Anonops #15: Last or not to Last

quote:

Lulzy Christmas: Hackers buy presents for the poor with gov't officials' credit cards

TeamBerserk hacktivists launch #opBerserkChristmas, a campaign to buy 'thoughtful gifts' for the unfortunate paid for with credit cards belonging to naughty government officials, politicians and corporations.



TeamBerserk launched a new operation called #opBerserkChristmas. According to the Pastebin statement, the thoughtful gifts for children and other less fortunate folks will include:

. items such as toys, blankets, tablets, computers, etc. and force shipments to many children's shelters, homeless shelters and less fortunate folks addresses. Every instance there is an order a screenshot will be taken and uploaded with hashtag #opBerserkChristmas.


Woe be to any shelter location employee that "tries to keep any of these items that are meant for the children and less fortunate," as TeamBerserk warned, "We will pull your dox and ruin your credit and additional LoLs will be made."

Government officials, politicians and corporations, which TeamBerserk judged as naughty enough to foot the bill with their credit cards, will also pay for and receive coal and naughty gifts like sex toys.

Once items have shipped for this global #opBerserkChristmas campaign, the hacktivists will upload a screenshot as proof. The first "thoughtful gift" order shipped to a children's shelter in San Antonio, Texas; it was paid for by Edwards County, Texas, County Judge Souli A. Shanklin. The hacking group allegedly breached the judge's computers and then leaked 23 of his internal documents as part of Project Mayhem. After also gaining access to Shanklin's Amazon account, the hackers ordered 18 adult toys.

The hacktivists started with Edwards County, Texas, after a dispute between Edwards County Sheriff Pam Elliott and Rocksprings Independent School District superintendent David Velky. Velky claimed that a "teacher stole valuable items from school," but Sheriff Elliott refused to take action. She said, "If it was placed in the trash, she (teacher) retrieved it, y'all gave it to her and now you want me to go collect something? That's a civil matter. There's no criminal charges there."

When TeamBerserk announced its return to the hacking scene on December 10, they sided with the sheriff and not only hacked the judge, but also Velky. The hacktivists posted screenshots of adult toys that they purchased via Velky's Amazon account. They said:

. At this very moment we are sorting through and analyzing all of your accounts. We have gained remote access to your cell phones and we have conversation logs between you and various, shall we say...characters of shady backgrounds. All of your Android devices are under our control as well as your personal nets.

Although TeamBerserk has not revealed which organizations were hacked and will be paying for the "thoughtful Christmas gifts," they "have remote access to state-level resources," the hackers told Softpedia. TeamBerserk estimated "that tens of thousands of dollars' worth of gifts will be donated" for #opBerserkChristmas.

Before the hacktivists took a break in October, they mentioned targeting companies such as "HITRUST, Interactive Data, CITIC, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Mexico ISP Plateau, The West Australian, Loretto Telecom, and California-based ISP Sebastian." Softpedia added, "Sebastian has denied being breached, but the hackers have leaked several files to prove that they have gained access to the ISP's systems. In addition, they have uploaded a shell on the company's website to prove their point."

The Pastebin that announced the group's return stated, "We have again united for an explosive several weeks of exploitation, mayhem and LoLz." It included potentially NSFW ASCII text porn and their pirates' tale as they explained "we found the remains of the ghostly LulzBoat, and the cannon we took to make part of our own vessel." TeamBerserk promised "powerful lulz" before warning, "Corporations and Governments, expect us."

quote:

Cameron's internet filter goes far beyond porn - and that was always the plan

quote:

The language of the mythical 'porn filter' is so insidious, so pervasive, that even those of us opposed to it have been sucked into its slippery embrace. And so even when it turns out that O2 are blocking the Childline and Refuge websites, or that BT are blocking gay and lesbian content, we tend to regard them as collateral damage – accidental victims of a well-meaning (if misguided) attempt to protect out children from the evils of cock.

