Swartz was voorvechter van vrije toegang tot onder meer wetenschappelijke artikelen, die nu vaak nog zitten weggestopt in dure databanken en vakbladen.

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Rep. Zoe Lofgren Introduces “Aaron’s Law” to Prevent Future CFAA Abuses

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Rep. Zoe Lofgren has opened the forum for discussion and support of a new law she is introducing in response to the recent suicide of Aaron Swartz under intense pressure from prosecutors.

Posted at Reddit, a company that Aaron is often said to have had a hand in creating, she writes about changing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA):

As we mourn Aaron Swartz’s tragic death, many of us are deeply troubled as we learn more about the government’s actions against him. His family’s statement about this speaks volumes about the inappropriate efforts undertaken by the U.S. government. There’s no way to reverse the tragedy of Aaron’s death, but we can work to prevent a repeat of the abuses of power he experienced.

We should prevent what happened to Aaron from happening to other Internet users. The government was able to bring such disproportionate charges against Aaron because of the broad scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the wire fraud statute. It looks like the government used the vague wording of those laws to claim that violating an online service’s user agreement or terms of service is a violation of the CFAA and the wire fraud statute.

Using the law in this way could criminalize many everyday activities and allow for outlandishly severe penalties.

When our laws need to be modified, Congress has a responsibility to act. A simple way to correct this dangerous legal interpretation is to change the CFAA and the wire fraud statutes to exclude terms of service violations. I will introduce a bill that does exactly that. In addition to the posted link, a draft copy of the bill is available here. In coming days, I will seek cosponsors for the bill from both political parties.

As you know from prior posts, I am drafting broader measures to improve copyright law that are separate from this effort. But this bill to amend CFAA and wire fraud statutes, which I would like to call “Aaron’s Law,” should be enacted separately and swiftly. It could be an important tribute to him.

But that is likely to happen only with your help and your support.

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Petition To Fire Aaron Swartz’ Prosecutor Reaches Goal

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Early Tuesday morning, the petition to the U.S. Administration to fire Carmen Ortiz reached the prerequisite 25,000 signatures. Carmen Ortiz was the prosecutor that drove the prosecution against Aaron Swartz, which many mean contributed or led to his tragic suicide. The U.S. Administration, by its own rules, must now take the petition seriously and respond to it.

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Ethical Hacking: Should good intentions get special protection from prosecution?

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If you're dedicated, hacking offers all sorts of rewards and threats depending on whose hacking whom. Which brings us to the "Ethical Hacker" ... the Hacktivist whose intentions are well-meaning, intruding just like the other guys but only to expose internet vulnerabilities so that someone far more nefarious doesn't get in there. When Henk Krol tapped into the world of Ethical Hacking he didn't even know the term but he did invite the TV cameras. Now the Dutch MP faces charges that could cost him his career. So what's digital trespassing and what's a public service?

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#OpAngel 2 – The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act reform begins now!

Anonymous: #OpAngel, Phase II.

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Operation Angel, began by Anonymous in response to the death of Aaron Swartz, successfully accomplished phase one of it’s mission by preventing Westboro Baptist Church members from picketing Swartz’s funeral. Anonymous is now preparing for a longer and more extensive battle within the U.S. legal system.

Aaron Swartz was essential to the progression of the Internet. He was renowned for his role in the development of RSS, Open Library and the creation of Reddit. Instead of capitalizing on his talents solely for personal gain, Aaron chose to dedicate his life to the defense of internet freedom and the preservation of civil liberties. At a time when America’s educational system is ranked 17th in the world, he believed that knowledge should be made freely available to all who seek it. Before taking his own life, Aaron was facing up to 35 years in prison for acting on this belief.

The charges against Swartz are only one example of malicious prosecution by U.S. Attorney’s in a history of unequaled viciousness against those accused of cyber crimes. It is clear that the punishment Swartz faced was not proportional to the crimes of which he was accused. We cannot pretend that our system is just when perpetrators of violence are dealt lighter sentences than those whose alleged crimes are essentially victimless. It is our conclusion that dubious laws such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act serve only to provide prosecutors with the means to selectively target and unfairly punish online activists. Anonymous intends to continue Operation Angel with the goal of reforming these laws.

