Anonops #15: Last or not to Last

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American authorities charge UK man with hacking Army, Missile Defense Agency and NASA websites

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A 28-year-old man from Stradishall, England has been charged in the United States with hacking into US government and military computers, stealing sensitive data and causing millions of dollars in damages.

The New Jersey US Attorney’s Office announced on Monday that Lauri Love of the United Kingdom was indicted with breaching thousands of computer systems, including those belonging to the Army, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency and NASA. A separate complaint filed in the Eastern District of Virginia also accuses Love of participating in an operation earlier this year spearheaded by the hacktivist movement Anonymous.

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Anonymous is breaking into computer systems used by the Assad government

Anonymous is releasing stolen data and actively searching for security vulnerabilities to exploit Syrian government systems.


Hackers within the Anonymous collective are intensifying their campaign against the Assad regime, leaking information stolen from servers used by gov.sy web domains and targeting further government systems for attack.

Anons behind the ongoing OpSyria recently gained access to servers used by the Syrian Patent Office, hosted at spo.gov.sy, and leaked internal documents. The documents, provided to GlobalPost, included information on patent office operations and product and promotional images stored in the file index used by spo.gov.sy.

With a number of Anonymous factions working under the banner of OpSyria, a clear message of intent is often hard to determine. Those involved in the operation have not sided with any Syrian opposition groups, nor have they declared any alliance with the Free Syrian Army or other anti-Assad militias.

But hackers involved in the operation say they consider all Syrian government systems targets. And they hope to find documents through their hacks that incriminate the Syrian regime for its involvement in a civil conflict that has cost well over 100,000 lives since 2011.

“Finding documents regarding the use of chemical weapons is a top priority but the hacks are a great way for us to show the Syrian Regime, ‘Hey. We're still watching you — and we're going to keep doing this until your people realize that they are our ally,’” said an Anon involved in OpSyria.

“If we could find vulnerabilities to actually attack the military security of Syria, we would be pretty happy with that. But leaks are useful for embarrassing the regime [and] at the same time for increasing coverage for OpSyria,” they added.

Last year, Syrian rebels enjoyed massive support from international hacker collectives like Anonymous, which launched several attacks on the Assad government. Early in 2012, Anonymous said it accessed several regime email accounts, including an account belonging to the Syrian president. Anonymous renewed their pledge to support Syrian hackers last November as the Assad regime threatened to shut down internet access across the country.

But after several arrests and convictions, an earlier incarnation of Anonymous’ OpSyria ground to a near-halt in March, while the pro-Assad Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) gained strength in the cyberwar.

Because of the group's fluid membership, today's OpSyria is distinct from the group of the past. Anons involved have recently gained new access to several systems used by the Syrian government. Should one of them find a vulnerability that allows them inside, they will save the database, and discuss internally if the information warrants release, the OpSyria hacker told GlobalPost.

The Syrian government, which has periodically cut internet access during the course of the civil war, has been quiet on the issue of hacking. However, a 2011 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists credited Assad with having acknowledged and endorsed SEA activities in a rare statement.

Anonymous said they have several people working nearly full time looking for vulnerabilities in Syrian government websites. "We'll continue to get access to information when we get the opportunity. The message for the Syrian Regime is this: 'We are already inside your databases,'” the Anon involved with OpSyria said.

OpSyria Anons say they are also concerned with ensuring that their actions do not endanger innocent lives or lead to any sort of military action that could potentially harm civilians.

“Rather than linking up with other groups, each Anonymous activist works under the Anonymous banner to help the people in Syria. What we'd love most would be for the UN to bring humanitarian aid to the citizens,” the Anon said.

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Op-Ed: Anonymous hacks Queensland Premier’s phone, publishes address

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Sydney - Anonymous hacks Queensland Premier’s phone, publishes address
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has been hacked by Anonymous after the introduction of new anti-bikie laws in the state. Anonymous says Newman has gone too far.

The Newman family reportedly received a number of "upsetting" prank phone calls since the details were published at the weekend.

A spokesman for Mr Newman said the security breach was "concerning and regrettable"
"It is particularly distasteful given it involves the Premier's family," the spokesman said.
The Queensland laws are a part of a range of anti-gang laws targeting the bikie gangs and the trade in drugs like ice. The rest of Australia is following suit at state level, with Victoria and New South Wales looking at similar legislation.

Anonymous considers the laws an attack against civil liberties and unconstitutional. Anonymous objects to the effect on the right of association. That’s not entirely off target. The issue is that “association” with those committing crimes can come with a possible sentence of 15 years.

Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/361461#ixzz2jfhYMGrQ

ANONYMOUS MESSAGE TO CAMPBELL NEWMAN

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OccupyChicago twitterde op dinsdag 05-11-2013 om 17:38:50 RT @tatzanx: Shit quickly getting real after arrest at White House #MillionMaskMarch #MSM #Anonymous #Nov5 #DC http://t.co/4pa2oizUvN reageer retweet

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Million Mask March, Sydney 02.11.13 (200 images)

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Million Mask March: LIVE UPDATES

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Supporters of the Anonymous hacktivist collective are holding rallies all around the world on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day. They are protesting against what they see as the rule of greedy corporations and corrupt governments around the world.

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demindblower twitterde op dinsdag 05-11-2013 om 20:22:30 #Anonymous !The scene at the Anti Austerity Demo in Trafalgar Sq right now!! #MillionMaskMarch l #Nov5th http://t.co/zoaSnTxC6j” reageer retweet

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Barrett Brown’s Mother Sentenced to Six Months of Probation & Fined for Hiding Laptops

The mother of Barrett Brown, a jailed journalist and activist who faces multiple charges, was sentenced to six months of probation and fined $1,000 today by a judge in Dallas.

The Associated Press reported that Karen Lancaster McCutchin “apologized Fridya in Dallas federal court for hiding the laptops from agents during a March raid at their home. Her son faces three separate federal indictments and has gotten widespread attention among groups who believe he’s being unfairly prosecuted.”

The federal judge hearing her case declined to give her jail time. And, the following exchange took place in court:

“My better judgment was clouded by my maternal instinct,” McCutchin said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Stickney said McCutchin’s crime “does not warrant any jail sentence at all.”

“I feel for you, as a parent,” Stickney told McCutchin, adding: “I know you did the best you could.”

While Brown’s mother will not serve time in prison, Free Barrett Brown, a group raising awareness about Brown’s case, reacted to the news.

“There’s no better symbol of the unjust persecution of Barrett Brown, than the misguided and needless case against his own mother,” the group declared in a statement. “When Brown made a fateful decision to spend the night away from his apartment on March 5, 2012, he could not have known that he’d be placing his loved ones at significant legal risk.”

“As the result of an FBI raid the next day, his mom faced a charge of obstructing the execution of a search warrant. Perhaps under pressure and with few other options, she later pleaded guilty, and admitted to attempting to conceal two laptop computers.”

“There can be no real justice as the FBI and [Justice Department] use family members to intimidate, harass and pressure others,” the group further declared.

Brown faces multiple charges including one count of internet threats, one count of conspiracy to make publicly available restricted personal information of an employee of the United States, one count of retaliation against a federal law enforcement officer, one count of traffic in stolen authentication features, one count of access device fraud, ten counts of aiding and abetting identity theft, one count of concealment of evidence and one count of corruptly concealing evidence. Altogether, Brown could be sentenced to up to 105 years in jail if convicted of all the above offenses.

The offenses stem from conduct that Brown allegedly engaged in after the private intelligence firm, Stratfor, had its emails hacked. The emails were subsequently published by the media organization, WikiLeaks.

Brown’s case has attracted attention because, at issue, is the right to link. Brown is accused of sharing a link to private data, which was contained in a Stratfor email.

The First Amendment is also implicated as well. Brown is charged with concealing information related to journalistic sources and his own work products. And it also appears the government was not pleased that the focus of his work was the operations of private security and intelligence companies so they chose to target him with this prosecution.

Earlier in September, a district court judge in Dallas issued a gag order prohibiting lawyers for Barrett Brown from discussing the case with media.

The gag order on Brown and his defense team constituted a prior restraint on speech to impede the ability of members of the press to do their jobs and report on what is happening with the case. But, for the government, it restored a level of secrecy to the process that the government could rely upon to punish Brown for his alleged conduct to the maximum extent possible. No longer would they have to struggle with the background noise of supporters referencing details shared by the defense in order to build opposition to the government’s legal maneuverings.

Since the gag order, Brown’s case has received increased attention. David Carr of The New York Times wrote that Brown’s past history with Anonymous and other online groups, which view “sowing mayhem as very much a part of their work,” makes his “version of journalism” harder to “pin down” and defend. Yet, he noted that Brown is not accused of stealing any data from Stratfor or any other organization or government institution. He is accused of linking to something that was part of a “trove of documents.”

Journalists from other news organizations link to stolen information frequently. Just last week, The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica collaborated on a significant article about the National Security Agency’s effort to defeat encryption technologies. The article was based on, and linked to, documents that were stolen by Edward J. Snowden, a private contractor working for the government who this summer leaked millions of pages of documents to the reporter Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian along with Barton Gellman of The Washington Post.

By trying to criminalize linking, the federal authorities in the Northern District of Texas — Mr. Brown lives in Dallas — are suggesting that to share information online is the same as possessing it or even stealing it. In the news release announcing the indictment, the United States attorney’s office explained, “By transferring and posting the hyperlink, Brown caused the data to be made available to other persons online, without the knowledge and authorization of Stratfor and the card holders.”

Josh Stearns of the media reform group, Free Press, suggested after Carr’s op-ed the case was important because, “Links are the connective tissue of the Internet. They enable us to share news, discover new information, dig deeper into issues and give credit to sources. The government’s effort to criminalize linking is akin to rewiring how the Internet works. It will have a chilling effect on how journalists report on sensitive government matters.”

Brown’s trial on the first set of charges is currently scheduled for April 28, 2014. In the months to come, expect his case to remain a focus of press freedom groups concerned about the government’s prosecution.

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Singapore will 'spare no effort' in hunting down Anonymous

Singapore has declared war on the hacktivist collective Anonymous, after Anonymous declared attacked Singapore last week for its restrictive new laws on the news media.

On Wednesday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said his government would “spare no effort” to hunt down and punish Anonymous.

