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Tag: Anonymous

  • Anonymous Launches #opSOTU: Plans To Kill State Of The Union Address Live Stream

    President Obama will be meeting before a joint session of Congress tonight to deliver the annual State of the Union address. The address will be streamed live on the Internet to the millions of Americans who will be tuning in to hear the president talk about what the future holds. If a certain hacking collective has its way, however, nobody will be watching it.

    Anonymous announced this morning that it’s engaging in #opSOTU, or Battle Royale for the Internet. The operation will see Anonymous attempting to hijack and shutoff the State of the Union address live stream tonight. Here’s the full statement:

    Citizens of the Internet,

    Last year we faced our greatest threat from lawmakers. We faced down SOPA, PIPA, CISPA and ACTA.

    And we won!

    But that victory did not come easily. Nor did it come without a price.

    Aaron Swartz was one of the leading voices in the fight against these idiotic and destructive efforts to control the last free space on Earth.

    Aaron Swartz was persecuted. Now Aaron Swartz is dead.
    Tonight, the President of the United States will appear before a joint session of Congress to deliver the State of the Union Address and tomorrow he plans to sign an executive order for cyber-security as the House Intelligence committee reintroduces the defeated CISPA act which turns private companies into government informants.

    He will not be covering the NDAA, an act of outright tyrannical legislation allowing for indefinite detention of citizens completely outside due process and the rule of law. In fact, lawyers for the government have point-blank refused to state whether or not journalists who cover stories or groups the Government disfavors would be subject to this detention.

    He will not be covering the extra-judicial and unregulated justifications for targeted killings of citizens by military drones within the borders of America, or the fact that Orwellian newspeak had to be used to make words like “imminent” mean their opposite.

    He will not be covering Bradley Manning, 1000 days in detention with no trial for revealing military murders, told that his motive for leaking cannot be taken into consideration, that the Government does not have room for conscience.

    He will not be covering the secret interpretations of law that allow for warrant-less wiretapping and surveillance of any US citizen without probably cause of criminal acts, or the use of Catch-22 logic where no-one can complain about being snooped on because the state won’t tell you who they’re snooping on, and if you don’t know you’re being snooped on, you don’t have a right to complain.

    We reject the State of the Union. We reject the authority of the President to sign arbitrary orders and bring irresponsible and damaging controls to the Internet.

    The President of the United States of America, and the Joint Session of Congress will face an Army tonight.

    We will form a virtual blockade between Capitol Hill and the Internet. Armed with nothing more than Lulz, Nyancat and PEW-PEW-PEW! Lazers, we will face down the largest superpower on Earth.

    And we will win!

    There will be no State of the Union Address on the web tonight.

    For freedom, for Aaron Swartz, for the Internet, and of course, for the lulz.

    We Are Anonymous,
    We Are Legion,
    We Do Not forgive,
    We Do Not forget,
    Expect Us.

    It’s not clear if this is an extension of #OpLastResort, the op that saw the release of banker records and attacks on government Web sites in retaliation for Aaron Swartz’ suicide. It certainly sounds like it, but Anonymous is dragging other issues it’s heavily opposed to, like NDAA, into the mix this time as well.

    Will Anonymous be successful in their most daring and potentially visible operation yet? I highly doubt it, but it would certainly be something if Anonymous succeeded in hijacking the State of the Union address.

  • Turns Out Anonymous Did Hack Into The Federal Reserve

    On Sunday evening, Anonymous leaked over 4,000 banker profiles it claimed to have stolen from the federal reserve. The information contained names, addresses, IP addresses, hashed passwords and other sensitive information. Now the federal reserve has confirmed the hack, but says no “critical functions” were affected.

    ZDNet reports that the Federal Reserve sent out notices to affected individuals earlier this week confirming an intrusion on their system. In a statement to Reuters, a spokesperson said the Federal Reserve was “aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a Web site vendor product.” The vulnerability was reportedly fixed, and should cause no more problems in the future.

    Of course, that doesn’t fix the fact that a list containing the personal data of over 4,000 bankers is still floating around the Internet. The Federal Reserve downplayed the hack by telling those affected that their passwords were not compromised. That’s technically true, but there’s still cause for concern.

    Speaking to ZDNet, Jon Waldman, a senior information security consultant for financial institutions, said the hashed passwords included in the leak could be easily decrypted by hackers. The list which contained the information is no longer on the original hacked Alabama Web site, but it’s reportedly being hosted on a Chinese Web site for hackers to get a hold of. Waldman says the existence of this information means that banking executives “will be specific targets of Social Engineering and hacking attacks.”

    It remains to be seen if any of the leaked information has led to attacks on individual banks. Waldman certainly thinks they’re at risk, but you would hope that banks would be wary of any attempts to solicit info after this latest attack.

    We’ll continue to follow the exploits of Anonymous in #OpLastResort. It doesn’t appear that the hacktivist collective is done just yet, and likely has more attacks planned in the coming weeks.

    [Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

  • Anonymous Leaks Banker Executive Info It Stole From The Federal Reserve

    Last week, Anonymous began #OpLastResort in response to the suicide of Aaron Swartz. The hacktivist collective demanded cyber crime reform and threatened to unlock an encrypted file that may contain potentially classified information if their demands were not met. Long story short, their demands were not met, so Anonymous has kicked it up a notch.

