I’m getting tired of the system tryna break out
Cos all my life I’ve been a victim in this place howl
They’re justifying all the killing
While the mind has been imprisoned
Ima ride until I figure out this maze now
I linked with poisanon to try and get the message across
We let them poison us and now were getting memory loss
The remedy is in the leadership – a veteran – boss
Achieving peace can be so difficult when death is the cost
[ Verse _ 1 ]
I dedicate my pen to tell the stories of oppression, Fighting off the sources that find glory in their weapons, They call it war on terror when they’re nothing but the biggest form of terror, Haunting thoughts of all the children as they force a stormy weather, I wonder if the morning dawn will ever – be the same, Will my generation ever see the change, Even ketamine cant remedy this pain, For all the people with no bread to eat for days , While the settlers get pleasure as they wreck the streets with rage, They fabricate the media we’ve mentally been played, And if i speak the truth then they’ll render me insane, Now i linked up with TeaMp0isoN they cant censor me well end the scene in flames, Now the realness in the industry is setting free the cage, Babylon is burning – and where next to be in rain, Now the tables turning I don’t bless beats for a wage, Im speaking for the unheard – Freedom is the one word.
[ Chorus ]
I’m getting tired of the system tryna break out
Cos all my life I’ve been a victim in this place howl
They’re justifying all the killing
While the mind has been imprisoned
Ima ride until I figure out this maze now
I linked with poisanon to try and get the message across
We let them poison us and now were getting memory loss
The remedy is in the leadership – a veteran – boss
Achieving peace can be so difficult when death is the cost
[ Verse _ 2 ]
Still rioting, Shouting at the top of my voice, I’ve been silent but the violence got me dropping that choice – Im out here, Tryna fight the demons , Need my rights and freedom , Sleep at night believing, Need a mighty queen to breed alive my semen, Raise an army, unethical experiments – The cause of all the wave tsunamis, Testing on our settlements you find a way to make us starving, Hide behind the fakes’t mask to save your ars, The rest are just irrelevant, Slash the working classes wage invest to bring the weapons in – You represent the devil in your actions, Fabricate a story with a heading and a caption – Regardless of the truth, The hacktivist are backing ain’t no censoring this anthem, Cook disaster in the booth, And who said it was NASA that first planted on the moon, They glamourise their point of view starting with the news, and once we get the following right were swallowing guys , The honour is mine.
[ Chorus ]
I’m getting tired of the system tryna break out
Cos all my life I’ve been a victim in this place howl
They’re justifying all the killing
While the mind has been imprisoned
Ima ride until I figure out this maze now
I linked with poisanon to try and get the message across
We let them poison us and now were getting memory loss
The remedy is in the leadership – a veteran – boss
Achieving peace can be so difficult when death is the cost
[ Verse _ 3 ]
Tell me wheres the justice in this earth, Mother witnesses her sons blood spilling at birth, I hunt villains with words, To take the Zion’s down to unriddle the curse, The reason for the hunger and the thirst, Fractional reserve banking, Mr McDonnald , Ray Kroc and the Bohemian Grove, Satanic hubs and all the evil involved, Fiending for gold, and then they wonder why its peak on the roads, They stood and watched the riots heat and evolve, They even let their dragon breath instead of healing they wanted numbers locked for breaching the codes, You think I penny any offer of me leaving my soul, Never will i kneel to this throne, Cos knowledge is power, It’s 2011 and still a monarchy how, Surrounded by puppets and clowns, Team PoisoN and Anonymous abolish these cowards, The honour of prodigies ours, I solemnly vow – To crack the wrists, Of any who wish to test the power of the hacktivists.
@lyricistjinn / Artist
@messybeatz / Composer
@agent_of_change / Sound
@ls_films / Director / Editor
@TeaMp0isoN_ / Activists
@YourAnonNews / Activists
This recent dialog between Iranian Presidential Advisor Esfandiar Rahim Mashai and Spiegel Online is interesting in that it highlights the nuances behind the release of the cables and how governments use various tactics to spin the fall-out in ways they find advantageous at least on the surface.