But this was never the case. As Wired reported back in July, Cameron’s ambitions extended far beyond porn. Working through secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has put in place a set of filters and restrictions as ambitious as anything this side of China, dividing the internet into 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' categories, and cutting people off from huge swathes of it at the stroke of a key.

"As well as pornography, users may automatically be opted in to blocks on "violent material", "extremist related content", "anorexia and eating disorder websites" and "suicide related websites", "alcohol" and "smoking". But the list doesn't stop there. It even extends to blocking "web forums" and "esoteric material", whatever that is. "Web blocking circumvention tools" is also included, of course."

quote:

Anonymous draws blood by leaking SeaWorld board members' credit cards

Last month, when Anonymous unofficially launched #OpKillingBay, targeting the dolphin hunters of Taiji, Japan, they also made some noise about going after SeaWorld, as the theme park buys animals that escape slaughter in the annual, widely protested hunt. Their first move against the company was an overblown “hack” that produced a financial document publicly available online.

This time, they’ve dug deeper and come up with some numbers that could cause a legitimate headache for “Taiji enablers”: yesterday, the credit card data of SeaWorld’s board members showed up in Pastebin, along with private email addresses. Another organization, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, also had email info exposed. While the former suppresses evidence of their role in the killings, Anonymous said, WAZA hasn’t “attempted to hide the fact” of their complicity. “We Rape Enablers,” a short message reads. “Here is a drop in the bucket…”

The note appended to the credit card post is even more threatening: “You people at SeaWorld our [sic] sick killers at heart. Perhaps you would like to join the Dolphins of Taiji... In death?” Having your credit score ruined may not be fatal, short of a congential heart defect, though it may be enough to make someone sit up and take notice. Still, you’d think Anonymous would do more damage by not openly bragging about the security breach and letting it fester instead. (Update: a commenter notes that the info traded hands privately many times before showing up in Pastebin, which would certainly make sense.)

The official Twitter account associated with the string of attacks, which included the vandalizing of several Japanese government websites, has been curiously quiet since November 24, a week or so before the operation’s official launch date. The associated hashtag, meanwhile, is cropping up with some regularity as people sympathetic to the cause chime in.

SeaWorld hasn’t offered any official reaction, probably because calling attention to the Taiji hunts in any way would exacerbate a rough PR year in which the chilling documentary Blackfish sparked outrage and performer boycotts. Of course, many have been shining a light on the barbarism of capturing large marine mammals for years—and not always in ways you’d expect.

quote:

More Brazilian Government Sites Hacked in Protest Against 2014 FIFA World Cup



Anonymous hackers continue to target Brazilian government websites in protest against the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Over the past days, they’ve hacked and defaced subdomains on the websites of various Brazilian states, including Ceará (barro.ce.gov.br), Santa Catarina (indaial.sc.gov.br), Bahia (dommacedocosta.ba.gov.br) and São Paulo.

At the beginning of the campaign, in late-December 2013, they hacked the website of the Igarapé do Meio municipality in Maranhão (igarapedomeio.ma.gov.br). Various hacker groups are behind the #OpWorldCup attacks, including DK Brazil HackTeam and Insanity HackTeam.

The hacktivists are protesting against the World Cup because they say the sporting event has a negative impact on Brazil and its people.

At the time of writing, some of the websites have been restored. However, many of them have been taken offline or they’re still defaced.

twitter:

Global_hackers twitterde op zondag 05-01-2014 om 12:58:08 Demonstration against #ISIS and Assad in Achrafieh, #Aleppo. #Syria #Anonymous http://t.co/IJBa3Bj0Ap reageer retweet

اسقاط داعش

quote:

24 Mexican Government Websites Hacked by Anonymous

Anonymous hackers have breached and defaced around a couple of dozen websites hosted on Mexican government domains.


The targeted sites are the ones of the cities of Angangueo (angangueo.gob.mx), Villa Guerrero (villaguerrero.gob.mx), Capulhuac (capulhuac.gob.mx), Aporo (aporo.gob.mx), Nahuatzen (nahuatzen.gob.mx), Ocoyoacac (ocoyoacac.gob.mx), Lagunillas (lagunillas.gob.mx) and Tejupilco (tejupilco.gob.mx).