Anonymous declaring 'War' on Singapore PAP government

According to Guardian Express, he also told the Today newspaper that Singapore’s “IT network, the Internet, our communications have become an essential part of our business and our lives now. And, therefore, when somebody threatens to do harm to it... we take that very seriously and we will spare no effort to try and track down the culprits and if we can find him, we will bring him to justice and he will be dealt with severely.”

Singapore has earmarked $104 million for network security improvements.

Last week Anonymous hacked a blog belonging to the prominent newspaper The Straits Times and threatened a reporter they felt had been inaccurate. If he didn’t apologize and resign (he didn’t), they would increase their attacks on Singaporean websites.

“Anonymous,” as many have said, “is not a group. Anonymous is an idea.” That idea is global, and the operation against Singapore is likely being conducted from abroad, which severely complicates the city-state’s effort to find the perpetrators.

Anonymous’s demand for greater Internet freedom in Singapore comes in response to a censorship law requiring online news media—including bloggers—to pay exorbitant “performance fees” and register with the government.

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Anonymous Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced To Max Penalty Of 10 Years In Prison

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One of the most active hackers in the collective known as Anonymous and the source of WikiLeaks’ largest ever leak of secret documents was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison–the most severe penalty so far of any of the activist hackers who rampaged across the Internet in the chaotic summer of 2011, and the maximum sentence he could have received under his plea bargain agreement.

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Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison, Jeremy Hammond Uses Allocution to Give Consequential Statement Highlighting Global Criminal Exploits by FBI Handlers

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ioerror twitterde op vrijdag 15-11-2013 om 19:51:54 Targets supplied by #FBI to Jeremy #Hammond: http://t.co/6wm6xMsHhZ #anonymous #wikileaks #manning #injustice #redacted reageer retweet

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OpKillingBay: Hackers Expose Details of Japanese Tuna Exports Program

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Anonymous continues OpKillingBay, the campaign launched by hacktivists in protest against the Japanese government, particularly against the killing of dolphins in the town of Taiji.

While some hacktivists are launching distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against the Japanese government, others are busy “intercepting communications.”

Hackers claim to have gathered information from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (maff.go.jp) regarding a tuna exports program called “DevoX.” The program is said to have been operational for many years.

“With all the growing Competition from both Korea and Taiwan in the Tuna and fishing industry. Japan decided to do something about that. And Program DevoX was born. The Program known as ‘DevoX’ is where Japanese exports of Tuna to the world are switched from Tuna to Dolphin Meat,” they said.

The hacktivists claim that the dolphin meat obtained in Taiji is exported as tuna.

Anonymous has appointed around 20 Japanese government websites as targets of OpKillingBay. As far as I know, so far they’ve launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against the sites of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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FBI warns that Anonymous has hacked US government sites for a year

Official memo says that activist collective launched a rash of electronic break-ins beginning last December

Activist hackers linked to the collective known as Anonymous have secretly accessed US government computers and stolen sensitive information in a campaign that began almost a year ago, the FBI warned this week.

The hackers exploited a flaw in Adobe Systems Inc's software to launch a rash of electronic break-ins that began last December, the FBI said in a memo seen by Reuters, then left "back doors" to return to many of the machines as recently as last month.

The news comes a day after an Anonymous activist received a 10-year sentence for his role in releasing thousands of emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor. On Friday Jeremy Hammond told a Manhattan court he had been directed by an FBI informant to break into the official websites of several governments around the world.

Hammond, who called his sentence a"vengeful, spiteful act", said of his prosecutors: "They have made it clear they are trying to send a message to others who come after me. A lot of it is because they got slapped around, they were embarrassed by Anonymous and they feel that they need to save face."

He also said the FBI had directed his attacks on foreign websites: "The government celebrates my conviction and imprisonment, hoping that it will close the door on the full story. I took responsibility for my actions, by pleading guilty, but when will the government be made to answer for its crimes?"

The FBI memo about the Adobe Systems attacks, which was distributed on Thursday, described the attacks as "a widespread problem that should be addressed". It said the breach affected the US army, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, and perhaps many more agencies.

Officials said the hacking was linked to the case of Lauri Love, a British resident indicted on 28 October for allegedly hacking into computers at the Department of Energy, army, Department of Health and Human Services, the US Sentencing Commission and elsewhere. Investigators believe the attacks began when Love and others took advantage of a security flaw in Adobe's ColdFusion software, which is used to build websites.

Investigators are still gathering information on the scope of the cyber campaign, which the authorities believe is continuing. The FBI document tells system administrators what to look for to determine if their systems are compromised.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to elaborate.

According to an internal email from Kevin Knobloch, chief of staff to the energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, the stolen data included personal information on at least 104,000 employees, contractors, family members and others associated with the Department of Energy, along with information on almost 2,0000 bank accounts. The email, dated 11 October, said officials were "very concerned" that the loss of the banking information could lead to thieving attempts.

An Adobe spokeswoman, Heather Edell, said she was not familiar with the FBI report. She added that the company has found that the majority of attacks involving its software have exploited programs that were not updated with the latest security patches.

The Anonymous group is a collective that conducts multiple hacking campaigns at any time, some with a few participants and some with hundreds. Its members have disrupted eBay Inc's PayPal after it stopped processing donations to the anti-secrecy site Wikileaks. Anonymous has also launched more sophisticated attacks against Sony Corp and the security firm HBGary Federal.

Some of the breaches and stolen data in the latest campaign had previously been publicised by people who identify with Anonymous, as part of what the group dubbed "Operation Last Resort". Among other things, the campaigners said the operation was in retaliation for overzealous prosecution of hackers, including the lengthy penalties sought for Aaron Swartz, a well-known computer programmer and internet activist who killed himself before a trial over charges that he illegally downloaded academic journal articles from a digital library known as JSTOR.

Despite the earlier disclosures, "the majority of the intrusions have not yet been made publicly known," the FBI wrote. "It is unknown exactly how many systems have been compromised, but it is a widespread problem that should be addressed."

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Look Ma! I can see through the great firewall!

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Today we have decided to take the battle against online censorship in China to a new level.

On Friday, November 15, we broke the news that the websites for Reuters Chinese and Chinese Wall Street Journal were both blocked in China. Tests on our servers confirmed those blocks.

It appears that the block is related to the New York Times story published on November 14 concerning the relationship between JPMorgan Chase and Lily Chang (also known as Wen Ruchun), the daughter of former Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao.

Reuters Chinese published news about the story on November 14, which is probably the reason the site was blocked.

In response to this block, we have just launched a mirror site for Reuters China, which is accessible here:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cn.reuters/index.html

This website is accessible from within China without the use of any circumvention tools.

PLEASE NOTE: We have created this mirror website without seeking the approval of Reuters ahead of time. This mirror website was created without Reuters’ knowledge. If Reuters ask us to remove this website, we will do so immediately.

We have already used this method or mirroring for our own blocked website, FreeWeibo.com:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/freeweibo/index.html

https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/freeweibo/index.html

https://y-china.org/

FreeWeibo shows weibo content that has been blocked by Sina and the Chinese government. Our official domain has long been blocked in China. Despite the block, we still have more than 15,000 visitors each day, a majority of which are using Internet circumvention software to get around the great firewall (GFW) of China.

We want to provide internet users in China with unrestricted information access. Internet circumvention software is for the most part stable in China but one needs to have some technical savvy for configuration.

With our new mirror sites, the GFW cannot block FreeWeibo.com any longer without causing significant collateral damage which would also cause significant economic fallout in China.

Our mirror sites are unique because rather than using our own domains, we use a subpath of Amazon and Google’s domains which support HTTPS access. This means that GFW cannot block our mirror websites without blocking the domain of Amazon or Google entirely, namely “s3.amazonaws.com” and “commondatastorage.googleapis.com”.

GFW might indeed go ahead and block these domains but it would risk considerable negative backlash and may cause problems economically for organizations within China that rely on these services. In January 2013, China blocked Github supposedly for having sensitive content. But the block created a fierce outcry in the Chinese developer community. Subsequently, the authorities backed down and stopped blocking the domain.

Our mirror site is not perfect! There are a few minor bugs in what we have created. However, we wanted to quickly put this together so that we could fire a shot across the bow of the Chinese censorship mothership.

The reason why we chose to mirror the Reuters Chinese web site was to show the authorities and Chinese internet users that there are holes in the great firewall. To plug this hole, the Chinese authorities have two options. They can block the Amazon and Google domains, thereby bringing down thousands of websites in China that rely on these web services. This will bring the issue of online censorship to a very large group of people in China. The other option is to force Amazon or Google to remove our sites willingly. We have previously reported that Apple willingly remove OpenDoor, an Internet circumvention tool, from the China App store and this week there were reports about self-censorship at Bloomberg. We hope Amazon or Google will not practice the same kind of self-censorship.

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OpGreenRights twitterde op zondag 17-11-2013 om 16:22:11 gazprom.com UNDER #DDOS from 13.00 GMT +1 more than 3hours DOWN! #Arctic30 #FreeTheArctic30 #Anonymous #climatechange reageer retweet

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Activists say they have found way round Chinese internet censorship

Campaigners create 'mirror sites' to circumvent controls after Reuters and Wall Street journal websites are blocked

Cyber-activists have retaliated against Chinese authorities' censorship of foreign media websites by exposing an apparent weakness in the country's vast internet control apparatus.

China blocked the Wall Street Journal and Reuters Chinese-language websites on Friday after a New York Times exposé revealed business ties between JP Morgan and the daughter of the former premier Wen Jiabao. Both websites appear to still be blocked on Monday. The New York Times's English and Chinese-language websites have been blocked in China since 2012.

Charlie Smith, the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a website which monitors internet censorship in China, says he has helped discover a strategy to make these sites available in mainland China without the aid of firewall-circumventing software.

"We think we have exposed a weakness in the Great Firewall," he said. The strategy involves creating mirror websites – essentially replicas of existing sites – which authorities would be unable to block without severely disrupting other, government-sanctioned internet traffic. Mirror sites that GreatFire.org established for the Wall Street Journal and Reuters Chinese-language sites are currently accessible within mainland China.

"We're serving these mirror sites through companies like Amazon," Smith said. "For them to block these mirror sites, they're going to have to take down Amazon web servers in China, and that would affect thousands of services in China, maybe tens of thousands," he said. Many Chinese websites hosted by Amazon's web services are involved in e-commerce, he said, so a blanket ban could have significant economic consequences.