    Last night during the Super Bowl, Anonymous hacked the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center’s Web site. There was no defacement this time around, but the group did use the Web site to upload a document containing the credentials of over 4,000 bank executives. The document contained login information, IP addresses, physical addresses and contact information.

    Of course, Anonymous could have just posted some random numbers to scare people, right? ZDNet points to a Reddit thread where some members called the leaked numbers and confirmed that they are in fact the real deal. The thread also confirms that the document was up for at least eight hours, if not longer, before it was taken down.

    According to the #OpLastResort Twitter feed, this latest info drop was made in anticipation of the February 4 deadline set by the House in its investigation into the DoJ’s handling of the Aaron Swartz case. A letter penned by Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings demands the Justice Department set up a hearing appointment by today.

    So, what’s Anonymous up to now? Those involved in #OpLastResort are now waiting on a response from the Justice Department. It’s hard to imagine that the DoJ would set up a hearing with the House in regards to the Aaron Swartz case, but I would assume that the department will be issuing a statement today in regards to the posting of personal information stolen from Federal Reserve.

    We’ll continue to follow this story as Anonymous still holds its threat of unlocking that encrypted file over everybody’s heads. The #OpLastResort movement also seems to have something planned for February 6 – the day of the NDAA lawsuit hearing. We’ll keep an eye out for any further activity.

  • #OpLastResort Is Anonymous’ Latest Fight Against U.S. Government

    Ever since the death of Aaron Swartz, hacktivist collective Anonymous has been on the warpath against those it blames for his death. MIT’s Web site was immediately taken offline and defaced in the wake of his death, but now Anonymous is going after a much bigger entity – the U.S. government.

    Over the weekend, Anonymous hacked and defaced ussc.gov – the U.S. Sentencing Commission Web site. ZDNet reports that the hack left the Web site unavailable for a number of hours. The Web site has been intermittently down since then. Anonymous also obtained a wealth of classified information that it’s now holding ransom.

    The ransom is the central part of #OpLastResort. Nobody knows what the 900 MB encrypted file contains, but Anonymous says that it holds particularly sensitive information. In fact, the group has taken to calling it a warhead, and says it will release the decryption keys if its demands for legal reform are not met.

    Here’s the statement that comes with the “Anonymous Warhead:”

    Citizens of the world,

    Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the “discretion” of prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.

    Since the release of the encryption information, Anonymous has been attacking the Sentencing Commission Web site non-stop. ZDNet reports that Anonymous defaced the Web site a second time, but this time turned it into a game of Asteroids that visitors to the site would play to reveal a message from Anonymous. There was no new information in regards to #OpLastResort as Anonymous is still focused on spreading its “warhead” to the corners of the net.

    All of this is still a little unreal. It’s hard to believe that Anonymous was able to obtain any kind of classified information since the group has threatened similar information releases in the past, but never came through in the end. That being said, Anonymous was responsible for the Stratfor dump on Wikileaks so the group has proven that it can grab sensitive information when it really wants to. It seems that Swartz’ death has proven to be quite the potent catalyst for extreme action on the part of Anonymous – extreme action that we’ve not see in quite some time.

    We’ll continue to follow this story, and let you know if Anonymous does anything else. The ussc.gov Web site is still down, and it looks like Anonymous isn’t quite finished with it just yet. There’s also reports that Anonymous may be targeting other U.S. government Web sites as well. It seems that #OpLastResort is going to get far more interesting before all of this is over.

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  • Anonymous Blames Kim Dotcom For The Closure Of NinjaVideo

    Members of Anonymous have been huge supporters of Kim Dotcom since the feds took down Megaupload in early 2012. The collective even engaged one of its largest operations to date in defense of the site. Now the same group is calling Dotcom a “snitch.” What happened to bring about this sudden change?

    For those who have been following the legal fight between Megaupload and the DoJ in the U.S., you would know that Megaupload thinks the U.S. set them up. In 2010, the feds asked Dotcom to keep some files on their servers to help in a separate IP investigation. Dotcom consented and kept the files while the fed went about its work. Dotcom accuses the feds of using those same files later as evidence when shutting down Megaupload in 2012.

    Now, this is where things get interesting. Wired reported last November on some case files that had been unsealed in the case that found those files that Dotcom held onto were used in the investigation and eventual conviction of the founders of NinjaVideo, a video streaming site that piggybacked off of Megaupload’s Megavideo service.

    Disregarding the fact that the Wired report is over three months old, Anonymous has now come to the conclusion that Dotcom is a traitor to the cause. Here’s a snippet of the press release:

    In the Wired article, it outlines that in June of 2010, Dotcom agreed to keep secret a warrant by the DHS HSI IPR Center of Carpathia hosting, and was told by HSI that he was not target of the investigation, which he had in fact been a target of since January of 2010. Dotcom “cooperated” in the “spirit” of “being a good corporate citizen”, which apparently means ratting small fish out so the the top dog can stay king. Kim Dotcom thinks he can play both pirate and “good corporate citizen” at the same time, but one cannot be both.