Take the following scenario for example. You have a private Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst, who obtains access to 250,000 cables specifically according to Wikipedia ..”In online discussions with Adrian Lamo, Manning claimed responsibility for leaking the “Collateral Murder” video, a video of the Granai airstrike and approximately 250,000 individual cables, to the whistleblower website Wikileaks.[5][6]”
And then, according to Wikipedia, …”Manning was arrested by agents of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command in May 2010 and held in pre-trial confinement in a military jail at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.[1][2][3] On July 5, 2010, two misconduct charges were brought against him for “transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system” and “communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source”.[2][7] The charges included unauthorized access to Secret Internet Protocol routers network computers, download of more than 150,000 United States Department of State diplomatic cables, download of a classified PowerPoint presentation, and downloading a classified video of a military operation in Baghdad on July 12, 2007. Manning is also charged for forwarding the video and at least one of the cables to an unauthorized person.[15] The maximum jail sentence is 52 years.[1]”] (footnotes can be found in Wikipedia article not here).
Adrian Lamo, is apparently the informant who notified the Army Criminal Investigation Command of Bradley’s admissions. This information was published by Wired Magazine back in June in this article http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
According to the Wired June article ..”Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.”
“He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”
So what we have is a “former hacker” turning in his online friend to the Army… The question is, where in this interaction, did the U.S. become aware of what Bradley Manning was doing and whether the convenience of the open admissions with a former hacker would not have been completely surveilled well in advance by Echelon giving the PTB every chance to make sure that this caper on the part of Manning succeeded or failed and just how easily they allowed him access to this material… with perhaps the intention that if leaked… they would be able to make use of this misbehavior to their own ends.
To make this clearer I would urge everyone to again view the recently cancelled TV series “Rubicon” for an interesting correlation whereby you have intelligence analysts who have early access to information… being given free reign by the PTB in order to manipulate them into releasing this info or thinking they were getting away with something only to find that in doing so they were actually conveniently fulfilling the ultimate plans of the very people they attempted to expose.
This is not out of the question. Here, in this situation, you have a heroic young intelligence analyst, Manning. And you have a “former hacker”, Adrian, who befriends him online (it is not clear whether they had met in person). This much is clear. That the hacker would know full well that their dialog and Bradley’s admission of guilt would be being recorded as are all online conversations, written or verbal, by Echelon or whatever surveillance system you prefer by whatever name, and that therefore it is highly possible, in that this former hacker, Adrian, in not warning Bradley that their conversation would be surveilled, was already in the employ of the PTB.
Further, this scenario lends itself to a perfect sting operation. And that in releasing the aforementioned trove of info that a sort of global information firestorm would be unleashed. Wikileaks is only peripheral to this mix. The real objective, may have been quite different. That is, the PTB knowing they have on their hands a rebel analyst, use this to their own ends in allowing him to gain access to damaging material and go so far, because it suits their ultimate purpose.
So what then, one must ask, is their ultimate end here? This is where it becomes more convoluted because the PTB are not a united front. In this case it may be that certain high level interest groups, be they the Joint Chiefs or the Pentagon or the CIA have a vested interest in these releases because overall, the damage done is more slanted one way than another. And the tipping point is that somewhere in these leaks is an agenda that steers the ship of states (that is, countries) more in the preferred direction.
Certain people may lose others may gain, maybe Hilary Clinton, maybe a delicate balance of power concerning China and Taiwan or North Korea or India… Without the release of all of the cables, it’s impossible to judge cui bono (who benefits). But it is entirely possible that some group, maybe a rebel faction of the Joint Chiefs or maybe some element of the Rothschilds vs the Rockefellers…. But it is clear that one side or another will come out of this diplomatic debacle much better off… than another.
So this is what the Iranian presidential advisor is alluding to. However, in his facile statements and lavish assurances of how “forgiving” Iran is of its neighbors and how there is nothing whatsoever to be “afraid of” in regard to their nuclear ambitions, or the supposed lack thereof… This much is obvious, he is playing politics the Middle Eastern way. Soothing ruffled feathers with smooth talk and at the same time noting with the keen eye of a well schooled observer that very little gets by the surveillance of governments these days, unless they allow it to. And this is at the root of the problem.
Because, as Mark Klein, the whistle blower from AT&T, who found out that the government was surveilling all citizens communications 5 years ago and reported this. Listen to his story here: http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_120910_full_show.mp3
All you have to do is extrapolate from this to the massive Cray computers underground in Colorado and you have just the edge of the iceberg that is worldwide in reach. From what our whistleblowers say, very little goes without being recorded… especially when it involves individuals who work for the government, the military or are known hackers or other activists, such as this writer.