The Chinese government has long used a range of intimidation tactics, including internet censorship, visa denials and verbal warnings, to express its displeasure with news agencies that it deems a political threat. Authorities blocked the websites of Bloomberg News and the New York Times in 2012 after they featured lengthy investigations exposing the wealth amassed by family members of top leaders. They have withheld visas for incoming reporters from both organisations, some for more than a year.

The blocks come amid a controversy over self-censorship, as western media companies vie for financial gain in the world's second-largest economy. Top editors at Bloomberg News allegedly quashed two politically sensitive investigations last month to avoid jeopardising the organisation's China bureaux, the New York Times reported. Most of Bloomberg's revenue in China comes from subscriptions to financial terminals, and sales have slumped following publication of sensitive articles in the past.

Bloomberg managers have suspended the Hong-Kong-based correspondent Michael Forsythe – a lead reporter on one of the stories – for leaking the editorial decision, the New York Post reported on Friday. "Thanks everyone for the incredible outpouring of sympathy and support," Forsythe tweeted on Monday evening in his first public statement since the suspension. "It has really helped me and my family get through this.

The Reuters Chinese-language website was blocked soon after it published news concerning the New York Times exposé, Smith said. The Wall Street Journal site was blocked at around the same time, although the reasons appear less explicit. "All of this stuff is related to the news about Bloomberg – which media organisations are self-censoring at the moment, and which aren't?" he said. "Financial Times Chinese isn't blocked. What does that mean?"

Bloomberg has vociferously rejected allegations of self-censorship. "It is absolutely false that we postponed these stories due to external pressure," a spokesperson, Belina Tan, said in an email. "We are disappointed that they chose to publish a piece that claims otherwise."

Early this month, China's foreign ministry notified Paul Mooney, a 63-year-old reporter with 18 years of experience in China, that his visa application to work for Thompson Reuters in Beijing had been denied. He had been waiting for eight months.

Judging by a "tough" visa interview he had undergone at San Francisco's Chinese consulate this spring, he said, authorities were probably displeased with his reporting on sensitive political issues such as detained human rights lawyers and ethnic tensions in Tibet. "The consular officer said: 'If we give you the visa and allow you to go back, we suggest you be more objective in your reporting,'" Mooney said in a phone interview. "It's a form of intimidation."

Mooney returned to the US in 2012 when the visa sponsored by his former employer, the South China Morning Post, expired. "I always considered myself a China person first and a journalist second," he said. "So it's hard to think that I won't be able to go back and continue the work I was doing."

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Belo Monte Dam Protest: Brazil’s Main Government Portal Disrupted by Anonymous

Brasil.gov.br, the main online portal of the Brazilian government, has been disrupted for around a couple of hours by Anonymous hacktivists.

The hackers have targeted the website in protest against the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam complex that’s currently being built on the Xingu River in the state of Pará, Brazil.

Activists and human rights groups are protesting against the construction of the Belo Monte Dam because it has a negative impact on the flora and fauna in the region, and on the indigenous tribes living there.

Anonymous hackers of OpGreenRights joined the protests in late-2012 when they launched cyberattacks against Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and power company Eletronorte.

“Stop deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest and ethnic cleansing due to the mega dam!” the hacktivists stated a few hours ago when they disrupted brasil.gov.br.

At the time of writing, the government portal appears to be working properly.

On Sunday, the same hacktivists launched DDOS attacks against Russian websites in protest against the arrests of the Greenpeace activists known as the Arctic 30.

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The persecution of Barrett Brown - and how to fight it

The journalist and Anonymous activist is targeted as part of a broad effort to deter and punish internet freedom activism

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Aaron's Swartz's suicide in January triggered waves of indignation, and rightly so. He faced multiple felony counts and years in prison for what were, at worst, trivial transgressions of law. But his prosecution revealed the excess of both anti-hacking criminal statutes, particularly the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and the fixation of federal prosecutors on severely punishing all forms of activism that challenge the power of the government and related entities to control the flow of information on the internet. Part of what drove the intense reaction to Swartz's death was how sympathetic of a figure he was, but as noted by Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor in the DOJ's computer crimes unit and now a law professor at GWU, what was done to Swartz is anything but unusual, and the reaction to his death will be meaningful only if channeled to protest other similar cases of prosecutorial abuse:

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DEFEMBER. GEENSTIJL BEGINT PRIVACY-OORLOG

Hier volgt een schotschrift en dat beginnen we gewoon eens met een glasharde Godwin. In Nederland was het tijdens WOII voor de Duitsers bloedsimpel om joden op te sporen en te deporteren. Reden? De nauwkeurig bijgehouden Nederlandse persoonsadministratie. Archiefkast opentrekken, de joden uit de kaartenbak plukken en de Sicherheitsdienst kon weer een rondje huisbezoekjes afleggen. Toen had het als verzetsdaad nog zin om in te breken in het gemeentehuis en de persoonsadministratie in brand te steken - en zo levens te redden. IN 2013 NIET MEER. Mochten we ooit weer met een vijandige overheid (foreign or domestic) te maken krijgen, weten 'ze' alles al van ons en is er geen goedbedoelde brandstichting meer tegen opgewassen. Maar niemand geeft een fuck. Want 'toch niks te verbergen' en 'het is voor de veiligheid' of 'om kinderporno te bestrijden'. Bullshit. Een sleepnet over het internet trekken, zoals de NSA doet en zoals de AIVD/MIVD van Ronald Plasterk en Ivo Opstelten wíllen doen, is luie 'opsporing' van gemakzuchtige ambtelijke machines. Spelden zoeken in een stapel spelden, door alle Nederlanders te loggen, tappen, registreren en monitoren. Preventief gecriminaliseerd als burger, alsof we stuk voor stuk tikkende tijdbommen met aanslagdrang zijn. Oók alle calvinistische, gezagsgetrouwe schapen die 'toch niks te verbergen' hebben. De voetbalhooligan-dooddoener 'het zijn er een paar die het voor de rest verpesten' geldt nu voor álle Nederlanders. Privacy is echter een onvervreemdbaar grondrecht, waar Plasterk mee speelt alsof het een formaliteitje is. Zijn diensten hebben de nu in Nederland nog illegale dragnet-technologie alvast besteld, in de veronderstelling dat de vereiste wetswijziging wel geregeld wordt. Deze doorgeslagen veiligheidsdrift tekent een overheid die bang is geworden voor haar eigen burgers. Maar het leven van vrije burgers is godverdomme geen eigendom van de overheid. Het is oorlog online en de inzet is het grondrecht op privacy op een vrij, open en ongetapt web. Wij van het internet eisen een einde aan de function creep van datacollectie door de overheid, een afbestelling van de illegale Israëlische afluistersoftware en een blokkering van de wetswijziging die massaal tappen van het internet door de AIVD en MIVD mogelijk zou maken. De Grondwet is er om de burger te beschermen, niet om de overheid meer controle over het volk te geven. Dus rot op, Ronald Plasterk, en geef ons het internet terug. Daarom roept GeenStijl deze maand uit tot DEFEMBER. Want AKSIE! Ongericht tappen moet stoppen, en politici moeten met hun bemoeizuchtige poten van onze grondrechten afblijven.

DOE MEE AAN DEFEMBER
Tot het Kerstreces (20 december) is het #DEFEMBER op GeenStijl. Keywords: privacy, vrijheid en een open internet. Iedereen mag meedoen. Experts uit het veld. Boze burgers. Stuurlui aan wal. Journalisten die bang zijn dat hun bronnen en tipgevers onbeschermd zijn (en daarom zwijgen). Advocaten die vrezen voor de rechten van hun cliënten. Forumbeheerders die de privacy van hun gebruikers niet kunnen garanderen. Bits of Freedom, de Piratenpartij, Stichting Privacy First en de Privacy Barometer. Meesters in het ICT-recht. IT'ers die 'RCX' in hun Twitternaam mogen dragen. Hackers (white & black hat), torrentboeren, programmeurs en Brenno. Of gewoon de luitjes van Retecool en Sargasso, als ze ook eens een groot publiek willen bereiken. Hell, als er politici bestonden die vóór een vrij, open en onbespioneerd internet zijn, hadden díe zelfs bij mogen dragen aan #DEFEMBER. Stuur must see docu's, virulente videoboodschappen, prangende blogs of overige belangwekkende bijdragen naar redactie@geenstijl.nl. De redactie beoordeelt, en publiceert indien coherent, kwalitatief, kontschoppend.

Haak aan, schrijf in, doe mee. Gebruik de hashtag, knutsel je eigen twibbon of jat het logo hieronder. #DEFEMBER is open source voor iedereen die zijn privacy, vrijheid en grondrechten koestert.

quote:

OpGabon Update November 2013

Greetings citizens of the world. This is Anonymous. #OpGabon would like to remind all that our fight against ritual killings and corruption in Gabon is not over yet. Please support and join this fight for humanity!


//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

On April 13, 2013, Anonymous launched OpGabon with a press release, with a video and a tweetstorm in order to raise awareness about a new and terrible thing happening in Gabon, increasing every year to the silence of the world's politicians and media.The most gruesome murders are happening to children, men and women, with total impunity, in a country where Ali Bongo puts the army on every street corner every night. These murders are called 'ritual killings' and they are performed in a horrible manner in order to harvest 'spare parts', the sex, ears, tongue, eyes, heart, kidneys, blood, flesh and skin when the victim is still alive. These body parts are then sold to powerful people who are promised youth, health, wealth, promotion, success and especially honor and power, in exchange for the organs of a child, an albino, a young priest, a young woman, etc.

Link for the Press release
http://pastebin.com/b69rhF13

Link for the Tweetstorm
http://pastebin.com/ur5rqPzQ

Link for the Video

ANONYMOUS: #OpGabon Ritual Killings in Gabon, Africa

After OpGabon was first engaged on April 13, the people of Gabon were boosted by Anonymous family support. They decided to have another march on May 11. But President Ali Bongo has changed his message and he started recognizing the existence of ritual killings that he was still denying just a month before. His wife, Sylvia Bongo has all of a sudden became an «activist» against ritual killings, profiting from the momentum created by Anonymous awareness to try to rebuild the tarnished image of the Bongo regime. Ali Bongo and his wife managed to co-opt the march for their own propaganda. Another march organized the same day by civil society members against the involvement of those alleged sponsors of ritual killings was brutally cut short by police and army forces sent by Ali Bongo. Members of civil society were arrested and released late that night. Obviously, the Bongo regime did not want to see real people telling the truth to the world. The Ali Bongo propaganda agenda should not have been disturbed apparently.