    Kim Dotcom broke the pirate code. He is a snitch, and needs to be exposed to the world as such. Hana Beshara, “Queen Phara”, has been sitting in FPC Bryan in Texas for the past year awaiting release this August because Kim willingly cooperated with this investigation, thinking he would be building a rapport with the IPR fanatics at DHS. Matthew David Howard Smith, aka (Dead1ine), founder of NinjaVideo, will be released from Butner Penitentiary in North Carolina this April.

    Let’s just look into how ridiculous this is. Never once has Dotcom ever claimed to be a pirate or fighting for pirate rights. He believes in a free Internet for sure, and he thinks that Hollywood should update its business model to reflect changes brought about by the digital age. That being said, he never once said content should be free, and is in fact working on legitimate business models where artists get paid more for their work directly from fans (see Megabox) instead of through labels.

    The problem here lies in what Anonymous wanted Dotcom to be, and who Dotcom really is. Anonymous thought he was the next great pirate martyr fighting for the free flow of information, and Dotcom is that to an extent. He’s well loved by Internet groups because he’s fighting against what he feels is an abuse of power by the IP lobby and media industries. What Anonymous didn’t see or just refused to acknowledge is that Dotcom is also a businessman. He’s trying to make a profit even if his methods challenge the status quo and land him in trouble.

    Both sides have compelling arguments in this admittedly one-sided fight as Dotcom has so far refused to acknowledge Anonymous’ accusations. Dotcom’s U.S. lawyer Ira Rothken said that Megaupload was only being a “good corporate citizen” by handing over the data. Anonymous says that Dotcom was selling out a fellow ally in the fight against aggressive IP rights protection.

    An individual’s stance in this new fight will be decided by how they feel about Dotcom and the Megaupload case. Many feel that he’s only in this to save his own ass, and is using his current trial as a publicity stunt to build up hype for his new services like Mega and Megabox. Others feel that he is fighting for reform and Internet freedom. I don’t think this particular revelation about his involvement in NinjaVideo is going to change many peoples’ perception of him. You either already didn’t like the man, or you think he’s just doing his best to make good out of a nasty situation.

  • Anonymous Starts #OpAngel To Protect Aaron Swartz’ Funeral From WBC

    Well known Internet activist Aaron Swartz died over the weekend after committing suicide. His funeral will take place today, and Westboro Baptist Church has made it clear that it plans to picket at it. Anonymous isn’t going to let that happen.

    The hacktivist group, who most recently hacked MIT in honor of Swartz, announced on Monday that its starting #OpAngel to protect Swartz’ funeral from members of the WBC who have threatened to protest at the funeral. Here’s Anonymous’ plan:

    Twenty-four hours after the death of Aaron Swartz was announced to the world, a heartless cult announced their intention to picket his funeral. In response, Anonymous has launched Operation Angel.

    Before discussing the operation, there is something that needs to be said to Aaron’s family and his friends: We’re sorry. It is likely that our continuous condemnation and attacks against this cult is the very reason Aaron is being targeted by them. We would do anything to stop them from attending Aaron’s services. Aaron deserves peace and we will not allow this cult to overpower what should be the media’s focus, the monsters at DOJ who ruthlessly targeted your son.

    We encourage organizations who would like to form protective human shields near Aaron’s funeral to listen closely for any announcement by the family on this action and respect their wishes.

    Operation Angel has a number of goals. First, we mean to facilitate the flow of information regarding the cult’s movements. We are encouraging the public and any members of Highland Park law enforcement with intel on the cults to e-mail that information to OpAngel@hushmail.com. You can use an anonymous e-mail address. You will not receive a response. You will not be exposed.

    After the funeral, Anonymous will initiate phase two of #OpAngel. The second phase will “pursue reform within the DOJ and other government agencies to prevent the kind of unnecessary harassment that Aaron Swartz was victim to.” Swartz’ family said much the same thing over the weekend by blaming his suicide on “a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach.”

    [h/t: Salon]

  • Anonymous Hacks MIT In Honor Of Aaron Swartz, Academics Protest With #PDFTribute

    As you are all probably aware of by now, noted online activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide this weekend. An investigation is underway, but his family and others are saying he did it to avoid a lengthy trial and possible prison sentence over his online publishing of academic journals from JSTOR and MIT. In honor of Swartz’ memory, Anonymous has hacked and defaced MIT’s Web site, the school where he allegedly harvested the journals from.

    As usual, the defaced Web site featured a message from Anonymous. In it, the hacktivist collective calls for a number of reforms in Internet law. Here’s the list courtesy of CNET:

    We call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of computer crime laws, and the overzealous prosecutors who use them.

    We call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of copyright and intellectual property law, returning it to the proper principles of common good to the many, rather than private gain to the few.

    We call for this tragedy to be a basis for greater recognition of the oppression and injustices heaped daily by certain persons and institutions of authority upon anyone who dares to stand up and be counted for their beliefs, and for greater solidarity and mutual aid in response.

    We call for this tragedy to be a basis for a renewed and unwavering commitment to a free and unfettered internet, spared from censorship with equality of access and franchise for all.

    Beyond Anonymous hacking MIT, another group has stood up in support of Swartz’ mission to make information free for all. A number of academics have been publishing studies online with the hashtag #PDFtribute. Most of these studies are copyright protected, but Swartz would likely have it no other way. He believed in freedom of information, especially when it came to academic studies. It’s hard to say if the publishers will prosecute authors uploading their own studies, but it would look really bad on those who do in the wake of Swartz’ death.