The complete list of hacked government sites has been published by the attackers on Pastebin.

All of the websites have a similar layout. They’re either hosted on the same server or they’re all plagued by the same vulnerability, which has allowed the hackers to deface them all at once.

On the homepages of each website, the hacktivists have posted images of the Anonymous logo and messages that read “We are Anonymous.” This appears to be an attack carried out in protest against the government of Mexico.

The attack was announced around three hours ago. At the time of writing, all of the websites are still defaced.

quote:

How a major bank and the U.S. government joined forces to spy on Anonymous

New details have surfaced regarding the surveillance protocols used by Bank of America to keep tabs on social activists. Last year, Anonymous hacktivists published 14 gigabytes of private emails and spreadsheets which revealed that Bank of America was monitoring social media and other online services used by activists for basic communication. This time however, information about the bank’s recent surveillance activities were obtained legally through a public records request by a single petitioner.

The newly published documents reveal a coordinated effort by Bank of America, the Washington State Patrol (WSP), and federal counterterrorism agencies, to monitor activists as they prepared for a public demonstration in Olympia, Wash. Over 230 people originally signed up to attend the “Million Mask March” event, which was organized by the Anonymous movement and took place on November 5, 2013.

Although an official report by the WSP described the event as a “peaceful protest” being organized by activists who had made “no threats of violence,” those involved were still monitored by the department before the event took place. Information gathered about the potential protesters was then shared with Bank of America. Furthermore, Bank of America solicited information about activists from various federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Andrew Charles Hendricks, an activist who originally acquired the documents, the emails included the home address of a demonstration organizer. Hendricks claims he redacted the address before publishing the documents online.

The relationship between Bank of America and the WSP, as well as their long-term investment in surveillance, is highlighted by an email sent on September 23, 2013. Kim Triplett-Kolerich, an intelligence analyst for Bank of America requested that WSP share any intelligence gathered on activists taking part in the Million Mask March with the bank. She began the email by identifying herself as a former officer and provided her former rank. “From time to time I will see items that I believe will be of use to my friends at WSP—especially during session,” she told the officer. “May Day I will pick your brain for intel and I will give you a lot also,” she wrote.

Triplett-Kolerich concluded her email by boasting that the surveillance tactics used by Bank of America to monitor activists online was superior to that of the WSP. “I will most likely find it first as social media trolling is not what WSP does best. Bank of America has a team of 20 people and that’s all they do all day and then pass it to us around the country!!!”

On October 24, an email was sent by a sergeant at the WSP’s Special Operations Division to an executive aide at the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office. The sergeant notified the office that a large number of arrests may take place during the Million Mask March, which could impact the jail. Attached to the letter was a message written by an Anonymous activist, and a link to its Facebook event page where the names of those planning to attend the march could be seen.

The next week, Triplett-Kolerich emailed the same WSP sergeant again about the march. “Sorry for not getting back to you sooner—hectic weeks lately with foreclosures and this MMM,” Triplett-Kolerich wrote. She then notified the sergeant that Bank of America has been in contact with “the Fusion Center and JTTF” regarding the Anonymous march.

JTTF refers to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is a group comprised of local law enforcement agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (with whom it shares a website) and the Homeland Security department. The Fusion Center is a state-level counterterrorism agency, which coordinates “national intelligence” between various local law enforcement and public safety departments. In addition, the Fusion Center provides for “the effective communication of locally generated threat-related information to the federal government.”

An October 29 incident report sent from the WSP said that to their knowledge, there was no coordinated effort by organizers of the Million Mask March to engage in any computer crimes. “No U.S. targets or tactics have been posted by Anonymous members or affiliates. If cyberattacks are conducted on November 5, they will likely be disorganized and on a small scale.”