Anonymous did not rest and launched another tweetstorm [http://pastebin.com/1WxjvH8A] on the 11th of last May, to protest on behalf of the people of Gabon. We want legal actions taken against ritual killings of children in Gabon. We demand that criminals and their sponsors be prosecuted, including powerful blood suckers and heart eaters who are also politicians.OpGabon has concentrated on ritual killings but that does not mean Anonymous is unaware of the corruption and profligacy of the Bongo regime. We are willing to expand our interest in the Bongo regime to include financial transparency if we feel it becomes necessary. Which it is. As the Ali Bongo regime failed to take concrete actions against ritual killings, especially against (politicians) sponsors who are at the centre of the network of killings for organs.

On June 15, 2013, OpGabon was re-engaged [

Government Corruption, Embezzlement and Bribery in Gabon, Africa | A message from Anonymous

to raise awareness on corruption and embezzlement by the Ali Bongo regime and the entire Bongo. In fact, one family, the Bongo, has been ruling Gabon, with an iron fist, for more than 46 years. After a contested fraudulent election, Ali Bongo Ondimba succeeded his father Omar Bongo, who died in 2009, after being in power for 42 years. Ali Bongo came into power with blood on his hands after people were killed for protesting against his electoral coup.

The Bongo family for decades has been taking bribes, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars, and presiding over a system rife with corruption, embezzlements and ritual killings. According to Yahoo Finance, Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba, along with his associates, pocketed 25% of Gabon's GDP in last 3 years. He is said to be worth over $US 1 billion (very conservative amount).

Our action has granted a Gabon human rights activist an interview with RT.com [

Gabon Ritual Killings | Interview with Franck Jocktane

on Breaking The Set, to discuss the ritual killings and corruption in Gabon.

But time now has come to hit harder on the Bongo regime. The fact of the matter is, this regime finds its strength in money stolen from Oil and other resources that Gabon exports like timber and manganese. For this regime to feel pressured to do something, the corrupt president and his collaborators have to know that their financial networks are disturbed. Money is everything for this regime and its a highly important to disrupt the financial (corrupt) system in Gabon, that is, banks (all in control of the regime directly or indirectly), oil and mine companies and government financial establishments (treasury, budget and finance; to name a few).

Anonymous revealed to the world the atrocities of ritual crimes committed by cannibals and corrupt politicians sponsors. We know it is a daunting task, but since April 13, 2013, we are moving forward. The work is not finished. We need the involvement of the more Anonymous we can have to bend the dictatorial regime of Bongo in Gabon.

As municipal elections are coming in December 2013 in Gabon, ritual killings have been on the rise, again. We were informed about the killing and mutilation of 4 years old girl, Catherine, in early November 2013 [pic.twitter.com/Gj1OzysOjV]. Followed by the murders of a young man, 22 and another man in his 40's with their blood sucked out (those are the cases we hear of, for others, we won't). No one has been arrested. Even when some are arrested, there are no sentence or conviction and so, no justice is served for the victims and their families. It is important to note that victims of ritual crimes in Gabon are poor people because they have no voice.

Gabon politicians need to stop killing (or having killed) children and eating their organs for luck, youth, power and money! This is total nonsense and crimes against humanity! [pic.twitter.com/Lw2w1f415E]

OpGabon would like to thank all the Anon family for all the dedication to our cause for a Gabon free of scabrous rituals crimes against children and others. The people of Gabon recognizes the work of Anonnymous and congratulated them for its operations. Those who can not thank you openly do not do so for fear of reprisals from secret service of
the dictatorship of Bongo.

Thank your all for your support! -OpGabon

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


Fellow Anons of the world, let us come together and fight for humanity in these corrupt hours of Gabon. Let us shine light upon this dark regime with our torches. Let us revive the miserable situation that Ali Bongo has placed upon the wonderful people of Gabon. No more, will the sound of 'change' only be heard within Ali Bongos pockets. Let us 'break change'. Let that sound of clashing be the metronome of a Rhythmic Revolution Uproar for the People of Gabon.

Within these last couple of months during recon, we have noticed a tremendous amount of regime owned websites reconstruct their infrastructur to better suit their security needs, and hand full of sites outsourced ITs from France. Many sites were taken down by the regime to avoid exploitation. Yet others upgraded their servers, some started to implement WAF, and some decided to get total make overs but overlooked their vulns. Through the course of it all we have had spectacular ddos's and a variety of leaks against regime sites. In actuality, the interwebs in Gabon are in very young, and there are plenty places to play.

https://www.cyberguerrill(...)I6EcgptpzJpGxbvjrso=

----



On behalf of the victims of barbaric politicians using human organs that they eat for power, money, luck or success, we WILL continue to seek vengeance upon the regime in any possible form within the anon arsenal.

[ we are anonymous || we are legion || we do not forgive nor foget || expect us ]

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

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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

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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.”

twitter:

ECA_Legion twitterde op dinsdag 28-01-2014 om 23:11:43 It's not just you nsa.gov appears to be Down via #Anonymous reageer retweet

twitter:

r3v3r3nd_m4yh3m twitterde op dinsdag 28-01-2014 om 23:30:15 STEAL THIS TWEET nsa.gov #TANGODOWN #Anonymous #ProtectSnowden #FreeAnons #OpBlitzkrieg We Are Legion #AntiSec #LulzSec reageer retweet

quote:

Feds illegally poured through journalist’s computer for evidence of hacking, says attorney

US federal agents illegally obtained evidence against a former Reuters journalist when they scoured his computer for documents that were not mentioned in the search warrant they were granted, the reporter’s attorney argued in court Wednesday.

Matthew Keys, 26, was charged in 2012 with conspiring with hackers from Anonymous, providing them with a username and password that allowed them access to the Los Angeles Times website and subsequently change a headline. When federal agents investigating Keys examined the computer in question they accessed files Keys had sent about his own case to another journalist who was at work on a book about the anonymous hacking collective.

Keys’ attorney, Jay Leiderman, asked the US district court in Sacramento to suppress any evidence the police obtained from that computer.

“The warrant did not give the power to rummage through the journalist’s files,” he said Wednesday, nothing “there is no indication of why all this information needed to be seized.”

How the prosecution plans to use the information investigators obtained is unclear, however authorities said the search needed to be conducted because files relevant to the investigation may have been deleted by Keys. Attorneys cited child pornography investigations, in which entire hard drives are often seized, provide a precedent for this case.

According to the Guardian, Leiderman responded by saying that a child porn example is irrelevant to this case and asserted that Keys, being a journalist, would not destroy files that were part of an ongoing story.

The Justice Department claims that Keys, dejected over being fired from his job at KXTL Fox 40, a Tribune Company subsidiary, gave his log-in information to hackers in an Anonymous chat room and told them to “go f**k some shit up.” They then infiltrated the site of the Los Angeles Times, another Tribune company, and changed a headline from “Pressure builds in House to Pass Tax-Cuts” to “Pressure Builds in House to Elect CHIPPY 1337,” a reference to another hacker group.

Prosecutors explained that the plan was designed to “make unauthorized changes to web sites that the Tribune Company used to communicate news features to the public; and to damage computer systems used by the Tribune Company.”

Leiderman said that Keys was acting as an embedded journalist when the alleged criminal activity occurred in 2010. Keys faces up to 25 years in prison and a $750,000 fine if convicted, although prosecutors told the Associated Press last year that Keys would likely be sentenced to between 10 and 27 months behind bars because he has no criminal record. Keys has refused a plea bargain.

“He met these people in chat rooms, they knew he was a journalist and knew where he used to work,” Leiderman told the Huffington Post, adding that the credentials Keys provided were incapable of gaining access to the LA Times site. “There’s an incongruity to all of this that we’re hoping to get to the bottom of in the next couple months.”

quote:

Anonymous hacks the FBI

We know who your agents are

The Slovenian branch of Anonymous claims it has hacked the FBI and uploading email addresses and personal information relating to the director to online storage site Pastebin.

Black-Shadow of the Slovenian branch of Anonymous said he has posted the FBI domain email addresses and passwords for 68 agents, although the user claims in his post that the collected log-in details are "not all ours".

His post also includes a short profile on FBI director James Comey, including sensitive information such as his date of birth, his wife's name, the date they got married, his educational history and even the geographical coordinates of his residence. Handy if you have access to a spare drone or cruise missile.

Two internal FBI websites are also included in the post – the FBI's Virtual Academy website from its training division, and the FBI Agents Association.

Two of the FBI's domain name servers for its website www.fbi.gov were targeted, and the hackers took information from seven open ports on the servers.

Anonymous Slovenia posted the Pastebin link on its Facebook Page, along with the comment "Laughing at your security." We guess that the only thing the Americans could come back at is that the Slovenians serve donkey in their pizza restaurants.

Anonymous has been out of the headlines lately thanks mostly to infighting amongst its members. It had developed a reputation for being script kiddies using DoS attacks. This particular take down suggests that there are some good hackers in the organisation who are working despite of the organisation's shortcomings.

Read more: http://news.techeye.net/b(...)he-fbi#ixzz2sN7EZmOf

quote:

War on Anonymous: British Spies Attacked Hackers, Snowden Docs Show

quote:

A secret British spy unit created to mount cyber attacks on Britain’s enemies has waged war on the hacktivists of Anonymous and LulzSec, according to documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News.

The blunt instrument the spy unit used to target hackers, however, also interrupted the web communications of political dissidents who did not engage in any illegal hacking. It may also have shut down websites with no connection to Anonymous.

According to the documents, a division of Government Communications Headquarters Communications (GCHQ), the British counterpart of the NSA, shut down communications among Anonymous hacktivists by launching a “denial of service” (DDOS) attack – the same technique hackers use to take down bank, retail and government websites – making the British government the first Western government known to have conducted such an attack.

The documents, from a PowerPoint presentation prepared for a 2012 NSA conference called SIGDEV, show that the unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, or JTRIG, boasted of using the DDOS attack – which it dubbed Rolling Thunder -- and other techniques to scare away 80 percent of the users of Anonymous internet chat rooms.

The existence of JTRIG has never been previously disclosed publicly.