    Swartz was a well known and beloved member of the online activist community. It’s unlikely that Anonymous is going to stop with a simple hack or defacement. The group is going to continue to push for reform with this particular tragedy only serving to bolster their cause.

    [Image: okfn/flickr]

  • Anonymous Leaks Video Of Football Players Making Fun Of Rape Victim

    2012 proved to be the year that Anonymous turned away from solely targeting governments and corporations, and became somewhat of an online vigilante force. The hacker collective now targets those that they feel the law isn’t punishing, and takes matters into their own hands. Their latest target may also be the most disturbing yet.

    As you are probably aware of by now, the town of Steubenville, OH was rocked by the news that two of its high school star football players were arrested for kidnapping and raping a young girl at a party in August. The case has been largely covered up since then, but Anonymous is now taking justice into their own hands by releasing a video that clearly identifies those who took part in the crime.

    According to The Daily Dot, the video was leaked by @KYAnonymous, a member who has also targeted revenge porn magnate Hunter Moore. It seems that this latest operation is continuing his or her vigilantism against those who perpetrate violence against women. You can check out the video below, but be warned, it’s very disturbing.

    Anonymous obviously hopes that the video will further prosecution against the football players who allegedly committed the act. You can follow all the details of Anonymous’ latest operation at #OpRollRedRoll. It’s pretty disturbing stuff, but it’s even more disturbing that nothing has been done about it yet.

  • Twitter Suspends Top Anonymous Account for Terms Violation [UPDATED]

    UPDATE: They’re back. And yes, it was the leaking of Westboro members’ personal info that did it.

    ORIGINAL ARTICLE: @YourAnonNews, online hacktivist group Anonymous’ most popular Twitter account, has been suspended. It appears to have happened just before noon ET.

    Popular but significantly less popular Anonymous account @Anon_Central has published what they say is Twitter’s official reply to the @YourAnonNews account holder – “You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information.”

    Here’s the applicable portion of the Twitter Rules:

    You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.

    It’s possible that the personal information that Anonymous is “guilty” of posting comes from members of the Westboro Baptist Church. The group recently targeted the “church” for their insistence on “protesting” the funerals of the Sandy Hook shooting victims. Anonymous’ operation did involve the leaking of Westboro members’ personal information.

    @YourAnonNews planned for this, setting up and backup account @YANBackUp on December 4th:

    If you want to follow the updates on the situation, they’re the account to follow (along with other Anonymous accounts, to a lesser extent):

  • Russell Brand Talks to Westboro Baptist Church [VIDEO]

    The Westboro Baptist “Church” has been spewing garbage for years, using their constitutionally-protected free speech rights to sling ridiculous, hateful nonsense at everybody from the LGBT community to dead American soldiers. They really don’t discriminate in their hate and are truly deplorable people – end of story.

    But that incontrovertible fact was made even more apparent when the group recently announced plans to “protest” the funerals of the children killed in the Newtown, Connecticut mass shooting last Friday. That drew the attention of hactivist group Anonymous, who declared war on the group and proceeded to release personal information, attack their website, and hack members’ Twitter accounts.

    So, this incredible interview is even more relevant than ever. Below, watch Russell Brand talk to two members of the WBC clan, one toting a “Fag Pimp Brand” poster. Hilarious.

  • Anonymous Targets Westboro Baptist After Church Threatens To Protest At Sandy Hook

    On Friday, Sandy Hook Elementary witnessed one of the worst displays of violence in our nation’s history. Since then, an outpouring of support from the nation has gone to the battered community to help them get back on their feet. The folks at the Westboro Baptist Church, however, feel that this tragedy is an example of God’s wrath, and are planning a protest at the town. Anonymous has made it clear that it’s not going to let that happen.

    KYAnonymous, the Anon who targeted revenge porn magnate Hunter Moore, has now taken up a new operation called #OpWBC. Anonymous has targeted Westboro in the past, but those operations have been more about taking down the church’s Web sites and trolling its members. This operation got a little more serious as some members of Anonymous have now leaked personal information on the church’s members and even hacked one of its member’s Twitter account.

    KYAnonymous sent along the following press release to announce the operation:

    As you may not have acknowledged our existence, we, on the otherhand, have recognized yours. We have seen your depraved methods of disseminating your message of hate throughout The United States of America. We have witnessed you defaming the memories of those who sacrificed themselves for the security of our nation, disrupting the peace of the educational environment within high schools and universities, breeding hatred within the fragile minds of your own next of kin, desecrating the name of God by protesting in the proximity of churches and synagogues, and mangling the biblical text to conform in accordance with your malevolent cause.

    Your pseudo-faith is abhorrent, and your leaders, repugnant. Your impact and cause is hazardous to the lives of millions and you fail to see the wrong in promoting the deaths of innocent people. You are self-appointed servants of God who rewrite the words of His sacred scripture to adhere to your prejudice. Your hatred supersedes your faith, and you use faith to promote your hatred.

    Since your one-dimensional thought protocol will conform not to any modern logic, we will not debate, argue, or attempt to reason with you. Instead, we have unanimously deemed your organization to be harmful to the population of The United States of America, and have therefore decided to execute an agenda of action which will progressively dismantle your institution of deceitful pretext and extreme bias, and cease when your zealotry runs dry. We recognize you as serious opponents, and do not expect our campaign to terminate in a short period of time. Attrition is our weapon, and we will waste no time, money, effort, and enjoyment, in tearing your resolve into pieces, as with exposing the incongruity of your distorted faith.

