Anonops #14: All about control

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Barret Brown Facing Decades in Prison for Sharing a Link

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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

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

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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.

twitter:

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

twitter:

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."