The report reminded officers that protesters may be recording during the demonstration or possibly broadcasting live using a mobile device. It subsequently warned, “if there are unlawful arrests of protesters, or if police interfere with protesters who are recording the event, Anonymous will target their ‘servers, phone lines, emails and whatever else they can find,’” partially quoting an Anonymous message on YouTube.

On November 5, approximately one hundred protesters gathered in Sylvester Park for Olympia’s Million Mask March. At the rally point, demonstrators began with speeches focused on inequality in the U.S. economy. The protesters also talked about nonviolent crimes that result in mandatory long-term sentences. No bankers had gone to jail, the speakers noted, after having caused the most damaging economic recession since World War II.

One speaker reportedly asked if anyone participating in the march was homeless. A woman spoke up and said that she couldn’t afford to pay her rent. Several protesters came forward and handed her money out of their pockets.

Unbeknownst to the crowd, the supervisor of a local transit company had dropped off an Olympia city bus nearby at the request of the WSP. According to recently published emails, it was parked on the west side of an administration building close to the demonstration, just in case they needed to move in and haul a large group of disorderly protesters off to jail—but they didn’t.

The Daily Dot reached out to Triplett-Kolerich and three Bank of America media relations contacts requesting a comment for this article, but received no response.

quote:

Ministry of Defence funding research into online habits

PhD papers sponsored by military include studies of hacker culture, crowd behaviour and social networking sites

A branch of the Ministry of Defence is funding postgraduate research into the culture of computer hackers, crowd behaviour at music festivals and football matches, and the impact of Twitter, Facebook and online conspiracy theories in times of crisis.

The MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) pays six-figure sums to support individual PhD students to help understand the rapidly evolving world of cyberspace and the way in which social media have become an integral part of daily life.

While some of the PhD projects in the £10m programme have conventional military applications – such as researching technology to support underwater drones, and the development of clothing with fully embedded electronics – £97,487 of funding for research at King's College London into "the rise of the digital insurgency" is typical of the new direction.

Background papers for the digital insurgency doctorate at King's College say that the research will target the so-called "hacktivist" group Anonymous. The project will involve the researcher aiming to interact with members of Anonymous, addressing "known unknowns" relating to the group, and understand its grievances and goals, why people are attracted to it and its internal politics.

Rather than just focusing on hacktivism, however, the DTSL appears to be taking an increasing interest in broader issues of social media and online behaviour too. In February, it will host an invitation-only conference focused on "social influence in the information age".

Other PhD projects funded include one at the University of Exeter, which receives £82,630 from the DSTL, entitled Collective Action in the Digital Age: Social identities and the influence of online and offline behaviour.

Picking out the role of Twitter, Facebook, Skype and mobile messaging, a contract for the project states: "The events of the Arab spring, the London student protests or the summer 2011 riots in English towns and cities show the importance of understanding synchronised collective actions driven by online interactions."

The project aims to "deliver new and innovative ways to understand and influence online behaviour".

Mark Levine, a professor of social psychology who is supervising the Exeter PhD, told the Guardian: "I think [the MoD] are interested in online influence. That is why they have put money into this kind of stuff. They want to know what influences people, when and how.

"They are interested in influences which might promote what, from their point of view, might be antisocial stuff that they might want to stop, but they are also interested in the kinds of things they can do to promote situations where groups themselves prevent things they are worried about online."

Levine, who has been a working with others to demonstrate how groups can reduce violence or promote pro-social behaviour, added that the idea behind the project was to test, in an online environment, the psychological theories about why people behave collectively in the way they do offline, such as in football crowds.

The MoD initiated a national PhD sponsorship scheme in 2011, with the intention that successful bidders for the support would also spend time at the DSTL, "subject to certain caveats", according to the agency. Researchers in a wide range of disciplines have been provided with hundreds of thousands of pounds of funding across a range of applications.

How technology can be used to wield influence is also the focus of a £137,433 PhD programme at Queen Mary, University of London, called "Analysing and influencing crowd behaviours through arrays of ad-hoc mobile sensors". Mobile sensors typically include the digital compasses that are used in modern mobile phones for mapping, but which can also be used to identify the location and activities of their owner.