The documents also show that JTRIG infiltrated chat rooms known as IRCs and identified individual hackers who had taken confidential information from websites. In one case JTRIG helped send a hacktivist to prison for stealing data from PayPal, and in another it helped identify hacktivists who attacked government websites.

In connection with this report, NBC is publishing documents that Edward Snowden took from the NSA before fleeing the U.S. The documents are being published with minimal redactions.

Intelligence sources familiar with the operation say that the British directed the DDOS attack against IRC chat rooms where they believed criminal hackers were concentrated. Other intelligence sources also noted that in 2011, authorities were alarmed by a rash of attacks on government and corporate websites and were scrambling for means to respond.

“While there must of course be limitations,” said Michael Leiter, the former head of the U.S. government’s National Counterterrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst, “law enforcement and intelligence officials must be able to pursue individuals who are going far beyond speech and into the realm of breaking the law: defacing and stealing private property that happens to be online.”

“No one should be targeted for speech or thoughts, but there is no reason law enforcement officials should unilaterally declare law breakers safe in the online environment,” said Leiter.

But critics charge the British government with overkill, noting that many of the individuals targeted were teenagers, and that the agency’s assault on communications among hacktivists means the agency infringed the free speech of people never charged with any crime.

“Targeting Anonymous and hacktivists amounts to targeting citizens for expressing their political beliefs,” said Gabriella Coleman, an anthropology professor at McGill University and author of an upcoming book about Anonymous. “Some have rallied around the name to engage in digital civil disobedience, but nothing remotely resembling terrorism. The majority of those embrace the idea primarily for ordinary political expression.” Coleman estimated that the number of “Anons” engaged in illegal activity was in the dozens, out of a community of thousands.

quote:

The New Snowden Revelation Is Dangerous for Anonymous — And for All of Us

^{By Gabriella Coleman 02.04.14}

The latest Snowden-related revelation is that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) proactively targeted the communications infrastructure used by the online activist collective known as Anonymous.

Specifically, they implemented distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the internet relay chat (IRC) rooms used by Anonymous. They also implanted malware to out the personal identity details of specific participants. And while we only know for sure that the U.K.’s GCHQ and secret spy unit known as the “Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group” (JTRIG) launched these attacks in an operation called “Rolling Thunder,” the U.S.’ NSA was likely aware of what they were doing because the British intelligence agents presented their program interventions at the NSA conference SIGDEV in 2012. (Not to mention the two agencies sharing close ties in general.)

Whether you agree with the activities of Anonymous or not — which have included everything from supporting the Arab Spring protests to DDoSing copyright organizations to doxing child pornography site users — the salient point is that democratic governments now seem to be using their very tactics against them.

The key difference, however, is that while those involved in Anonymous can and have faced their day in court for those tactics, the British government has not. When Anonymous engages in lawbreaking, they are always taking a huge risk in doing so. But with unlimited resources and no oversight, organizations like the GCHQ (and theoretically the NSA) can do as they please. And it’s this power differential that makes all the difference.

twitter:

musalbas twitterde op woensdag 05-02-2014 om 12:36:22 The joke's on GCHQ to be honest, AnonOps IRC was down every other day anyway due to Ryan and others DDoSing it out of boredom. reageer retweet

quote:

700+ Russian websites - #TANGO #DOWN #LegionOps

quote:

700+ Russian websites - #TANGO #DOWN
############################################################
We warned you Russia. Now you will feel the pain of 700 DOGS.
#LegionOps
#OpSochi
###################################################################################
It's not just you! http://ibm-mos.ru looks down from here.
It's not just you! http://sexandthecity.ru looks down from here.
It's not just you! http://www.you-tube.ru looks down from
####################################################################################
Found 742 domains hosted on the same web server as www.gilat.ru (109.70.27.4).

twitter:

BiellaColeman twitterde op vrijdag 07-02-2014 om 15:56:33 4 D's " Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, and Deceive." Sounds a lot like GCHQ engages in Trolling http://t.co/hfzv5Z7Kyu reageer retweet

quote:

Anonymous revealed to be under attack from both corporate and government spies

quote:

The attacks were accompanied by threatening emails sent anonymously to those persons JTRIG could identify. When the digital smoke cleared and the attacked servers recovered, chat room participation had dropped 80 percent according to the GCHQ's own documents. The attacks came immediately before a nation-wide crackdown on the Occupy movement, which was later found to be coordinated by a non-profit group called the Police Executive Research Foundation (PERF), which has a board comprised of big-city police chiefs in the United States and Great Britain. The temporary disruption of Anonymous appears to have been done in advance of a wave of brutality against protestors to keep hackivists from organizing online.

quote:

Taken together, the efforts of both JTRIG and Gourley show that the corporatized national security state uses its vast surveillance powers not just to track terrorists, but to attack citizens engaged in dissent. If that dissent consists of taking a stand against alleged institutional child abuse or keeping the homeless from freezing to death it is still targeted by the best highest technology and the most classified operatives.

quote:

Statement on GCHQ's war against Anonymous

The recent news that GCHQ, the British SIGINT directorate, was involved in wide-ranging DDoS of IRC communications channels for global activists is shocking but comes as no surprise to Project PM.

Since its inception, Project PM's wiki and IRC channels have been subject to a determined barrage of sophisticated attacks from a number of different adversaries, with the aim of crippling a First Amendment protected journalism organization. One such attack on our IRC server was so massive it was said to have disrupted the internet for the entire country in which the server was hosted.

Western intelligence services, in an attempt to combat a handful of criminal hackers out of tens of thousands of programmers, journalists, activists & researchers, decided to abuse the law in a fantastically egregious fashion and target not just Project PM, but countless other networks worldwide. These actions, while not just a chilling attack on freedom of speech and association, also gravely undermined efforts to organize safety for activists being repressed, attacked and slaughtered in places like Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Greece, to name a few.

In essence, GCHQ's gross negligence charts a path that started with targeting a few hackers and blossomed into a behavior that undermines the foundational foreign policy objectives of the State Dept., non-governmental organizations and unaligned activists involved in pro-democracy activities. GCHQ's reckless actions also erode the very fundamental purpose a SIGINT directorate is supposed to serve — keeping channels of communication open.

In addition to the documented attacks on Project PM's IRC during 2011, this very wiki has been subjected to relentless bot spam that goes far beyond the normal expected level of activity, has required countless man-hours to remove, and which was traced to internet protocol addresses suspected to be associated with private contracting entities.

Furthermore, during the relevant time frame the information operations engaged by Barrett Brown were continuously targeted for disruption, as the record clearly shows that his online presence was incessantly intimidated and harassed by covert actors, many of whom appeared to be ex-military and somehow associated with HBGary.

As a response to the reports which have been enabled by the whistle-blowing of Edward Snowden, himself a former contractor and thus not covered by whistle-blower protection laws, Project PM urges a renewed effort by an informed citizenry to oppose and expose rogue elements of the intelligence community, consistent with the serious threats to human rights, democracy and transparency posed by this creeping militarization of the internet.

Our statement on GCHQ's war against Anonymous.

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quote:

Anonymous Fights Against Venezuelan Govt, Takes Down Several Sites

Anonymous is making a claim on Twitter regarding some attacks on Venezuelan governmental websites. According to several Twitter accounts, some sites were hacked, while others were disrupted with DDoS attacks.

One of the affected sites belongs to the Ministry of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs, while another belongs to the Public Stock Exchange, but the list is longer.

As mentioned, some were hacked, while others were taken down with DDoS attacks.

The announcements come after many days of public protests and several deaths during clashes between protesters and government forces. The country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, has called the events a coup and has asked for the arrest of the leader of the opposition.

Twitter users that have a contract with CANTV, a state-owned ISP, are complaining about not being able to view images anymore. Twitter, as in many other protests, has become the go-to service for people who want to organize rallies and that makes it a target for unhappy governmental forces.

twitter:

YourAnonCentral twitterde op zaterdag 15-02-2014 om 16:20:36 A special shout out to Stephen Hawking for being the voice over of every single #Anonymous video all these years. http://t.co/jdrERjZSxw reageer retweet

quote:

Twitter Account of Venezuela’s United Socialist Party Hacked

The verified Twitter account of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has been hacked by LulzSec Peru.

The hacktivists have changed the @PartidoPSUV account’s pictures. The profile’s description currently reads “Don’t mess with the best. Hacked by LulzSec Peru.”

After hijacking the account, the hackers posted and retweeted tens of anti-government messages. The attack comes shortly after the Venezuelan state-owned ISP CANTV started blocking Twitter users from seeing certain images and avatar photos.

At the time of writing, the Twitter account of the political party is still controlled by LulzSec Peru.

This isn’t the first time LulzSec Peru hijacks the PSUV’s Twitter account. They also hacked it back in November 2012.

The people of Venezuela are protesting these days against the government. Three protesters were killed earlier this week.

Anonymous: Venezuela PR (Global Conflicts)

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quote:

FuckFBIFriday-pt.duex

quote:

http://www.fgma.gov.ve/

r00t3d

also go ahead and download the mail spool see if there is anything good eh?....

the mail sp00l is 585MB so still uploading at this time....yea its not Friday anymore
Fuck them anyway

quote:

Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters

quote:

Top-secret documents from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart reveal for the first time how the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks and other activist groups with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution.

The efforts – detailed in documents provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – included a broad campaign of international pressure aimed not only at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but at what the U.S. government calls “the human network that supports WikiLeaks.” The documents also contain internal discussions about targeting the file-sharing site Pirate Bay and hacktivist collectives such as Anonymous.

One classified document from Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s top spy agency, shows that GCHQ used its surveillance system to secretly monitor visitors to a WikiLeaks site. By exploiting its ability to tap into the fiber-optic cables that make up the backbone of the Internet, the agency confided to allies in 2012, it was able to collect the IP addresses of visitors in real time, as well as the search terms that visitors used to reach the site from search engines like Google.

Another classified document from the U.S. intelligence community, dated August 2010, recounts how the Obama administration urged foreign allies to file criminal charges against Assange over the group’s publication of the Afghanistan war logs.

A third document, from July 2011, contains a summary of an internal discussion in which officials from two NSA offices – including the agency’s general counsel and an arm of its Threat Operations Center – considered designating WikiLeaks as “a ‘malicious foreign actor’ for the purpose of targeting.” Such a designation would have allowed the group to be targeted with extensive electronic surveillance – without the need to exclude U.S. persons from the surveillance searches.