    Anonymous possesses a plethora of information within our network about the many divisions of Christianity and numerous other religious doctrines. Many of us are versed in the biblical text, and we can identify each and every of your violations of scripture. You abuse the Holy Bible which you do not fully comprehend and know not of the thousands of authors to impose upon other people when you can simply coalesce with your loved ones and live in the manner you deem plausible. You engage in reciprocal fornication with another man and preach adultery as a sin. You, Shirley Lynn Phelps-Roper violated Deuteronomy 5:18. As a result, your son Sam is the living, breathing proof of your act of simple loneliness. Simply put, it takes not a genius to realize an arrogant woman’s loose moral string, and its predilection to progressively wither and fray.

    From the time you have received this message, our attack protocol has past been executed and your downfall is underway. Do not attempt to delude yourselves into thinking you can escape our reach, for we are everywhere, and all-seeing, in the same sense as God. We are a body of individuals who fight for a purpose higher than self, and seek to bring the malevolent intent of the malefactors to light.

    We will not allow you to corrupt the minds of America with your seeds of hatred. We will not allow you to inspire aggression to the social factions which you deem inferior. We will render you obsolete. We will destroy you. We are coming.

    As part of the release, KYAnonymous also dumped all the personal details of every Westboro Baptist Church member. We won’t link to the dump, but trust me when I say it’s exhaustive and includes more information than your average dox attack. It even lists all the cell phone numbers attached to each member.

    Following the doxing attack, Anonymous member, @CosmoTheGod, has also hacked the personal Twitter account of @DearShirley, one of the more prominent members of the church. The last Tweet from the real @DearShirley was made about 11 hours ago, and then this was posted about three hours ago:

    The last Tweet links to a WhiteHouse.gov petition to have the Westboro Baptist Church officially recognized as a hate group. The petition now has over 94,000 signatures which means the White House must make an official statement on it as per the rules set by the administration. Since then, the Twitter account has now just been retweeting every Tweet sent its way:

    After all of this, it seems that Anonymous has quieted down somewhat. Beyond retaining control of the @DearShirley Twitter feed, there’s not much been activity. That may change as Westboro travels to Sandy Hook for its protest. Anonymous apparently already has some plans in place to stop them from getting close to the school. We’ll keep an eye on the situation and update the story if needed.

    [h/t: CNET]

  • Team GhostShell Ends 2012 With A Bang, Dumps 1.6 Million Public Agency Records

    Christmas is the season of giving, and infamous hacker collective Team GhostShell apparently wanted to celebrate by leaking over a million public agency records. It’s all a part of #ProjectWhiteFox, a movement to promote freedom of information on the Internet.

    Team GhostShell linked to a pastebin press release on its Twitter account yesterday announcing its last hack of the year. In total, the group leaked 1.6 million records from public agencies like NASA, ESA, the Pentagon, and more. Here’s the relevant part of the press release:

    Winter is here and so are we, to present Team GhostShell’s last project. We’ve included plenty of surprises in this one, so hop on our bandwagon, we’re going on an adventure!

    #ProjectWhiteFox will conclude this year’s series of attacks by promoting hacktivism worldwide and drawing attention to the freedom of information on the net. For those two factors we have prepared a juicy release of 1.6 million accounts/records from fields such as aerospace, nanotechnology, banking, law, education, government, military, all kinds of wacky companies & corporations working for the department of defense, airlines and more.

    The group says that they sent out emails to various public and private agencies warning them of security risks. Those messages went unheeded and so GhostShell exploited security holes and made off with the aforementioned 1.6 million accounts. One such target was the Credit Union National Association, which has already acknowledged the attack. It said no sensitive information, like credit card numbers, were taken.

    After all that is said and done, the hacker collective took time out to address the current negotiations at the ITU conference. It hasn’t participated in any of the attacks on the WCIT Web site, but it said that it supports Anonymous’ ongoing efforts in OpWCIT. It also encourages Web sites to “deface” themselves in protest of any further Internet regulation.

    As far as results go, Team GhostShell is probably the most successful in the hacktivist scene. A large majority of Anonymous members rarely actually do anything beyond the odd DDoS attack. Team GhostShell has been dumping records and information all year. This week’s release may be the last of the year, but it’s obviously not the end for one of the Internet’s most infamous groups.

    [h/t: ComputerWorld]

  • Anonymous’ Latest Target Is Revenge Porn Magnate Hunter Moore

    Does the name Hunter Moore mean anything to you? Chances are you never heard of the guy. He runs a site that allows people to upload information on ex-lovers, including their names, social media profiles, photos and other details in an attempt to have the person stalked online. Now he’s moving to physical stalking by posting a person’s physical address, and Anonymous is having none of it.

    The hacktivist group has recently been on anti-bully spree that resulted in them “doxing” a man they accused of pushing a teen girl to suicide. The group sees Moore in much the same light – as an Internet bully. KY Anonymous started up #OpHuntHunter to find information on Moore and post it online.