The contract states: "The PhD student will gather large-scale datasets from a variety of different mass crowd events, such as music festivals, sporting events, etc."

It adds that the research will aim to "provide essential tools for event planners and event monitors for wide ranges of events, planned (festivals, football matches, political rallies) or ad hoc (riots, protests)."

Techniques to be explored will include "targeting influential individuals" and crowdsourcing.

Elsewhere, £139,649 is being channelled to another Queen Mary PhD called "Cross-cultural attitudes and the shaping of online behaviour in crisis situations". It aims to examine trends and patterns relating to the flow of information on social media during events such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

Course organisers say it will "look at how news production is mediated by first-hand accounts through social media platforms such as Twitter and, secondly, how crisis situations foster the setting-up of dedicated platforms for communion and their function in mediating trauma as well as in endorsing or rejecting dominant commentaries (including conspiracy theories and propaganda) in mainstream media".

A Queen Mary spokesperson said that as part of the research, small pilot studies had been conducted at a music festival and at internal gatherings, but seeking ethical approval and participant recruitment would begin for large-scale events in 2014. The spokesperson said that the research would examine the impact of incorrect information in transport and disaster situations as well as music festivals. "All research on human subjects at Queen Mary is subject to ethical review. Furthermore all data was gathered and will be gathered with the informed consent of the participants."

The spokesperson added: "For festivals, we are looking at gathering information in order to provide participants with interesting topographical information such as 'fun' or crowdedness. This research will collect data that will provide essential information on crowd dynamics of such events."

Other PhDs benefiting from military financial aid include: "Exploring identity within modern technology – the influence of social and ethnical concerns on models of distributed identity" (£107,012, the University of Southampton); "Achieving legitimacy in a new media ecology" (£85,588, University of Glasgow); "Data mining to understand international dimensions to online identity – a classification of 2+billion names and their linkage to virtual identities and social network traffic" (University College London £106,160); and "Social movement 2.0: collective identity in the era of online participatory media" (Kings College London, £97,486).Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: "Clearly there is a range of things which the security services already do.

"There is often a strong case for moves in this direction to be tempered by some very hard thinking about the ethics of these questions and the risk of legitimate policing slipping, potentially, into being attempts to control and influence.

"Obviously, the nature and type of the mass surveillance which we now know that the NSA and GCHQ engaged in was simply not legitimate.

"But the fact is that digital information will increase. What has to also increase alongside it is transparency and oversight. We have not really had that debate and the fact that we should be taking note and looking at the potential use of research such as this is entirely appropriate."

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: "People will rightly want to know why the Ministry of Defence is investing in research that clearly carries significant privacy implications. These areas of research also highlight how badly in need of reform the wider legal framework governing surveillance activities is, particularly given the apparent interest in using social networks and internet-connected sensors to track and analyse people.

"The department needs to be much more transparent about why it is funding so much of this research if the public are to have confidence that it does not threaten our civil liberties and that the military's surveillance capabilities are not to be turned on British citizens."

An MoD spokesperson said: "Cyber-security is an issue of growing importance. As routine cyber-security measures (patching, anti-virus) become ubiquitous, socially engineered attacks are a growing threat.

"DSTL seeks to understand these threats and the vulnerabilities they exploit in order to provide effective advice and support to the MoD and wider government on defending against these threats."

The spokesperson added that the MoD was also "trying to understand the world in which we live and anticipate the world in which we will live" and that to do so "it now needs to incorporate an understanding of events in cyberspace and how they might unfold".

quote:

Sabu wasn't the only FBI mole in LulzSec, suggest leaked docs

Obvious question: who WAS the second snitch?

quote:

MIT website hacked by Anonymous on anniversary of Aaron Swartz suicide

quote:

On the anniversary of young hacker and digital activist Aaron Swartz's death, Anonymous has re-engaged its Operation Last resort to hack MIT's website, taking over the server for its Cogeneration project.

The website has been defaced for one hour. The page is now titled THE DAY WE FIGHT BACK.