In 2008, not long after WikiLeaks was formed, the U.S. Army prepared a report that identified the organization as an enemy, and plotted how it could be destroyed. The new documents provide a window into how the U.S. and British governments appear to have shared the view that WikiLeaks represented a serious threat, and reveal the controversial measures they were willing to take to combat it.

In a statement to The Intercept, Assange condemned what he called “the reckless and unlawful behavior of the National Security Agency” and GCHQ’s “extensive hostile monitoring of a popular publisher’s website and its readers.”

“News that the NSA planned these operations at the level of its Office of the General Counsel is especially troubling,” Assange said. “Today, we call on the White House to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the extent of the NSA’s criminal activity against the media, including WikiLeaks, its staff, its associates and its supporters.”

Illustrating how far afield the NSA deviates from its self-proclaimed focus on terrorism and national security, the documents reveal that the agency considered using its sweeping surveillance system against Pirate Bay, which has been accused of facilitating copyright violations. The agency also approved surveillance of the foreign “branches” of hacktivist groups, mentioning Anonymous by name.

The documents call into question the Obama administration’s repeated insistence that U.S. citizens are not being caught up in the sweeping surveillance dragnet being cast by the NSA. Under the broad rationale considered by the agency, for example, any communication with a group designated as a “malicious foreign actor,” such as WikiLeaks and Anonymous, would be considered fair game for surveillance.

Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute who specializes in surveillance issues, says the revelations shed a disturbing light on the NSA’s willingness to sweep up American citizens in its surveillance net.

“All the reassurances Americans heard that the broad authorities of the FISA Amendments Act could only be used to ‘target’ foreigners seem a bit more hollow,” Sanchez says, “when you realize that the ‘foreign target’ can be an entire Web site or online forum used by thousands if not millions of Americans.”

twitter:

AnonyOps twitterde op dinsdag 18-02-2014 om 14:48:05 The word "Terrorist" is now about as meaningless as it was in the movie "V for Vendetta". reageer retweet

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Anonymous threat: GCHQ Website disrupted by DDoS

Tomorrow GCHQ’s website www.gchq.gov.uk was suffering from downtime and it could be a denial of service attack, some of the noticeable performance issues yesterday:


About GCHQ:

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the British government and armed forces.

Last Week, it was revelaed by the documents from the NSA Leaker Snowdens documents that the British Spy Agency GCHQ used DDoS Attack against the Anonymous hackers during the operation Payback which was used to take down some high profile websites like: MasterCard, Visa, Amazon, Moneybookers, and PostFinance.

Upon searching more about the Snowden documets we find that DDoS Attacks are illegal in the UK under the Police and Justice Act 2006, yet the leaked secret slides shows that GCHQ may have used such techniques against Anonymous.



One of the website of Anonymous group of hackers anonnews.org published a statement after the revelation of Secret documents which showed GCHQ attacked on Anonymous through DDoS Attacks.

twitter:

AnonOpsCenter twitterde op woensdag 12-02-2014 om 05:46:03 GCHQ.gov.uk is still #TANGODOWN We are anonymous.It is far to late to expect us. http://t.co/PVbTunXjqt reageer retweet

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op donderdag 20-02-2014 om 15:43:17 police.gov.ua is down, thanks to #Anonymous. reageer retweet

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Anonymous ‘Hacktivists’ Send A Message To White Supremacist Website

Last Friday afternoon, “Anonymous” hacker took control of the official website of the “Nationalist Movement,” a white supremacist organization.

The Mississippi white power group was brought to media attention over the years when they held multiple marches on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to protest the federal holiday honoring the civil rights leader.

Friday, the group found their homepage, nationalist.org defaced, declaring an anti-fascist message:

“Greetings, fellow Anons and Citizens of the world. It has come to our attention that Fascists and white power groups across the world are causing the spread of hate and ignorance,” the message stated. “A spectre is haunting the Earth, the spectre of Facism [sic].

“For long, we have seen the damage caused by the ideology of white supremacy. We have seen, and participated in, many decades of resistance to white supremacy. We, and others, will never stop fighting fascism and racism wherever it rears its head.”

The rest of the white supremacist website, however, appeared to function normally.

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First Scientology wedding in UK to be streamed live on internet

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The most important thing you’ll see today: Internet censorship world map

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op dinsdag 04-03-2014 om 01:08:59 Hope you guys are ready for this... #popcorn. reageer retweet

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op dinsdag 04-03-2014 om 01:12:02 doc.mil.ru is down, thanks to #Anonymous. reageer retweet

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op dinsdag 04-03-2014 om 01:13:52 could keep on going... 50 .ml.ru sites are down, the whole list: http://t.co/xstyFDWTZ5 reageer retweet

twitter:

ioerror twitterde op dinsdag 04-03-2014 om 13:34:50 It looks like #anonymous #italy is taking on #hackingteam: https://twitter.com/OperationItaly/status/440818556901408768 Hilarious times ahead, I'm sure. reageer retweet

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Attorneys for Barrett Brown want case on linking to hacked material dismissed

The US activist-journalist faces 100 years in prison for posting hyperlink to site containing hacked material in chat room

Lawyers acting for Barrett Brown, the activist-journalist facing more than 100 years in prison for having posted a hyperlink to hacked material, have called for his case to be dismissed on grounds that it violates his First Amendment rights to free speech and would chill the internet.

Brown, 32, is being held in Texas ahead of two scheduled trials on 28 April and 19 May. He is charged with a total of 17 counts in three separate indictments relating to his work uncovering online surveillance.

The main allegation against him – spanning 12 counts - is that he posted a hyperlink on an internet chat room to a website containing material hacked from the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc, (Stratfor). The hack included email addresses of 860,000 Stratfor subscribers as well as 60,000 credit card details.

In a legal memorandum lodged with a federal court in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, Brown’s lawyers argued that the charges against him should be dropped ahead of trial because they were too vague and were in breach of his constitutional right to free speech. By hyperlinking to the hacked material, Brown did not “transfer” the stolen information as he arguably would have done had he embedded the link on his web page, but merely created a path to files that had already been published elsewhere that were in the public domain.

“Republishing a hyperlink does not itself move, convey, select, place or otherwise transfer, a file or document from one location to another... The government only alleges that Mr Brown ‘transferred’ a hyperlink containing directions to where the Stratfor file was already placed by another person when the Stratfor files were uploaded to public web servers,” the motion argues.

Brown’s case is being closely watched by First Amendment lawyers, publishers and activists who fear that a conviction could set a precedent that would criminalise the very act of linking on the internet. His legal team, led by Ahmed Ghappour of the University of Texas law school in Austin, point to a wide range of public activities that could be impacted.

The lawyers list “everyday members of the public desiring to conduct research on the internet, cyber security researchers who wish to analyze and prevent cyber-attacks and journalists who wish to perform routine press activities such as newsgathering and verification of sources. As such, persons of ordinary firmness would certainly experience chilling of their First Amendment rights.”

Brown is a well known figure in hacking and internet freedom circles, having had his writings published in outlets such as Vanity Fair and the Guardian. Until his arrest in September 2012, he ran a collaborative web publication, Project PM, that engaged in issues relating to official leaks and the work of the hacking collective Anonymous.

On 25 December 2011, he posted on his Project PM internet chat room the hyperlink to the Stratfor material for which he was charged nearly a year later. As the legal memo points out, the same hyperlink had already been posted on a separate chat room. By that point the FBI had also been fully aware of the disclosure of confidential information for several days.

Kevin Goldberg, a First Amendment expert who is legal counsel for the American Society of News Editors, said the Brown case raised serious issues about the potential criminalisation of the act of linking. “If we can be held criminally liable for hyperlinking to a website, the implications are profound. Are we to be expected to understand everything about a site before we link to it – that seems overly burdensome.”

He added: “What if I link to a sports outlet that I find interesting, but I don’t realise there’s an element of the page that is defamatory. Am I to be held responsible? That would be very chilling for the internet.”

twitter:

Edpilkington twitterde op woensdag 05-03-2014 om 18:30:35 BREAKING in Barrett Brown case - US gov files motion to dismiss own criminal charges vs BB for posting a web hyperlink to hacked material reageer retweet

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Anonymous launches cyber attacks in defense of Ukraine

Hackers have taken down several Russian media website in the past week and alleged attacks on defense infrastructure in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

On March 7, the website of Rossiyskaya Gazeta, one of the largest Russian dailies, the paper of record of the Russian government, and the parent company of RBTH, was taken offline by cyber terrorists. In Google, the publication’s title was changed to “pwned by CyberMaidan.”

Rossiyskaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Vladislav Fronin said that the site was obviously the victim of a cyber attack.

“There is no doubt that it was hacked. It was done by professionals who first messed around on the site, and then took down the server. They left their mark – Maydanovskaya sotnya (Maidan100),” Fronin said.

In Russia, the Information Security Center (TsIB) of the FSB and the Bureau of Special Technical Measures (BSTM) of the Ministry of Interior Affairs are responsible for handling cyber threats.

The TsIB fends off foreign intelligence services, extremists, and criminal organizations in cyberspace, and the BSTM mainly investigates computer crimes.

The Kiber sotnya organization, which is suspected in the hacking, posted a denial on its Facebook page stating that while they “stand up to Russian propaganda,” they do not “deserve the credit for hacking the Rossiyskaya Gazeta site.”

Russian anti-virus company Kaspersky Labs, a global leader in cybersecurity, announced that it was investigating the attack at the request of Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

This is the not the first instance of hack attacks on media associated with the Russian government. On Sunday, March 2 the website of TV channel RT was also attacked by cyber terrorists, who posted inflammatory headlines on the homepage.

“They hacked the administrator’s access. Control over the site has been restored,” a spokesperson for the channel said.

On March 6, the hacker group Anonymous posted documents online that allegedly disclosed the dealings of Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport and announced a cyberwar against Russia’s military industry.

According to a message from Anonymous posted on Cyberguerilla.org, the hackers are determined to disrupt the infrastructure of the Russian defense industry as much as possible.

Anonymous writes that they have also managed to infect computers from Oboronprom, Sukhoi design bureau, Gazflot, UC Rusal, Veles-Capital, and others with viruses.

Rosoboronexport refused to comment on the hacking.