    Anonymous has this to say about its latest operation:

    This is a call to all Anonymous worldwide, you have a chance to make a real difference in the lives of hundreds of bullied teenagers and protect them from real harm such as rape or stalking.

    Hunter Moore, Founder of previous revenge pornography site isanyoneup.com is coming back stronger than ever from the shutdown of his previous website. This capitalist makes money off of the misery of others.

    People submit pictures of others naked to his website and he posted their social networking profiles along with the pictures.
    This time he is taking it a step further and plans to list physical addresses next to the victims pictures along with a map to their house, self proclaiming that he has singlehandedly enabled the stalking of hundreds.

    His servers are up. he already has domains he is secretly testing and will go public soon. He hides behind a loophole of section 230 of the United States online decency act which states he cannot be held legally accountable for third party submitted content.

    This is a call to all of anonymous. We Will hold hunter moore accountable for his actions, we will protect anyone who is victimized by abuse of our internet, we will prevent the stalking, rape, and possible murders as byproduct of his sites.

    BetaBeat notes that Moore’s address has been known for some time. Simply “doxing” him isn’t going to accomplish much. With that being said, sites like End Revenge Porn are jumping in with Anonymous in hopes of stopping Moore from continuing with his latest stunt. It will be interesting to see the response Anonymous gets from this latest move as some people still don’t particularly trust the group even when they use their power for vigilante justice.

  • Anonymous Commences #OpIsrael To Protect Internet In Gaza

    If you’ve been following the news at all over the past few days, you probably know about Israel’s latest offensive against Hamas. On Wednesday, the country’s military assassinated Hamas’ military leader Ahmed Al-Jaabari. Hamas retaliated, and Israel is now considering a ground invasion into Gaza.

    What separates this particular offensive from past excursions is that Israel has threatened to cut off the Internet in Gaza. It may be an effective tactic in disrupting communications, but it affects thousands of civilians as well. Anonymous didn’t take too kindly to Israel’s action, and are now working under the #OpIsrael banner to protect Gaza citizens’ access to the Internet.

    The group released a statement on the operation this morning:

    For far to long, Anonymous has stood by with the rest of the world and watched in despair the barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of the Palestinian people in the so called “Occupied Territories” by the Israel Defense Force. Like so many around the globe, we have felt helpless in the face of such implacable evil. And today’s insane attack and threatened invasion of Gaza was more of the same.

    But when the government of Israel publicly threatened to sever all Internet and other telecommunications into and out of Gaza they crossed a line in the sand. As the former dictator of Egypt Mubarack learned the hard way – we are ANONYMOUS and NO ONE shuts down the Internet on our watch. To the IDF and government of Israel we issue you this warning only once. Do NOT shut down the Internet into the “Occupied Territories”, and cease and desist from your terror upon the innocent people of Palestine or you will know the full and unbridled wrath of Anonymous. And like all the other evil governments that have faced our rage, you will NOT survive it unscathed.

    To the people of Gaza and the “Occupied Territories”, know that Anonymous stands with you in this fight. We will do everything in our power to hinder the evil forces of the IDF arrayed against you. We will use all our resources to make certain you stay connected to the Internet and remain able to transmit your experiences to the world. As a start, we have put together the Anonymous Gaza Care Package which contains instructions in Arabic and English that can aid you in the event the Israel government makes good on it’s threat to attempt to sever your Internet connection. It also contains useful information on evading IDF surveillance, and some basic first aid and other useful information. We will continue to expand and improve this document in the coming days, and we will transmit it to you by every means at our disposal. We encourage you to download this package, and to share it with your fellow Palestinians to the best of your ability.

    We will be with you. No matter how dark it may seem, no matter how alone and abandoned you may feel – know that tens of thousands of us in Anonymous are with you and working tirelessly around the clock to bring you every aid and assistance that we can.

    We Are Anonymous

    We Are Everywhere

    We Are Legion

    We Do Not Forgive

    We Do Not Forget

    To the oppressors of the innocent Palestinian people, it is to late to EXPECT US

    As part of the operation, Anonymous has been taking down and defacing various Israeli government and military sites in protest. The Anonymous Press says that over 40 Web sites have been taken down since the operation began.

    The group is also looking for professional translators to translate its communications into Arabic and Hebrew. As it turns out, Google Translate isn’t that effective for either language, and civilians of both ethnicities stand to lose Internet in Gaza if the IDF follows through on its threat.

    UPDATE: Anonymous is now saying that Internet access in some parts of Gaza has been taken down.

    [h/t: Business Insider]

  • Anonymous Celebrates Guy Fawkes Day With Defacements, Leaks And Protests

    “Remember, remember the fifth of November.”

    It’s these words that mark the beginning of V for Vendetta, the 2006 film inspired by Alan Moore’s graphic novel of the same name. In it, an anarchist fights to bring down a fascist UK government. The man, V, wears a mask inspired by Guy Fawkes, a Catholic terrorist that attempted to blow up the British parliament in 1605.

    Since the film came out, hacking collective Anonymous has adopted the Guy Fawkes mask as their identity. The group has also co-opted the already existing Guy Fawkes Day on November 5 as their own personal day of mass protests and hacking attacks. The group has already begun a number of attacks and leaks and the day is not even half-over yet.

    The big one is a supposed PayPal hack that has left 28,000 account passwords exposed.