There are several actions planned to raise awareness of this issue and they are listed below:

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The political consequences of academic paywalls

Academic paywalls unwittingly benefit oppressive regimes - at society's expense.

The suicide of Aaron Swartz, the activist committed to making scholarly research accessible to everyone, has renewed debate about the ethics of academic publishing. Under the current system, academic research is housed in scholarly databases, which charge as much as $50 per article to those without a university affiliation.

The only people who profit from this system are academic publishers. Scholars receive no money from the sale of their articles, and are marginalized by a public who cannot afford to read their work. Ordinary people are denied access to information and prohibited from engaging in scholarly debate.

Academic paywalls are often presented as a moral or financial issue. How can one justify profiting off unpaid labour while denying the public access to research frequently funded through taxpayer dollars? But paywalls also have broader political consequences. Whether or not an article is accessible affects more than just the author or reader. It affects anyone who could potentially benefit from scholarly insight, information or expertise – that is, everyone.

The impact of the paywall is most significant in places where censorship and propaganda reign. When information is power, the paywall privileges the powerful. Dictatorships are the paywall’s unwitting beneficiary.

Publishing as a means to freedom

In 2006, I wrote an article proving that the government of Uzbekistan had fabricated a terrorist group in order to justify shooting hundreds of Uzbek civilians gathered at a protest in the city of Andijon. Like all peer-reviewed academic articles, “Inventing Akromiya: The Role of Uzbek Propagandists in the Andijon Massacre” was published in a journal and sequestered from public view. In 2008, I published the article on academia.edu, a website where scholars can upload their works as pdfs on individual homepages. This had consequences beyond what I had anticipated.

At the time my article was published, hundreds of Uzbeks had fled across the border to Kyrgyzstan, from where they were relocated as refugees to Western states. Among these Uzbeks were witnesses to the shooting in Andijon as well as people who were accused of being members of “Akromiya” – a loose collective of devout Muslim businessmen who were known for their financial acumen, charitable initiatives and profound piety, all of which the government of Uzbekistan found threatening. The men of “Akromiya” – an appellative coined by an Uzbek propagandist after alleged leader Akrom Yo’ldoshev -- bore no resemblance to the violent Islamic extremists depicted in Uzbek state literature.

Over the next few years, many Uzbeks linked to the “Akromiya” controversy began petitioning for political asylum. Because they had been labeled Islamic terrorists by the Uzbek government, they faced an uphill battle in the Western legal system. My academic article became a piece of evidence in many of these asylum cases, including this one from the United Nations Refugee Agency, which cites the copy available at academia.edu. Because I made my work open, it helped keep innocent people from being deported to a country where they would be jailed or killed.

'Shielded from the people who need it most'

When we talk about academic research being shielded from the general public, we forget that the general public includes non-academic experts to whom such research is directly relevant – such as lawyers, doctors, journalists, policy officials, and activists. Academics love to complain about superficial reporting or uninformed policy, but their own system denies professionals the opportunity to add depth to their work. With database subscription fees running tens of thousands of dollars, even prestigious organizations cannot afford to penetrate the paywall.

I regularly receive requests for my academic articles, and I always comply – as do most of the academics I know. Contrary to popular perception, most scholars want their work to be read. But for every researcher plaintively tweeting that they need a paywalled PDF, there are many for whom tracking down barricaded knowledge seems too much trouble. Instead, they rely on what resources are available. This means that a lot of academic research, some of which could have profound political implications, is ignored.

After the suicide of Aaron Swartz, many academics published their papers online and linked to them on Twitter under the hashtag #pdftribute. They did this to honour Swartz’s fight to make information available to more than the academic elite. Critics have argued that this action is essentially meaningless, as it fails to address the career incentive of the professoriate, whose ability to advance professionally rests on their willingness to publish in journals inaccessible to the public.