Vitaly Kamlyuk, a leading antivirus expert at Kaspersky Labs said that the increasing reliance of companies on technology also increased their vulnerability

“It is clear that our dependence on technology, as well as the enormous computing power of today’s computers, have made us potentially vulnerable to attacks on very diverse targets. We have already seen Anonymous act in other countries. And, despite all the measures that have been taken, cyber attacks will most likely continue in the future,” Kamlyuk said.

IlyaSachkov, CEO of Group-IB, which specializes in cybercrimes, thinks that the hack attacks have already crossed the line into actual cyber warfare.

“The war is already underway, and its main goal is to attack public opinion,” Sachkov said. “Informational resources like social networks, blogs and microblogs are used to create turmoil and confusion.”

But not all experts agree. “It is hardly appropriate to call it a cyberwar, in this case it is more likely hacktivism. This is a form of cyber attack used as a political or social protest. It is much easier to attack a government website or the media than to organize a real protest or demonstration. Hacktivists begin to be particularly active during tense political events. That is what we are seeing now, in light of what is happening in Ukraine,” said Kamlyuk.

twitter:

BiellaColeman twitterde op zondag 16-03-2014 om 15:42:08 Ceiling cat, once part of the infinite mythical jest of the collective Internet imagination has been found in Toronto http://t.co/8R3CZVXbNa reageer retweet

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My cat got lost in the ceiling. I hit the roof

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Media Release: Narconon Argentina closed today reported by Anonymous

Earlier today, March 17, 2014, Anonymous Argentina reported that the Scientology drug rehab, Narconon Buenos Aires, Argentina, "has been closed for tax evasion."

Anonymous has been protesting and exposing this destructive cult known as the Church of Scientology since 2009 in Argentina.

The Narconon International link to Narconon in Buenos Aires was down today with only the following visible when clicking on the Website - Argentina Drug Rehab:

[www.narconon.org.ar: Monday 17th of March 2014 11:06:38 PM]

In a lengthy, recorded Skype interview this evening, Anonymous stated that a credible source who recently left Scientology, confirmed the closure was for 'tax evasion'. A phone call to the Scientology ORG in Argentina confirmed Narconon was closed, but no details were given at this time.

Meetings with government authorities are being scheduled to discuss the 'tax evasion' and other matters relating to the closure and possibility of Narconon reopening.

Narconon Buenos Aires was once sponsored by the City Government, Mauricio Macri, "The truth about drugs" in Argentina, with Anonymous responding with: "Again using our money to finance sects, and the illegal practice of medicine that, in addition to violating laws of Mental health-analyzed by legislators and medical specialists."

An article published May 12, 2013, states: "The church, convicted in France for fraud, in Buenos Aires gives "drug" content courses with no scientific basis. They are free because the government pays Macri. It also has a therapeutic community with questionable methods."

"Proudly Syria, an employee of the Church of Scientology, confirms what a huge sign at the entrance to the local church headquarters: "Yes, yes. We are taking courses sponsored by the city government."

However, following the publication of the above article, the government of the city of Buenos Aires stopped financing the courses.

In this photo from left to right is: Gustavo Libardi, Head of Scientology and OSA Argentina, Gloria Martinez from one of their anti-drug front groups "Honrando La Vida" and María Eugenia Vidal, mayor deputy of the City of Buenos Aires last year, when Scientology was lobbying against legalizing drugs in Congress

Anonymous Argentina has a comprehensive website with numerous articles and links to countless Narconon and other stories relating to the abuses inside Scientology and their so-called 'Front-Groups'.

Today, the 'Anonymous Argentina' Facebook page announced the closing of the Buenos Aires Narconon.

Anonymous (a collective group of activists), ex-Scientologists, and the general public have been protesting Scientology since 2008.

On February 10, 2008, thousands of Anonymous joined simultaneous protests at Church of Scientology facilities around the world. Many protesters wore the stylized Guy Fawkes masks popularized by the graphic novel and movie V for Vendetta, in which an anarchist revolutionary battles a totalitarian government; the masks soon became a popular symbol for Anonymous.

Protests, complaints to government and health authorities, investigations, and public outcry have been successful in shuttering numerous Scientology drug rehabs, Narconon, around the globe. Narconon of Georgia, Narconon UK, Narconon Canada, Narconon Alberta, Narconon Trois-Rivieres, and others, have been shut down.

March 11, 2014, saw Yarra Ranges Councillors in Australia, unanimously voted to reject the controversial Scientology's drug rehab, Narconon application that would allow them to shift from East Warburton to Green Gables in La La Ave, Warburton.

As more victims and family members speak out, the real truth about Narconon's fraudulent success rate and horrific abuses are being exposed, with numerous lawsuits for wrongful deaths, fraud, and misrepresentation.

On March 22, 2013, McALESTER Staff Writer, Jeanne LeFlore reported: "Narconon Arrowhead counselors allegedly traded drugs for sex and fraudulently charged a patient's credit card some $14,500, according to allegations in five lawsuits filed Thursday against the facility."

Today's news of Narconon Buenos Aires in Argentina being closed for tax evasion, only adds to Scientology and David Miscavige's nightmare of dwindling revenue and watching their Narconons fall in disgrace like black dominos.

More news to follow once more confirmed details arrive.

Narconon Reviews is a resource website page for a journalist, lawyer, government official, advocate, or individual who is seeking more information about Narconon.

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Anonymous-OS 0.1 : Anonymous Hackers released their own Operating System

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Anonymous Hackers released their own Operating System with name "Anonymous-OS", is Live is an ubuntu-based distribution and created under Ubuntu 11.10 and uses Mate desktop. You can create the LiveUSB with Unetbootin.

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Update: Another Live OS for anonymity available called "Tails". Which is a live CD or live USB that aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity.It helps you to use the Internet anonymously almost anywhere you go and on any computer:all connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network or to leave no trace on the computer you're using unless you ask it explicitly, or use state-of-the-art cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, email and instant messaging. You can Download Tail from Here

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Jake Davis on life beyond LulzSec and hacktivism – Tech Weekly podcast

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Former hacker Jake Davis, known as Topiary, reveals his journey as a teenager towards the darker and illegal realms of the web – and how he is rebuilding his life after prison

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op donderdag 20-03-2014 om 15:48:20 Internet in Syria almost entirely down at 12:26 UTC. Only Aleppo link to Turkey remains connected. http://t.co/lYCjAx0xMR (via -... reageer retweet

twitter:

ECA_Legion twitterde op donderdag 20-03-2014 om 15:51:58 Syria Internet #offline In retaliation to attacks by the Syrian Electronic Army on the West!#SDoS Nuked reageer retweet

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Video: A message from Anonymous Turkey.

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We demand that the Government of Turkey put an immediate end to censorship.

Greetings World.

This most recent bill you have drafted aims to prevent the development of the people of Turkey. If you have your way, the upcoming generation will be left behind in terms of technology, and will not be able to keep up with the rest of the globe.
This will cause the nation to lag behind most of the developed world.

Actually, it is largely evident that you are nothing more than “pawns.” You intend for this nation to be oppressed and deprived of its most basic freedoms. This country, like all others, needs access to technology in order to prosper and prepare for the future.

We will not let you achieve what we perceive as detrimental objectives.
We are working on delivering the aid which the public requires to get informed.
We are warning you! Censorship is a crime!

Put these drafts back on the shelf! Otherwise you shall meet the full wrath of Anonymous!
Expect us, government of Turkey. Never forget that a free internet equals a free mind.

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How to Chain VPNs for Complete Anonymity

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Big name individual hackers and hacker groups everywhere in the news are getting caught and thrown in jail. Everytime I see something like this happen, I won't lie, I get a little sad. Then I wonder, how are these guys getting caught? If a group like LulzSec, with all the fame and "1337-ness" can get caught, I think my hacker comrades are doing something wrong.

When members of LulzSec started getting captured, it was because proxy and VPN services complied to federal request and handed over the private information of its users. I think this is wrong for a number of reasons—foremost, people should be able to have their own privacy respected. Today's Null Byte will be demonstrating one of the methods around this: Chaining VPNs.

A VPN allows you to connect to a remote network, and over all ports, encrypt and forward your traffic. This also changes your IP address. Chaining VPNs is a tricky task, though there is a simple and uncommon method I know of. Using multiple VPNs together has the huge perk of being completely anonymous.

twitter:

dhammicmarxist twitterde op zondag 23-03-2014 om 23:15:52 It appears some Anons took down the Brazilian site for #Monsanto (http://t.co/lxx4QZq9aX). \(^-^)/ #Anonymous reageer retweet

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6 Anti-NSA Technological Innovations That May Just Change the World

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Rather than grovel and beg for the U.S. government to respect our privacy, these innovators have taken matters into their own hands, and their work may change the playing field completely.

People used to assume that the United States government was held in check by the constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and which demands due process in criminal investigations, but such illusions have evaporated in recent years. It turns out that the NSA considers itself above the law in every respect and feels entitled to spy on anyone anywhere in the world without warrants, and without any real oversight. Understandably these revelations shocked the average citizen who had been conditioned to take the government’s word at face value, and the backlash has been considerable. The recent “Today We Fight Back” campaign to protest the NSA’s surveillance practices shows that public sentiment is in the right place. Whether these kinds of petitions and protests will have any real impact on how the U.S. government operates is questionable (to say the least), however some very smart people have decided not to wait around and find out. Instead they’re focusing on making the NSA’s job impossible. In the process they may fundamentally alter the way the internet operates.

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Put all these technologies together and what we see emerging is a new paradigm of communications where decentralized networks replace massive servers, and where social media giants like Facebook and Google may very well go the way of the dinosaur myspace. If you can’t beat them at their game, make their game irrelevant.

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Turkije blokkeert (na Twitter) ook YouTube

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Aanleiding is volgens Hürriyet een uitgelekte opname van een bespreking op hoog niveau over de burgeroorlog in buurland Syrië.

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op donderdag 27-03-2014 om 17:07:38 TOR download site also blocked in #Turkey. Release the mirrors! tormirror.almnet.de/ tor.spline.inf.fu-berlin.de reageer retweet

Anonymous Public DNS door @AnonymousVideo

Anonymous #Op Turkey Twitter Storm 2014

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Anonymous Launches OpAlbuquerque Over Senseless Police Shooting, Scared APD Removes Own Sites

On Mar 24, 2014 The Albuquerque Police Department in the state of New Mexico is coming under fire following the release of video footage taken from the helmet-mounted camera of an officer who shot and killed a man earlier this month for camping. James Boyd, a 38-year-old homeless man thought to be schizophrenic, was shot by the Albuquerque PD on Sunday, March 16.