    The Next Web reports that all of the links to the PrivatePaste pages containing the passwords have been shut down for now. Anonymous will undoubtedly post the account details on other Web sites in the near future. As for PayPal, the company’s head of PR has said there’s no evidence of a hack.

    As for defacements, The Examiner reports that Anonymous defaced NBC’s Saturday Night Live Web site and a Lady Gaga fan site. The group replaced the pages with the Guy Fawkes nursery rhyme that became world famous thanks to the V for Vendetta film. BetaBeat has images of the defacements as the Web sites are now back up in working order.

    Anonymous is also organizing a number of protests around the world today. In Britain, the group will march on parliament to reenact the final scene from the V For Vendetta film, minus the explosion.

    The group has also made known its intentions to march on the White House and governmental buildings in Canada. The latter may be difficult as Canada has just passed a law banning the use of masks during riots and unlawful protests. Using a mask during unlawful protests is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison according to CBC.

    Finally, members of Anonymous and the general public have already taken to Twitter to make 5th of November a global trend. Most are just quoting the rhyme, but some are being unique:

    There will undoubtedly be more Anonymous action throughout the day. We’ll bring you any and all updates as they occur.

  • Anonymous Documentary “We Are Legion” Now Available

    For the past few years, filmmaker Brian Knappenberger has been working on a documentary called “We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists.” It was the first real effort on the part of a filmmaker to document the history of one of the most notorious groups in contemporary history. After a leak and a few edits, the film is finally available to all.

    Speaking to Wired, Knappenberger said that his Anonymous documentary is now available through the film’s official Web site as a DRM-free download. He said that he wanted to “do it Louis C.K.-style” as it fit better with the idea behind Anonymous. That’s not to say that the film wasn’t going to be in theaters. Knappenberger told Wired that he actually walked away from a few lucrative distribution deals due to his desire of wanting to go DRM-free.

    Of course, the big question now is whether or not the film is worth watching again if you’ve already seen the leaked cut of the film. Knappenberger said that the leaked version was an incomplete cut. The final version of “We Are Legion” contains new footage that details the betrayal of Sabu from earlier this year.

    Since then, there have been a number of arrests and other activities from within Anonymous that would definitely warrant inclusion in the documentary. The only thing is that the film would never be finished if Knappenberger kept on including new content. He had to cut it off somewhere just to finish the film.

    Knappenberger doesn’t expect to recoup the costs of making the film, but he would donate 10 percent of all sales to the Electronic Frontier Foundation if he were to make a profit on the film.

    The film is available for streaming and DRM-free download now for only $9.99. It’s also available on iTunes starting today as well. The DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film, both of which contain an extra 22 minutes of footage, will be available on November 23.

  • Anonymous To Launch Their Own Wikileaks Competitor

    Anonymous and Wikileaks were the best of buds for the last few years. Members of the hacker collective even risked arrest to obtain emails from Stratfor that were leaked in the GIFiles. That’s why Anonymous wasn’t happy when Wikileaks began to implement aggressive fundraising tactics, including a paywall. In response, Anonymous is creating their own Wikileaks-style site.

    Speaking to The Voice of Russia, a member of Anonymous talks about the future of Wiklleaks and their own approach to the leaking game -TYLER. The representative says that Anonymous has serious concerns in regards to Wikileaks and will publish a paper on what they see as “ethical violations and lack of transparency problems” within the organization.

    Interestingly enough, they see the fate of Wikileaks intrinsically tied to that of Julian Assange. The representative even goes so far as to say that Assange is Wikileaks. Without him, the whole organization would falter. To that end, they are planning TYLER to be there when and if Wikileaks fails.

    So what is TYLER exactly? Anonymous wouldn’t go into much detail, but the representative did say that it won’t be “deployed on a static server.” Instead, TYLER will be “P2P encrypted software, in which every function of a disclosure platform will be handled and shared by everyone who downloads and deploys the software.” It’s their hopes that this system prevents it from ever being shut down.

    The hacker collective plans to launch TYLER on December 21, 2012. Anonymous says they chose the date for the publicity, not because they believe in any end of the world predictions. The launch of TYLER will also coincide with Project Mayhem, a movement that Anonymous hopes will inspire wide spread street protests and the publishing of embarrassing state secrets.

    For now, Wikileaks continues to operate as Julian Assange battles for his right to political asylum. The site would most likely continue to operate even if he were to be extradited to Sweden as well. It will be interesting to see who publishes the better information as Wikileaks is notorious for taking a long time between receiving and publishing information. Anonymous would most likely throw caution to the wind and publish any information that’s seemingly legitimate.

  • Anonymous Hunts Down Alleged Bully That Pushed Teen To Suicide

    By now, the world is aware of Amanda Todd. The 15-year-old committed suicide after struggling with depression and being bullied. It was an unfortunate event that could have been avoided if more people had seen the warning signs and stepped in. Anonymous thinks that Todd’s case was special, however, and has tracked down the man they feel is responsible for her death.

    Anonymous is usually found targeting governments or corporations, but the group has recently turned to targeting online predators and pedophiles. The group posted a dox to pastebin yesterday that reveals the identity and address of who they claim extorted Todd for nude photographs. Those photographs were eventually leaked online, and Todd was soon subjected to bullying from the dark corners of the Internet.