With that in mind, one cannot take the Wikileaks as a simple straight-forward release of source to Wikileaks of information. This release has to be mitigated by the goings on that led to the release prior to when it ever landed on the doorstep, metaphorically speaking… of Wikileaks.
Now, is Wikileaks also part of this sting operation? Very likely. But this is all in a days work when you are a website for whistleblowers. As we at Project Camelot know. It is naive to think that anything we receive is not, at some level, allowed to happen. None of this discounts the acts of valor that are at the root of any real release of information that reveals the reality behind the matrix. On the contrary, the individuals who take real action, the Bradley Mannings, Julian Assanges and all the other whistleblowers who risk their lives and the lives of their loved ones to reveal the truth are the heroes out of this scenario.
But those behind the scenes in this surveillance society, the ones who call themselves Magus, who manipulate the effects of the truly courageous actions of the bright stars, diamonds in the rough, under their Control, cannot be ignored. It is necessary that we go deeper into the black, what some would call, above black, to discover the real war being fought. And then, to reveal those manipulators and what is behind their actions. Because only then do we begin to tap into the controllers behind the Controllers. And find out perhaps, who is fighting the good fight for us, or against us. Because there is a hidden side, working above black, for the light. We may not recognize them, they are too hidden, too deep in the black, for us to know just who they are. But they are there. And we can acknowledge them here, at least.
The only way we can find out whether it is they or the truly black-souled group who are the victors in this recent release, remains to be seen. But I caution everyone who is involved in this drama, actor or observer, to watch carefully and at the end of the day, when all the cables are out… ask one question, who benefits?
Bitcoin, the decentralized virtual currency whose value has skyrocketed in recent weeks, faced a key test Monday as a veteran user reported that Bitcoins worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had been stolen from his computer.
Ars Technica was unable to independently verify the user’s story, and he did not respond to our request for an interview. But whether the story is true or not, it highlights a major disadvantage of the currency’s much-touted lack of intermediaries. Bypassing middlemen frees users from government meddling and bank fees. But it also deprives them of the benefits those intermediaries provide, including protection against theft and fraud.
As we reported last week, Bitcoin’s key selling point is its clever peer-to-peer scheme for recording transactions. Rather than relying on a centralized database, the Bitcoin protocol allows any computer on the Internet to participate in the payment clearing process. At the end of each 10-minute round, one of the nodes is chosen at random to receive a payment for his contribution to the process. For this reason, participating in the clearing process is known as “mining” Bitcoins.
Wiped out
The user known as “allinvain” is a long-time contributor to the Bitcoin forums. He says he’s been mining Bitcoins for over a year, and had amassed a fortune of 25,000 BTC. This was a modest sum a few months ago, when Bitcoins were worth pennies, but over the last two months the value of a Bitcoin skyrocketed to around $20, which means 25,000 BTC would have been worth half a million dollars. “I remember watching the price like a hawk,” he wrote.
And then disaster struck. “I just woke up to see a very large chunk of my bitcoin balance gone,” he wrote. “Needles [sic] to say I feel like I have lost faith in bitcoin.” He speculated that a Windows security flaw may have allowed the culprit to gain access to his digital wallet. “I feel like killing myself now,” he said.
Some other members of the Bitcoin forum expressed skepticism about allinvain’s story, but most believed it. Another member of the Bitcoin forums chimed in to report that he’d lost a smaller amount of money to the same Bitcoin address.
Forum members discussed several options, including calling the police and asking MtGox, the popular Bitcoin currency exchange, to block the funds from being converted into more traditional currencies.
“An expensive test case”
Ars Technica talked to Gavin Andresen, the leader of the Bitcoin software project, about the incident. Andresen said that it would be difficult to confirm the authenticity of the report. “All Bitcoin transactions are broadcast on the network,” he said. “So if someone wanted to claim they lost a bunch of bitcoins, they could claim that any transaction on the network belonged to them.”
Still, the kind of attack described in the post is certainly possible. Andresen says he always emphasizes that Bitcoin is an experiment, and not (yet) for the faint of heart. “Unfortunately, this is an expensive test case for the guy who lost the Bitcoins,” he said.
Andresen says that there’s currently no good infrastructure for tracking down stolen Bitcoins. And, he said, there may never be a good mechanism for reversing unauthorized transactions because Bitcoin transactions are designed to be irreversible. “Once a transaction hits the network, you can generate other transactions that depend on that transaction,” he said. “So Bitcoin transactions get tangled up fairly quickly.”