APD release HelmetCam footage of shooting homeless man dead for illegaly camping

A statement and video was released by Anonymous threatening the Albuquerque police with a Cyber Attack against the websites of the Albuquerque Police Department, and asking the Citizens of Albuquerque to occupy the sites of Albuquerque Police department.

Hundreds of peoples have already protested against the Albuquerque Police for killing the homeless man, which incidentally is the second shooting in the last ten days. Earlier this week Albuquerque Police shot dead a man named Alfred Redwine, saying that Redwine opened fire on the police officers. This is however severely contested by Redwine’s family members who counter claim that he was only holding a cell phone in his hand, not a gun.

Original Statement Released by Anonymous on pastebin reads,

. Greetings city of Albuquerque, we are Anonymous. Recently, a video has been released to the public which shows Albuquerque Police Officers murdering a man in cold blood for ‘illegally camping’. This man, which was schizophrenic, obviously had no intention of hurting these police officers, on the contrary, this man looks as if he is simply attempting to protect himself from visually fierce militarized thugs. Whether this man had a history of crime is irrelevant. We drastically need to address the growing police state that has occupied our country. When will we say no more? How many more citizens will be murdered? Naturally, the APD will attempt to label Anonymous as a terrorist organization for our demands of justice, but the question has to be asked. Who do we terrorize? Is it not a growing police state that terrorizes it’s own citizens? APD you now have the full attention of Anonymous. To the citizens of Albuquerque, it’s time to organize. On March 30th we are asking the citizens of Albuquerque to occupy the APD HQ and occupy the sites of the Albuquerque Police Department. Let them know that your city is not a place for war games against the homeless and the less fortunate. Anonymous grab your cannons and aim them at Albuquerque police websites.

Anonymous has requested their supporters and all the protesters to launch a DDOS attacks against the Albuquerque Police Department’s webpage on the website of the City of Albuquerque (cabq.gov/police) and the Albuquerque Police Department’s site (apdonline.com) on 30th March 2014.

While the operation is yet to be initiated , Surprisingly, the Social media pages including Facebook and Twitter page and some of the websites of Albuquerque Police Department were already.

Today released on KQRE local media the Chief of the APD says they’ve already taken down some of their web sites. Try clicking on their recruiting page and it’s gone. APD has also taken down its Facebook and Twitter pages.

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‘Anonymous International’ Leaks Kremlin's Instructions to Russian TV

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A Russian Internet group called “Anonymous International” has leaked what it claims is a “tyomnik”—a list of prepackaged news stories prepared by the Kremlin for Russia’s central television news stations. The group does not name its source for the document, but the whistleblower says Vladimir Putin’s administration is the author.

The tyomnik (see below for a translation of the first two sections) instructs TV journalists to justify Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea, to laud President Putin’s efforts to develop the region, and even to advertise Crimea’s tourist season, on which the local economy desperately relies. (Russian journalist Ilya Barabanov joked that the talking points for Crimean vacations—“nearby, safe, among our own people”—are oddly similar to the slogan for the Sochi Olympics: “hot, cool, yours.”) The document also coaches television news stations to propagate an apocalyptic description of events in the Ukrainian heartland, where criminals and fascists supposedly run wild.

Russian television has long been infamous for parroting the Kremlin on political issues. It is still rare, however, that the public glimpses this propaganda system’s internal workings. If Anonymous International’s leak is genuine, Russians are getting to peek behind the curtain today.

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Albuquerque police-shootings protest turns into 'mayhem'

• Tear gas used against protesters in New Mexico
• Anonymous warns of cyberattack on city websites

A protest over deadly police shootings turned from peaceful into "mayhem", Albuquerque's mayor said late on Sunday, as officers in riot gear clashed with demonstrators.

People are angry over Albuquerque police's involvement in 37 shootings, 23 of them fatal, since 2010. Critics say that is far too many for a department serving a city of about 555,000.

The US Justice Department has been investigating the department for more than a year, looking into complaints of civil rights violations and allegations of excessive use of force.

Alexander Siderits, 23, said he was participating in the protest because he was "fed up" with how police treat citizens. "It has reached a boiling point, and people just can't take it anymore," he said.

An Associated Press reporter saw gas canisters being thrown and Albuquerque police and Bernalillo County sheriff's deputies charging at the crowds, which had mostly dispersed by late Sunday.

Mayor Richard Berry said one police officer was injured, and at one point protesters trapped police in a vehicle and tried to break the windows, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Berry didn't know of any arrests, and multiple messages left for the police department were not immediately returned. Video by KRQE-TV showed people being led away in restraints, but it was unclear if those people were arrested.

The gathering came days after a YouTube video emerged threatening retaliation for a recent deadly police shooting.

The video, which bore the logo of the computer hacking collective Anonymous, warned of a cyberattack on city websites and called for the protest march. Albuquerque police said their site had been breached on Sunday afternoon, and police spokesman Simon Drobik confirmed the disruption was due to a cyberattack.

In the shooting on 16 March that led to the YouTube posting, a homeless man was killed on the east side of Albuquerque. The shooting was captured on video and followed a long standoff. The FBI has opened an investigation into the shooting.

Last week, Albuquerque police fatally shot a man at a public housing complex. Authorities said he shot at officers before they returned fire.

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Albuquerque – Law Enforcement Shot Another Unarmed Man and Confiscated Videos *Graphic Warning*

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Today, a US Marshal shot an unarmed man in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Police allege that he had not been meeting his parole requirements since February and was wanted on new charges including 3 counts of child abuse and an account of aggravated battery. The victim is Gilbert Angelo Serrano who is currently in stable condition. The victim’s sister and her mother are currently at the UNM Hospital. Police were refusing to let Serrano’s family visit him in the hospital. Right after the shooting, US marshals started confiscating phones that had pictures and video of the shooting. Several witnesses told KRQE that Serrano was not armed. People also came to protest at the scene after news of the shooting spread online.

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Anonymous started #OpAlbuquerque and #APDProtest in response to the police shootings. The Albuquerque police department took down their own website and social media accounts in response. There is a protest planned for April 2 and another protest planned for April 4.

#OpAlbuquerque - List of Demands

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Anonymous Unmasked

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Since its inception in 2003 as an online anarchist collective, Anonymous has been grabbing headlines with their cyber attacks on government, corporate and various other targets. But who are they? High Times speaks to the greatest hacktivists of our generation.

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Anonymous Publishes 0-Day Exploit For D0xing Police Departments

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Members of Anonymous made a recent posting on Pastebin with the tags #OpPigRoast and #OpAlbuquerque in response to the recent actions of the Albuquerque police department, Snowden revelations, and crackdown on the Occupy protest movement. What is described as a 0-Day exploit for D0xing entire police departments, is a simple legal means for the public to identify Police officers, with the intention to develop a nationwide database for the tracking of misconduct.

. Today we bring you a juicy 0-Day exploit affecting U.S. police forces nationwide. It allows for the simple identification and d0xing of entire police departments. While we have been aware of this exploit since 2002, we have traded it only in private, out of fear of its abuse.

The recent actions of the Albuquerque police department, the revelations of Edward Snowden, and the crackdown on the Occupy movement were all events that brought us to release this exploit publicly.

It is powerful because it will force a sense of accountability that is lacking. It is powerful because it is legal. It is powerful because it sheds light on those who abuse their power.

We can begin to monitor them. We can call them out. We can make them feel as vulnerable as they try to make us feel.

We can turn the tide.

Join us. Activist organizations, act upon this exploit before the government patches it. Community organizations, open government advocates, and freedom lovers stand against any attempt to limit our open and democratic access to government data in the name of false security. Datalovers, seed it far and wide.

Collaborate and share the data received, even with your enemies. Check and see if documents are already online, and if not, put them online yourself.

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Anonymous richt vizier op Israël, maar cyberaanval richt weinig schade aan

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'Wij zullen niet stoppen voordat de politiestaat een vrije staat wordt en Palestina vrij is.' Met die woorden kondigde hackerscollectief Anonymous medio vorige week een grote cyberaanval aan op honderden websites van Israëlische ministeries en organisaties, onder de naam #OpIsrael. Vooralsnog lijkt er weinig schade te zijn aangericht.

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Het is Anonymous waarschijnlijk vooral te doen om het trekken van aandacht. Op Twitter, YouTube en posters werd de aanval van 7 april groot aangekondigd.

Anonymous Operation Israel - April, 7 2014

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Nederland voert per direct downloadverbod in na uitspraak Europees Hof

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Anonymous by Anonymous

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Freedom fighters or cyber-terrorists?

Internationally famous for cyber-attacks against the Church of Scientology, government agencies of the US, Israel, Tunisia, Uganda, and others; child pornography sites; copyright protection agencies; the Westboro Baptist Church; and corporations such as PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sony, who are the hacktivist collective known as ‘Anonymous’? What do they think? What motivates them?

In November 2012, The Imaginary Book Co. invited Anonymous to share their thoughts. We wanted to try and capture something of the essence of an imaginary non-organisation, to preserve it as a time-capsule for the future. We believe we’re witnessing the birth of something important, although perhaps it’s too early to even say what it is yet: a new form of democracy? Time will tell...

We assured Anonymous we would not edit, collate, correct, censor, comment upon, or judge what we received. That’s for others to do. We would simply print. We didn’t know what we’d get, if anything. This is what we got.

Anarchic, chaotic, sensible, deep, shallow, thoughtful, radical, revolutionary, and funny, this book is the first time Anonymous have written in their own words; plenty has been written about them, most of it inaccurate. And who’s to say this book itself isn’t more disinformation? Does it express the hopes and desires and motivations of the entire collective? Undoubtedly not; just a small sample of the thousands of reasons why anyone would associate themselves. Nevertheless, it’s a snapshot of Anonymous, right here and now, at this moment in time. If you want to know where Anonymous is headed, this is the book for you. When your government starts burning books, this is the one they’ll come for first…

Published to coincide with Anonymous’ worldwide “Million Mask March” on November 5th 2013, this 212 page paperback book, measuring 190mm x 250mm (7.72 x 10.08 inches) is packed with images, slogans and texts that explain, not only what Anonymous think, but how to get involved yourself.

All royalties from this book are being donated to FreeAnons, which provides legal and moral support for activists facing prosecution for involvement, alleged or otherwise, in Anonymous actions.