This is a valid point – for Western academics. For the rest of the world, it is irrelevant. When an activist needs information about the political conditions of her country, she should be able to read it. When a lawyer needs ammunition against a corrupt regime, she should be able to find it. When a journalist is struggling to cover a foreign conflict, she should have access to research on that country.

One could argue that non-academics sources suffice, but that is not necessarily the case. The specialisation that makes academic work seem obscure or boring to a general audience is also what makes it uniquely valuable. Academics cover topics in depth that few cover at all. Unfortunately, their expertise is shielded from the people who need it most.

Academic's incentives vs. society's needs

Shortly after pdftribute launched, a friend asked me whether she should post her articles online. She is an assistant professor who studies an authoritarian state. She has published a number of articles in paywalled scholarly journals. For this, she will probably get tenure.

My friend spends her free time educating the world about the conditions of this country through social media. She does not hoard her data. Instead she does everything possible to make it available to anyone who needs it. This ultimately included joining #pdftribute and publishing her articles online. For this, she could potentially get in trouble.

My friend knew she had to do what was right. As a scholar of an authoritarian regime, she understands that one of the greatest weapons of dictatorships is their ability to control information. She has witnessed firsthand the importance of accurate statistics, of open sources, of censored stories told. She knows what happens when those resources are denied.

Information is power, but information is also freedom. With that freedom comes responsibility. Scholars can no longer question whether their work is relevant to a broader audience, because in the digital age, that audience is simply too broad. All scholarly work is relevant to someone – and the impact can be profound. Whether we allow that impact to be realized remains to be seen.



_{Sarah Kendzior is an anthropologist who recently received her PhD from Washington University in St Louis.}

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Anonymous Group Squares Off With Westboro Baptist Church Over Aaron Swartz Memorial

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A spectacle of sex, God and hatred broke out in Times Square this afternoon. Dozens of protestors gathered to demonstrate against representatives of Westboro Baptist Church, who were in town, apparently, to protest a memorial honoring the Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

Only two WBC protestors showed up, and were cordoned off in a six-by-six foot pen near the corner of 45th Street and Broadway, where they preached, we think, a message of God’s hatred, or something along those lines.

Members of the Anonymous faction Motherfuckery were among the counter-protestors, gathering in a cordon of their own and chanting phrases such as “Walrus, walrus” and “suck my dick” at the WBC protestors.

Other demonstrators included a troupe of actors from the burlesque musical Let My People Come, and a larger group of more earnest protestors, who insisted in song that God loves us all.

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Cornyn Questions Holder Over Death of Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz

_{Jan 17 2013}

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder questioning the conduct of the Justice Department over their involvement in the prosecution of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz:

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The Honorable Eric Holder
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Holder:

Like many Americans, I was saddened to learn last week of the death of Aaron Swartz. Mr. Swartz was, among other things, a brilliant technologist and a committed activist for the causes in which he believed – including, notably, the freedom of information. His death, at the young age of twenty-six, was tragic.

As you are doubtless aware, Mr. Swartz was facing an aggressive prosecution by the Department of Justice when he took his own life. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts accused him of breaking into the computer networks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and downloading without authorization thousands of academic articles from a subscription service. While the subscription service did not support a prosecution, in July 2011 the U.S. Attorney’s office indicted him on four counts of fraud and computer crimes, charges that reportedly could have resulted in up to 35 years imprisonment and a $1 million dollar fine. This past September, the U.S. Attorney’s office filed a superseding indictment charging Mr. Swartz with thirteen felony counts and the prospect of even longer imprisonment and greater fines.

Mr. Swartz’s case raises important questions about prosecutorial conduct:

First, on what basis did the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts conclude that her office’s conduct was “appropriate?” Did that office, or any office within the Department, conduct a review? If so, please identify that review and supply its contents.

Second, was the prosecution of Mr. Swartz in any way retaliation for his exercise of his rights as a citizen under the Freedom of Information Act? If so, I recommend that you refer the matter immediately to the Inspector General.