Even if it were technically feasible, adding a mechanism for disputing transactions would create headaches of its own, because that mechanism could be used fraudulently as well. “Merchants like that there are no chargebacks” with Bitcoin transactions, Andresen said.
Right now, then, Bitcoin is a “work in progress” only suitable for the most technically savvy users. Will Bitcoin eventually be ready for the masses? Andresen thinks so. He told Ars that the Bitcoin protocol is flexible enough to support clients that handle security in a more sophisticated way. For example, a future client could split a user’s private key between his PC and his cell phone. As long as no one compromised both devices simultaneously, the user’s bitcoin would be safe.
The benefits of intermediaries
Still, a financial system without intermediaries has some inherent downsides. Splitting a Bitcoin user’s private key between a computer and a cell phone makes it harder to compromise, but it also creates new risks. For example, unless the user backs up his cell phone separately from his computer, losing the phone would mean losing the Bitcoins. A multifactor authentication scheme also can’t protect a user who is tricked into authorizing a payment to the wrong party.
Indeed, the traditional banking system offers consumers protections against fraud that are hard to replicate in any system without intermediaries. For example, federal regulations limit consumer liability for fraudulent credit card transactions to $50, and some banks offer cards that reduce the consumer’s liability to zero.
And because liability for fraud falls mostly on the banks and credit card networks, these parties have invested in infrastructure to detect and deter fraud. They set minimum standards for getting a merchant account to exclude fly-by-night companies. They carefully monitor their customers’ transactions and investigate any that look suspicious. And with the help of law enforcement, they aggressively prosecute fraud, both to recover lost funds and to deter other potential criminals.
Of course, some anti-theft and anti-fraud services can be built on top of the extant Bitcoin infrastructure. For example, Clearcoin holds payments in escrow for sellers until buyers receive their orders, making Bitcoin purchases less risky. And services like MyBitcoin hold Bitcoins on their customers’ behalf. Presumably, these “online wallet” services can invest more heavily in securing their systems than individual users would.
But this is just to say that the disadvantages of an intermediary-free banking system can be mitigated by reintroducing intermediaries. And if most users are interacting with Bitcoin via intermediaries like ClearCoin and MyBitcoin, it’s not obvious how many of the system’s much-touted advantages are preserved. If your Bitcoins are held by a third party like MyBitcoin, then a government can force MyBitcoin to freeze your account just as it can force a traditional bank to do so.
In any event, Andresen seems unfazed by the heist and confident of Bitcoin’s long-term viability. “These problems will get solved,” he told Ars, arguing that the Bitcoin community simply hasn’t grown large enough to throw serious engineering resources at them. And the broader Bitcoin community seems to agree. The market price of a Bitcoin has been stable over the last 48 hours at just under $20.
Hello This Is Anonymous… This Message Is For You North Atlantic Treaty Organization… In Recent News On Your Report…
Information and National Security” from General Rapporteur Lord Jopling of the UK discusses the potential good of social networks for fostering democracy, the WikiLeaks scandal, and how hacktivists need to be burned at the stake.
“Virtual communities operating online provide new opportunities for civil society, but they have also increased the potential for asymmetrical attacks,” the report says. “Apart from causing harm, destruction or conducting espionage, most recent cyber attacks have also been used as a means to reach, a rather different goal, ‘Hactivism’ is a relatively recent form of social protest or expression of ideology by using hacking techniques.”
The report then singles out Anonymous as an example of this new trend by relating the group’s support of Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks.But that “info-war” is only the beginning, according to NATO. “Observers note that Anonymous is becoming more and more sophisticated and could potentially hack into sensitive government, military, and corporate files.” The report then explains how Anonymous hacked government contractor HBGary’s servers and the CEO’s Twitter account. after the group revealed the government’s plans to take down WikiLeaks.
You Claim To Represent The Following.
1.Peace And Security That’s Our Mission.
2.We Want To Be Sure That We Can Walk Around Freely In A Safe And Secure Environment. Security In All Areas Of Everyday Life Is Key To Our Well-Being, But It Cannot Be Taken For Granted.
3.NATO Promotes Democratic Values And Encourages Consultation And Cooperation On Defence And Security Issues To Build Trust And, In The Long Run, Prevent Conflict.