The defacement states "REMEMBER THE DAY WE FIGHT BACK REMEMBER" and remains as of this writing, with the SSL-enabled version of the site redirecting to the page on load.

Reddit, Creative Commons and Demand Progress co-founder Aaron Swartz committed suicide in New York City on Friday, Jan. 11.

MIT previously claimed to have played a neutral role in the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, however information later suggested that MIT likely played an active role in the prosecution.

Last weekend, his father Bob Swartz featured in the widely-read editorial Losing Aaron where much ground was laid to put the blame for the young hacker's death squarely at the feet of MIT, which as an institution stated it would play a neutral role -- yet wilfully helped the prosecution, alongside Swartz's girlfriend at the time Quinn Norton.

The Operation Last Resort campaign is retaliation for the suicide, which many - including the Swartz family - believe was a result of overzealous prosecution by the Department of Justice and what the family deemed a "bullying" use of outdated computer crime laws.

Anonymous has directed visitors who land on MIT's Cogen website to the website for "The Day We Fight Back," a protest on February 11, 2014 against surveillance.

"The Day We Fight Back" is a protest day in honor of Aaron Swartz, and to draw attention to the activist's role in the victory over the Stop Online Piracy Act. Participants include Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Reddit, Mozilla, and more.

Either Anonymous is doing some pre-press for the event, or it is suggesting there might be more in store on February 11.

quote:

Out in the Open: An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent

quote:

His alternative is called Twister. It’s a decentralized social network that, in theory, can’t be shut down by any one entity. What’s more, Twister is designed to prevent other users from knowing whether you’re online, what your IP address is, or who you follow. You can still post public messages a la Twitter, but when you send direct and private messages to others, they’re protected with the same encryption scheme used by LavaBit, the e-mail provider used by Edward Snowdan.

Anonymous Presents - The Day We Fight Back

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.

quote:

Anonymous takes on the rhino hunters

The hacking group Anonymous has ‘declared war’ against Namibia over it’s decision to allow 5 black rhino trophy hunt licenses to be issued each year for the next 5 years. The group announced yesterday that web site ending in the TLDs gov.na, .na, co.na, na.org will be targets.

Already the national newspaper website has been hacked and defaced, sensitive information was also accessed and posted on other web sites for hackers to gain access to.

A holiday company operating in the country, Just Holidays Namibia, has seen it’s web site taken down.

The action has been started to coincide with the black rhino hunt auction to take place at the Dallas Safari Club this weekend.

The operation is being organised by the TeamDefiant group of the hacking organisation. It has been termed Operation FunKill.



In the tweet that was released yesterday the group said, “This is just a warning to Namibia, Release our beloved Rhino now!“

quote:

RedHack Exposes Wrongdoings of Ankara Mayor After Hacking Transport Department

Hackers of the RedHack group have breached the systems of the General Directorate of EGO (ego.gov.tr), the organization that serves as the public transports department for the municipality of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.

By breaching the organization’s servers, the hacktivists say they’ve uncovered some of the wrongdoings of Melih Gökçek, Ankara’s mayor.

The hackers say the public transport department’s employees are “serving the mayor’s ego” by registering fake Twitter accounts.

“These accounts used to hike follower numbers and spread misinformation about public demand for justice and distort the agenda in his favor,” RedHack representatives noted. “Municipality employees work tirelessly to manipulate social media.”

The hackers have published screenshots showing the email addresses, usernames and passwords of these employees. They’ve also leaked the email credentials of General Directorate of EGO workers, including ones belonging to web administrators.

One of the reasons that RedHack targeted ego.gov.tr is because of the collaboration between Tamer Sahin, a famous Turkish hacker, and the mayor of Ankara. The hacktivists say this collaboration suggests that authorities are starting to panic.

Last year, several people were arrested by police on suspicion of being connected to RedHack. However, the group denied that any of them had any involvement with them, and continued to attack high-profile websites.

The hackers also say they’ve breached EFO’s FTP server, on which they have found several documents and evidence that authorities are using pirated software.