Third, what role, if any, did the Department’s prior investigations of Mr. Swartz play in the decision of with which crimes to charge him? Please explain the basis for your answer.

Fourth, why did the U.S. Attorney’s office file the superseding indictment?

Fifth, when the U.S. Attorney’s office drafted the indictment and the superseding indictment, what consideration was given to whether the counts charged and the associated penalties were proportional to Mr. Swartz’s alleged conduct and its impact upon victims?

Sixth, was it the intention of the U.S. Attorney and/or her subordinates to “make an example” of Mr. Swartz? Please explain.

Finally, the U.S. Attorney has blamed the “severe punishments authorized by Congress” for the apparent harshness of the charges Mr. Swartz faced. Does the Department of Justice give U.S. Attorneys discretion to charge defendants (or not charge them) with crimes consistent with their view of the gravity of the wrongdoing in a specific case?

I appreciate your prompt and thorough answers to these questions.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN

United States Senator

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Anonymous hacker Christopher Weatherhead jailed for 18 months

Anonymous hacker Christopher Weatherhead has been handed an 18-month jail sentence for carrying out a series of high-profile distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The 22-year-old was previously convicted of hacking into the websites of Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, costing the latter an estimated £3.5 million, Sky News reports.

Fellow Anonymous members Ashley Rhodes and Peter Gibson were tried alongside Weatherhead at Southwark Crown Court, receiving seven months in jail and a six-month sentence, suspended for two years, respectively.

Rhodes, 28, was found guilty of conspiring with Weatherhead to impair the operations of the targeted businesses between 2010 and 2011, while 24-year-old Gibson was deemed to have played a lesser role, which he admitted to.

Judge Peter Testar said: "It is intolerable that when an individual or a group disagrees with a particular entity's activities they should be free to curtail that activity by means of attacks such as those which took place in this case."

A fourth man, 18-year-old Jake Birchall, has also admitted to playing a part in the conspiracy and will be sentenced at a later date.

DDoS attacks overload computer systems by hitting them with an impossible number of requests simultaneously.

Victims of the Weatherhead-led attacks, referred to as Operation Payback, received the following message: "You've tried to bite the Anonymous hand. You angered the hive and now you are being stung."

The ring leader is believed to have targeted Paypal after it refused to process transactions for the Wau Holland Foundation, a group attempting to raise funding for WikiLeaks.

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YourAnonNews twitterde op donderdag 24-01-2013 om 19:06:39 Barrett Brown has been indicted for a 3rd time | http://t.co/0cHDwd52 | Via @JayLeidermanLaw reageer retweet

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op donderdag 24-01-2013 om 19:08:18 "Congrats to @BarrettBrownLOL for reaching the century mark - he's now facing 100 years in federal prison." - @JayLeidermanLaw reageer retweet

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AnonyBroadcast twitterde op zaterdag 26-01-2013 om 19:56:08 Anonymous gave you HBgary. #Anonymous gave you Stratfor. And now we would like to introduce The Dept. Of Justice. #oplastresort reageer retweet

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Alleged Anonymous "Warhead" actually a dud

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As of midnight Friday PST, Anonymous had hacked the front page of USSC.gov, replacing the normal content with a statement, a video, and a series of links to downloadable files.

Twelve hours later, the site, that of the United States Sentencing Commission, which sets sentencing guidelines for the federal courts, was down.

And 24 hours after that, the worldwide hacktivist collective dropped an “Anonymous Warhead,” as the subject line proclaimed in an email the Daily Dot received early Sunday morning from an Iranian domain. The leak contained a series of hundreds of names and addresses attributed to the Witness Protection Program, a program supervised by the United States Marshals Service to keep witnesses in danger safe before, during and after their testimony. (Due to the sensitivity of the information disclosed, the Daily Dot has elected to not link to the actual release.)