The Manner Of Which You Try To Push The Pursuit Of Anonymous. Seems To Be More Of An Issue Of Opportunity To Censor Anonymous. Rather Than An Honest And General Concern. All Of Anonymous’ Previous Attacks And Protest Have Not Ignited Any Action Against Us From NATO. Though With The Most Recent Attack Of The United States Chamber Of Commerce Website. You Wish To Become Involved. If Your Goal Was To Start War With Anonymous. Then Why Would You Allow Visa, Pay Pal , Master Card And Countless Other Actions To Go Without Prosecution. Then A Simple Website Is Made Unavailable You Sound Your Drums Of War. Be Warned We Do Not Wish This. Nor Do We Want This. But Make No Mistake… We Will Defend Ourselves. We Are Anonymous. We Are Legion. We Do Not Forgive. We Do Not Forget. Expect Us.
Visual Cryptography is a special encryption technique to hide information in images in such a way that it can be decrypted by the human vision if the correct key image is used. The technique was proposed by Naor and Shamir in 1994. Visual Cryptography uses two transparent images. One image contains random pixels and the other image contains the secret information. It is impossible to retrieve the secret information from one of the images. Both transparent images or layers are required to reveal the information. The easiest way to implement Visual Cryptography is to print the two layers onto a transparent sheet.
When the random image contains truely random pixels it can be seen as a one-time pad system and will offer unbreakable encryption. In the overlay animation you can observe the two layers sliding over each other until they are correctly aligned and the hidden information appears. To try this yourself, you can copy the example layers 1 and 2, and print them onto a transparent sheet or thin paper. Always use a program that displays the black and white pixels correctly and set the printer so that all pixels are printed accurate (no diffusion or photo enhancing etc). You can also copy and past them on each other in a drawing program like paint and see the result immediately, but make sure to select transparent drawing and align both layers exactly over each other.
Layer 1
Layer 2
Overlay
How Visual Cryptography works
Each pixel of the images is divided into smaller blocks. There are always the same number white (transparent) and black blocks. If a pixel is divided into two parts, there are one white and one black block. If the pixel is divided into four equal parts, there are two white and two black blocks. The example images from above uses pixels that are divided into four parts.
In the table on the right we can see that a pixel, divided into four parts, can have six different states.If a pixel on layer 1 has a given state, the pixel on layer 2 may have one of two states: identical or inverted to the pixel of layer 1. If the pixel of layer 2 is identical to layer 1, the overlayed pixel will be half black and half white. Such overlayed pixel is called grey or empty. If the pixels of layer 1 and 2 are inverted or opposite, the overlayed version will be completely black. This is an information pixel.
We can now create the two layers. One transparent image, layer 1, has pixels which all have a random state, one of the six possible states. Layer 2 is identical to layer 1, except for the pixels that should be black (contain information) when overlayed. These pixels have a state that is opposite to the same pixel in layer 1. If both images are overlayed, the areas with identical states will look gray, and the areas with opposite states will be black.
The system of pixel can be applied in different ways. In our example, each pixel is divided into four blocks. However, you can also use pixels, divided into two rectangle blocks, or even divided circles. Also, it doesn’t matter if the pixel is divided horizontally or vertically. There are many different pixel systems, some with better contrast, higher resolution or even with color pixels.
If the pixel states of layer 1 are truly (crypto secure) random, both empty and information pixels of layer 2 will also have completely random states. One cannot know if a pixel in layer 2 is used to create a grey or black pixel, since we need the state of that pixel in layer 1 (which is random) to know the overlay result. If all requirements for true randomness are fulfilled, Visual Cryptography offers absolute secrecy according to the Information Theory.
If Visual Cryptography is used for secure communications, the sender will distribute one or more random layers 1 in advance to the receiver. If the sender has a message, he creates a layer 2 for a particular distributed layer 1 and sends it to the receiver. The receiver aligns the two layers and the secret information is revealed, this without the need for an encryption device, a computer or performing calculations by hand. The system is unbreakable, as long as both layers don’t fall in the wrong hands. When one of both layers is intercepted it’s impossible to retrieve the encrypted information.