    The bullying is most likely the main contributor to Todd’s death, but the original extortionist is the real villain in the eyes of Anonymous. The group issued a statement to CTV News after the network tracked down the alleged bully with the information provided:

    “We generally don’t like to deal with police first hand but were compelled to put our skills to good use protecting kids. Ironically we have some good people in Vancouver who brought this to our admin’s attention. It’s a very sad story that affects all of us.”

    As for the man accused by Anonymous for bullying Todd, he told CTV News that he knew Todd and thought of her as a friend. He also told the news network that he’s already cooperated with the Mounties by identifying a man who was harassing Todd.

    Anonymous can, and will, get things wrong. We can’t speak on the innocence or guilt of any person until formal charges are made. The investigation into Todd’s suicide is still ongoing with the Royal Mounties looking into any and all leads. For their part, Anonymous has started #OpRIP to hunt down those who bullied Todd.

    [h/t: Huffington Post]

  • Facebook Downtime In Europe Caused By DNS Change

    If you recall, Facebook went down for a lot of Europe yesterday afternoon. Everybody’s “favorite” Anonymous troll began taking credit even though it was obvious that he was just taking advantage of the situation. The most telling evidence was when he began asking the BBC to change a story about Facebook downtime from six months ago. That still leaves open the question of what exactly caused the downtime.

    Facebook tells us that the downtime experienced across Europe was caused by a DNS change that was part of a “traffic optimization test.” It was obvious already, but Facebook once again confirmed that this was not a hack. Here’s the full statement:

    “Earlier today we made a change to DNS as part of a traffic optimization test, and that change resulted in some users being temporarily mis-routed. We detected and resolved the issue immediately, but a small number of users located primarily in Western Europe experienced issues accessing the site while the DNS addresses repopulated. We are now back to 100 percent, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

    These things happen, but it’s usually not noticed by most of the world. Of course, any small change in Facebook will be detected thanks to the social networks recent climb to one billion active users worldwide. Combine that with so-called Anonymous members seeking attention on Twitter, and you have a populace that begins spreading rumors and falsehoods.

    If Facebook or any other major service like GoDaddy is down, don’t believe the words of somebody claiming to be from Anonymous. There’s only a few trustworthy Anonymous feeds on Twitter, and Anonymous Own3r is not one of them. He has proven twice now that he’s just seeking attention. It’s in our, and your, best interest to ignore any further claims coming from any Anonymous feed that’s not been verified.

  • Facebook Is Down Across Europe, Anonymous Claims Responsibility

    Remember when Anonymous Own3r “took down” GoDaddy? It was found that GoDaddy was just suffering from internal issues that Anonymous Own3r jumped on in a bid for attention. Many members of Anonymous were even able to prove that he was full of it. Well, he’s back once again with even grander claims of a bigger kill.

    Facebook is apparently down across much of Europe at the moment with citizens of Italy, Norway, Germany, the Czech Republic and others saying that the site is down. At the center of it all is Anonymous Own3r, the man who claims to be taking down Facebook country by country. He uploaded a PasteBin document earlier today detailing vulnerabilities that he has found in Facebook. The attacks appear to be taking advantage of said vulnerabilities.

    Here’s the latest from Twitter:

    Once again, it looks like our dear Anonymous Own3r is taking advantage of some downtime for some attention. Well, he’s gotten it, but it’s the wrong kind of attention. He was proven to be full of it during the GoDaddy attack, and he’s proven it again this time. He’s now asking the BBC to give him credit for Facebook downtime that occurred back in March. It seems out friend doesn’t check dates on news stories.

    Beyond Anonymous Own3r’s own delusions of grandeur, Facebook is still down for many people across Europe. It’s likely similar to the downtime that happened back in March that took down Facebook across most of Europe. We’ve reached out to Facebook for a comment, and we’ll update this story once we hear back.

  • Wikileaks Angers Anonymous By Implementing A Paywall

    Wikileaks has always been about the free distribution of information. In every interview and speech, the site’s founder Julian Assange speaks on how important freedom of speech and information is to a democracy. That may be the site’s mission, but Wikileaks is incredibly underfunded. They may have found a way to fix that problem.

    If you went to check out the GIFiles on Wikileaks last night, you would be greeted by this:

    Wikileaks Paywall

    The paywall coincides with a new GIFiles release containing over 200,000 emails from Stratfor regarding Obama, Romney and their respective parties. The emails could garner significant interest from US citizens as we head into the final stretch of the election.

    All of this would be perfectly acceptable if it was just an ad asking for support. People are angry because Wikileak isn’t asking for support, they’re demanding it. The above image is a legitimate paywall that you can’t get behind unless you donate money. One of Wikileaks’ biggest allies wasn’t too happy with it.

    Anonymous, or at least the guy who runs the @YourAnonNews Twitter feed, was livid last night in regards to the paywall.

    The sentiments expressed here were widespread throughout Twitter with many users angry that Wikileaks would force donations. It appears that the anger got through to the Wikileaks staff as they reportedly suspended the paywall. Some people, such as yours truly are still seeing it, but others are getting to the site with no problems.

    In their defense, Wikileaks had this to say about the paywall:

    UPDATE: The paywall appears to have been taken down. Users can now access the GIFiles normally without having to donate.