. “Our anonfamily brothers in America have (thank the Prophet, PBUH) trust us with the labor of delivery to you the news of the hack of your Witness Protection Program’ for traitors and dogs. All their false names are revealed and as they cast eyes away from the path now all the eyes must be on them in their dark places.”

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Update: @AnonymousIRC, one of the more official Twitter channels for Anonymous activity, claims the "USSC on @doxbin is a fake," comprised of data "ripped from a two year old document."

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Correction: Several Anonymous entities have claimed that the leak is a hoax. The headline of this story has been altered to reflect this.

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Anonymous re-hacks US Sentencing site into video game Asteroids

The U.S. Sentencing Commission website has been hacked again and a code distributed by Anonymous "Operation Last Resort" turns ussc.gov into a playable video game.

Visitors enter the code, and then the website that sets guidelines for sentencing in United States Federal courts becomes "Asteroids."

Shooting away at the ussc.gov webpage reveals an image of Anonymous. The trademark Anonymous "Guy Fawkes" face is comprised of white text saying, "We do not forgive. We do not forget."

Gallery: U.S. Sentencing website hacked into video game "Asteroids"

Hacktivist group Anonymous began its "Operation Last Resort" Friday night by hacking the U.S. Sentencing Commission website in the name of suicide victim Aaron Swatrz, demanding reform in the U.S. justice system.

The government website was pulled offline and restored by Saturday. Now, on Sunday afternoon, the U.S. Sentencing Commission website appears to have been compromised a second time, severely, wherein a code being issued by Operation Last Resort and other Anonymous social media accounts turns ussc.gov into a game of Asteroids.

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op maandag 28-01-2013 om 11:08:50 A protester on the edge of Cairo’s #Tahrir Square, January 26, 2013 (Photo: Jesse Rosenfeld) #Egypt http://t.co/V8zNQGD0 (via @57UN) reageer retweet

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Press Release Regarding the Sentencing of Christopher Weatherhead (Nerdo)

Earlier this week, we learned with great sadness that Christopher Weatherhead-- our "Nerdo"-- was sentenced to an 18 month jail term for his "integral role" in protests that occured under the banner of "Operation Payback". We consider the guilty verdict a complete miscarriage of justice, the sentence incredibly unfair and in no way proportionate to the alleged crime. The absurdity of this sham of a trial should be an embarrasment to the UK, its system of justice and to the entire population.

The prosecution is clearly comprised of delusional and arrogant bureaucrats who care more for advancing their own careers than actual justice.

This utter ignorance and pervasive stupidity inherent in the Crown Courts is evident in Judge Peter Testar's remark that Nerdo was nabbed because of "clever" police-work. We know the truth-- leaning on a snitch is no more "clever" than a piano smashing against the pavement is "graceful." Fennic-- the snitch-- of course, gets off without serving a filthy second of jail time-- even though the snitch admitted to owning an IRC botnet. Last we checked, that IS an actual crime.

Their claims of millions in damages are ludicrous and absurd. PayPal itself has repeatedly and publicly admitted to no downtime or loss of service Even the goverments own experts admit that a Denial of Service attack causes no damage. We feel the jury was intentionally misled in regards to the actual facts of IRC in general. or the prosecutions own knowledge of it is so lacking that they are not fit to prosecute a case of this type. For this reason alone, we strongly believe that the trial was improper. A new trial should be ordered and qualified prosecutors must be assigned. Jury instructions were also inadequate. How does one instruct a jury what is admissible or important when the jurist himself does not understand the subject? These reasons should at minimum be cause for a steep reduction in this sentence to at least the level of similar or even much more horrific crimes

Claiming that Nerdo, or anyone for that matter can hold some sort of seniority within Anonymous is quite curious to say the least. How does one prove that a nickname has only ever been used by one person? Further more how do you validate this seniority in a headless organization? If a channel operator tells an IRC channel that they are a giraffe, does this mean every user in that channel must believe this? Quite the opposite. Having power in an IRC channel does not give you control over people. You cannot "decide" what these people will do.