Earlier this year, RedHack breached the systems of several organizations, including the Turkish Contractors Association, the State Railways and the Izmir headquarters of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

They have also exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on the website of the country’s Parliament to send a message to government officials.

quote:

Website of Monsanto Korea Hacked and Defaced by Anonymous

Anonymous hackers continue the campaign called Operation Green Rights. Their latest target is the South Korean website of Monsanto (monsantokorea.com), the US-based chemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation.

The hackers have defaced a page from the “news releases” section of the website. In addition to defacing the website, the hacktivists have also leaked some database information.

At the time of writing, visitors of monsantokorea.com are redirected to Monsanto’s main website, Monsanto.com.

The hacktivists behind Operation Green Rights have been targeting Monsanto for quite some time. Over the weekend, they announced launching distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against a number of websites belonging to Monsanto and other GMO companies.

It's worth noting that this is the second time they hack the Monsanto Korea website.

“Monsanto: Anonymous thinks you're responsible, in front of mankind, for genocide, environmental disaster and mass contamination,” the hackers noted in a statement.

quote:

Philippine government to Anonymous: please don’t hack THIS website

In November, members of the Anonymous collective defaced 37 Philippine government websites in line with the global Million Mask March movement. And this is just the most recent of the numerous attacks against the government and its websites. This week, the Philippine government asked the hackers not to touch the recently launched Open Data government portal.

Open Data, which went live last week, is the government’s take on promoting transparency and accountability among the different government agencies in the Philippines. It includes infographics, spreadsheets and other government data sets for public consumption.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told Rappler that the portal is intended to provide data and empower the people so Filipino citizens can be its partners in finding solutions at the local level.

Lacierda adds, security measures are in place for the portal, but he still pursues the request to hackers. He says it’s not in the interest of Filipinos to damage this type of information deemed useful for citizens.

Last June, the government also launched its own cloud platform, iGovPhil, to improve security among government agency websites. Despite that, three of the attacked websites during the Million Mask March commemoration were already under said platform, but were still defaced. Lacierda defends iGovPhil, saying it wasn’t fully-operational at that time.

Meanwhile, we haven’t seen attacks from the group since an Anonymous Philippines member was caught after the Million Mask March attacks. As of now, we can’t yet be sure that no attacks will occur. We’ve seen how the group can be quiet for months and suddenly surprise the government with a defacement. Maybe it all boils down to more robust security measures in place, or are they too smart for that?

quote:

The Emergence of a Freedom of Information Movement: Anonymous, WikiLeaks, the Pirate Party, and Iceland

quote:

Abstract

Online rhetoric about the Internet's potential to change society, the need to reform intellectual property laws, and the evils of censorship is becoming increasingly similar across sites. The push for “freedom of information” is not restricted to online spaces, but it appears to be born from such spaces, with the concept itself shaped by the presence of the Internet and its effect on networked societies. Focusing on WikiLeaks, the Pirate Party, Anonymous, and Iceland, I describe the emerging coalescence of “freedom of information” advocates pushing for a simultaneous liberalization and homogenization of freedom of information regulations across democracies.

quote:

Anonymous Shut Down 'Taiji Cove' Website Over Dolphin Killings

quote:

Last night, the international hacktivist group, Anonymous, temporarily shut down the government website for Wakayama Prefecture, where Taiji Cove is located. This Japanese seaside village is where local fisherman round up dolphins on an annual basis to capture some for marine park shows and slaughter more for food. Over the weekend, about 500 dolphins were corralled into a netted area, including a rare albino calf.

quote:

'Charmed's Alyssa Milano writes 'Hacktivist' comic

NSA - Anonymous . Enough, elite. You are FINISHED.

quote:

OpNSA – Press Release

^{January 20, 2014 By Anonymous}

Greetings, NSA. Thanks to the actions of Edward Snowden the world is now aware of your absurdly intrusive and elaborate monitoring agenda. Every Verizon user. Every Facebook LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter account. Every Yahoo!, Bing and Google search result. Every Microsoft Windows, Google Chrome and Apple Mac operating system. Every Safari, Chrome and Internet Explorer web broswer. Every Paypal and Google Wallet transaction. Every Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo e-mail. Every bit of content in iCloud, Dropbox, Drive and Skydrive. Every AOL, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk instant message. Every Skype, Facetime, Google Hangouts and Talk call. Every Flickr, Instagram, Picasa, Tumblr and Youtube media. All are victims to yourillegitimate counter-terrorism measures. Spying on over 120 million people , including innocent citizens of your own nations, was not a good idea as you will come to understand soon enough.

We will now be commencing “Operation National Security Agency” in retaliation of your disrespect for the privacy of people worldwide. You cannot expect to covertly spy on people who have done nothing wrong under the guise of preemptively fighting terrorism when you failed to stop the Boston bombing and expect consent. You are of no use to anyone except those in power and who wish to keep it, at the expense of every citizen’s privacy that they are entitled to under the Constitution of which you show no respect for.

OpNSA will be unforgiving in its work and will leave no stone unturned, just as you do for all of us. As of this moment, people around the world are beginning to wake up and, consequently, stand up to your data mining agenda. You will soon understand for yourselves what it is like to be spied on and your personal information be stored, available for all to gaze upon.

We are officially calling on all citizens of the Internet, all Anonymous participants and all activists to take to their computers, take to their streets and take to all available outlets to let their voices be heard on this issue. Violations like this WILL not be treated with apathy. Anonymous has been proven to be apowerful force for good, and even more so, a nemesis to tyranny and injustice.

You thought you could infringe on our privacy. You thought you could wiretap people who have no reason to be observed. But best of all, you thought you could get away with all of it.

The NSA will lose the game. All your base will belong to us.
We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us.

To join us on a public IRC channel, go to: webchat.anonops.com channel: #opnsa

There is no bloody way that u, the elite, will survive! You’re already done. Dead.

To join us on a public IRC channel, go to: https://webchat.anonops.com channel: #OpNSA

twitter:

YourAnonCentral twitterde op zaterdag 25-01-2014 om 13:52:54 #OpUkraine:gov.uahttp://t.co/YNMMCz1JAX#TANGO #DOWN#Anonymous#Euromaidan http://t.co/ZNK04EHcTV reageer retweet

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op zondag 26-01-2014 om 00:10:28 #Anonymous in #Kiev. - http://t.co/wwWOd2GLgH reageer retweet

quote:

Why Anonymous is going to war with British higher education

quote:

When the British newspaper the Guardian reported Jan. 7 that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was funding university research into Anonymous, hacktivism, and surveillance (and had been for at least a year), it was only a matter of time before someone, somewhere in the hacker collective took retaliatory action.

Within about four hours of the article’s publication, #OpPhDPounds was on. It’s an Anonymous action that targets U.K. universities studying cyberwar, even at arm’s length. It’s been in stealth mode for almost two weeks as the Anons attempted to gather intel.

The hackivists have zeroed in on Queen Mary University of London and one of the institution’s researchers, a specialist in nanotechnology, in particular, releasing a couple of potentially embarrassing lists and internal communications.

But there’s a larger, more threatening action in the works.

"[We] plan on stirring things up over the universities taking MoD cash for invasive research,” one of the team members, with whom I was already familiar from previous hacks, told me via encrypted chat. “I am going to release basically their own map of their network, with all of the IPs and Mac addresses of every computer on their network."

quote:

As for the motivation, Anonymous aims to draw attention to data insecurity in the institutions entrusted with MoD grants for security projects and research. "It’s obvious," said our source, careful to note that this was an international effort, not specific to the U.K. "The institution is woefully underprepared for the kind of attention working with the Ministry of Defense can cause. If we are on their systems, anyone else could be as well."

The hacker also claimed that they still have access to Queen Mary's systems on an ongoing basis.

"They want to analyze data on the net, while their own data is woefully unsecured.”