You preach to us about justice, but we know that Nicholas Beaumont-Dark-- the son of a Conservative MP who trafficked in such depraved and disgusting child pornography that it even makes 4chan /b/arf-- was spared jail time even though he admitted to sixteen separate incidents of making and DISTRIBUTING this vile material. He is not in jail at this moment because of his "obvious remorse". A known, admitted pedophile ducks jail because he cries crocodile tears and says "he's sorry," but a man dedicated to the cause of fighting government corruption must serve eighteen months in a high-security prison. If this is your concept of "justice," we vomit upon it.

Freedom is our right. Anonymity is an extension of that basic human right. Calling attention to injustice is paramount in maintaining that freedom so many have fought to obtain for us all. We understand that law enforcement personnel want to have the easiest jobs in the world where computers and surveillance cameras track everyone's movements and statisticians reduce us to behavioral algorithms so they can define us as criminals It is not true freedom if it requires us to fatten the stomachs and wallets of the 1% who see the citizenry as a mass of potential criminals. People who object to being turned into chattel are not arrogant, impudent or churlish-- their "youthful idealism" is sorely lacking in a world bereft of principles and where the concept of "morality" has been reduced to "do not embarrass the State."

Nerdo was crucified because the government needed to do something to show the public that they were still in control, that they could stop this online monster known as Anonymous. We know that this is not the case. Governments around the world are failing their citizens in various ways including the basic right of a fair trial by ones peers. They fail to protect their citizens from the real criminals: themselves. It is you who have forced us to protect ourselves from the real danger to freedom. If you need to put a face to those criminals, look into a mirror.

Signed

The AnonOps Staff
info@anonops.com

Freedom for Nerdo. Freedom for the PayPal 14. Freedom for all those wrongly persecuted by their governments.

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Twitter’s New Transparency Report Shows Increase in Government Demands, Sheds Light on Copyright Takedowns

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Yesterday, Twitter released its second semi-annual transparency report, which details the numbers behind every user data demand, censorship order and copyright takedown request that the micro-blogging site received in the second half of 2012.

As with Google’s transparency report last week, there was a clear increase in government demands for user data, with the United States leading the way by far. Censorship requests from around the world also increased. In addition, the report shed valuable light on the copyright takedown procedure that also often results in undue censorship.

With their respective reports, Twitter and Google are leaders in a positive new trend of sharing information that sheds new light on just how government surveillance and censorship works. It should be a model for other companies, including Facebook, Skype, and cell phone carriers.

Let’s take a deeper look at the information Twitter provided:

twitter:

RavenXV twitterde op vrijdag 01-02-2013 om 07:57:45 http://www.ussc.gov/ is under "construction" aka: They have to rebuild their server. #OpLastResort #Anonymous #AntiSec #Lulz. reageer retweet

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Anonymous X-SecT Exclusive Interview: Hacktivists Explain Criticism Of Attack On USSC. Gov

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By now, anyone who watches television, reads a newspaper or surfs the Internet has heard of Anonymous, the hacktivist collective that declared war on oppression, child pornography, big government, and Internet censorship. Anonymous and their affiliates have taken part in highly publicized attacks on Paypal, USSC. Gov, the Westboro Baptist Church, the Church of Scientology, the Department of Justice, the Israeli Government, Strategic Forecasting, and many other prominent targets since the group was founded in 2003.

Describing Anonymous is complicated. The public knows them from their YouTube videos announcing their attacks, complete with a spokesperson wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, voicing their battle cry, “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.” The world hears about the latest Anonymous hacking adventure from the mass media, who hype every episode as if we were watching the doomsday scenario in the movie: WarGames.

Anyone can join Anonymous, simply by participating in the movement, and supporting the group’s principals. In reality, Anonymous are not hackers, they are activists who use their hacking skills as a tool of civil disobedience to fight against the system they oppose. In their worldview, they are fighting tyranny. The government, of course, views them simply as criminals and cyber-terrorists.

On January 25, 2013, a person or persons claiming to be Anonymous hacked USSC. Gov, the website of the United States Sentencing Commission. The attack, called Operation Last Resort, attracted a storm of media attention and supporters initially celebrated the event as a triumph over the Leviathan know as the Federal Government. The website was defaced in memory of Internet Activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide several days earlier; a list of demands was posted, along with a link to download an encrypted file claiming to contain information about prominent public figures that would “bring down the government and cause chaos.”

A week after Operation Last Resort, the file remained encrypted and no information was released. The government basically ignored the threats and Janet Napolitano continued to demand a crackdown on the so-called cyber terrorists.

Behind the scenes, people in the hacktivist movement were beginning to wonder what exactly was going on. Why would anyone go to the trouble of hacking an important government website, make serious demands cloaked in threats of retribution, and then drop the issue? People began to wonder who was really responsible for the attack on USSC. Gov and what was the true purpose of Operation Last Resort?

All hell broke loose when a group named Anonymous X-SecT began to ask these same questions publicly on their websites and Facebook pages. They also offered some possible answers. They wondered if Anonymous was really behind Operation Last Resort or if it was a false flag attack by an intelligence agency of the United Sates Government. Was Operation Last Resort intended to identify anyone who downloaded the data bomb and build a file to be used against them in a government crackdown?

Anonymous X-SecT also raised another frightening possibility. What if Operation Last Resort was actually the effort of a highly sophisticated criminal organization, intended to gather personal information and hijack users computers? Could Operation Last Resort have been the phishing expedition to end all phishing expeditions, designed to enrich powerful cyber criminals?

Instead of receiving a rational response that resulted in a productive dialog, several members of the hacktivist community decided to attack Anonymous X-SecT. They claimed X-SecT betrayed the movement and proceeded to hack their websites and Facebook pages. Obscenity laced messages were directed at X-SecT, along with a good deal of personal slander.

Clearly, the response from a vocal minority of the community was to try and shoot the messenger. Instead of addressing the issues X-SecT raised, and inspiring dedicated activists to work more effectively for change as Anonymous X-SecT had intended, a small group decided to impose a heckler’s veto on their own allies.

All of these events took place in full view of the public on the Internet, and eventually came to the attention of The Inquisitr’s Wolff Bachner, who wrote a detailed article about Operation Last Resort and the issues raised by Anonymous X-SecT.

After the article was published by The Inquisitr on Thursday, January 31, 2001, several reader comments were posted below the article that criticized Anonymous X-SecT, including one that contained a threat to take over X-SecT’s Facebook pages and groups. Co-incidentally, The Inquisitr received a tweet from Anonymous X-SecT, offering to sit down for an exclusive interview. The group said they wanted to clear the air and explain why they went public with their criticism of Operation Last Resort.

As a rule, Internet activists are not overly fond of the press, and they rarely grant interviews. The Inquisitr decided to accept the offer, and in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, February 2, 2013, Wolff Bachner conducted a no-holds barred, one-on-one conversation with Xero Flux, the spokesperson of Anonymous X-SecT.

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/(...)#qUeS21B1FhJDMfLH.99

twitter:

vavo12 twitterde op zondag 03-02-2013 om 14:14:18 Please Spam-block @opblitzkrieg now! They spread viruses and steal your private data. This is a #Anonymous action for #privacy! #fascism reageer retweet

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#OpLastResort : Anonymous Hackers releases 4000 bankers data from Federal Reserve computers

Anonymous hackers have published login, private information and cell phone numbers of over 4000 bankers data from Federal Reserve computers, in the name of its new Operation Last Resort (#OpLastResort) campaign, demanding U.S. computer crime law reform. The information appears to belong to presidents, vice presidents, managing officers, CEOs, SVPs, and others.

Hackers published the data on Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC) website after hacking it. The page extension URL is titled, "oops-we-did-it-again." ZDNet said,"Anonymous stated in its first Operation Last Resort defacement last friday (ussc.gov) it had infiltrated multiple federal websites over a period of time."