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 10:16:11 +0100
From: Eugen Leitl <eugen[at]leitl.org>
To: cypherpunks[at]al-qaeda.net
Subject: Re: [p2p-hackers] Verifying Claims of Full-Disk Encryption in
Hard Drive Firmware
—– Forwarded message from Tom Ritter <tom[at]ritter.vg> —–
From: Tom Ritter <tom[at]ritter.vg>
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:51:53 -0500
To: p2p-hackers[at]lists.zooko.com
Subject: Re: [p2p-hackers] Verifying Claims of Full-Disk Encryption in Hard
Drive Firmware
Reply-To: theory and practice of decentralized computer networks <p2p-hackers[at]lists.zooko.com>
—–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–
Hash: SHA1
After reviewing the FIPs approval document for the drive[1], I’ve tried to put together a complete threat model outlining the major classes of attack on the hard drive in the interest of being rigorous. I’d like your input to see if I missed any you can think of. I’ve explicitly excluded DriveTrust (the proprietary stuff) from the threat model, and am only focusing on the ATA Standard.
In approximate physical/logical order, this is every attack I can conceive of:
1. The BIOS may have been replaced to record passwords
2. The keyboard or keyboard connection may be tapped/keylogged
3. The physical computer may have been tampered with physically installing hardware in any of its components
4. The Operating System may have been tampered with
5. The application used to interact with the hard drive (hdparm) may have been subverted
6. The SATA connection to the HDD may have been tapped
7. On the Drive
1. The hardware of the drive may been tampered with2. Firmware
1. The firmware may be buggy allowing code execution on the Hard Disk Drive2. The firmware may have been replaced. Supposedly, the firmware replace requires the firmware be signed with a private RSA key AND that the drive have the Load Firmware capability active. The public key is stored on the system storage area of the media
1. The firmware may be able to be loaded despite the load firmware capability inactive2. The firmware load process may have a bug invalidating the signature
3. The malicious firmware may be appropriately signed
4. The public key in the system storage area may have been replaced, allowing untrustworthy firmware be loaded
3. The RAM of the device may be able to be read, allowing unknown compromising vectors.
1. The encryption key may be stored in RAM2. The Seed Key and Seed used in the Random Number Generator may be read, allowing any new key that is generated to be guessed.
3. Internal states to the encryption process, or other operation of the firmware may be exposed
4. System Storage Area – An area of the drive that is supposed to only be able to be read by the firmware, and not the computer.
1. Secure ID aka Drive Owner (SHA Digest)
1. If the system area is able to be read, an unsalted simple SHA may be crackable2. If the system area is able to be written, this may be replaced with a hash of a known password.
3. If the Drive Owner PIN has not been changed upon initialization, the PIN is printed on the drive
2. User & Master Passwords (SHA Digest)
1. If the System Area is able to be read, an unsalted simple SHA digest may be crackable2. If the system area is able to be written, this may be replaced with a hash of a known password.
3. User/Master Encryption Keys (Plaintext?)
1. The the System Area is able to be read, plaintext storage of the keys allows full data recovery2. If the Random Number Generator is not cryptographically secure, the encryption key may follow a guessable pattern
4. Firmware Public RSA Key
1. The the System Area is able to be written to, the firmware key may be replaced and new firmware loaded
5. User Storage Area – where your data is stored.
1. The data may not be encrypted with AES as promised2. The cipher mode may not be suitable for filesystem encryption
3. The drive may be initialized in a non-random pattern, allowing usage analysis
4. The ciphertext may be stored in a way allowing block swapping, ciphertext injection, or otherwise damaging the integrity of the ciphertext
6. The Drive may be vulnerable to side channel attacks
1. Crypto operations may not be constant-time leaking data about the key structure or value2. Drive may not draw power equally during crypto operations leaking data about the key structure or value
3. The drive may not be acoustically silent, leaking information about where on the platters the data is being written by listening to drive head movements.
4. The drive may not be protected against induced faults such as power manipulation, temperature extremes, electrical shocks, or physical shocks.
8. AT Password Security Protocol
1. Passwords may be attempted at a rapid sequence if a mechanism to reset the module is created.
====================
This groups those attacks together, and notes whether I consider them within the realm of testing for the drive. I’m not sure what will be doable easily or cheaply, but if I can verify the firmware, I’ll try.
Not Considered for evaluation
User Coercion or Cooperation / “Evil Maid” Attacks
1. Hardware tampering or tapping of the Keyboard, Keyboard connection, Computer, SATA connection or HDD Pwnage
1. Subversion of the Operating System, BIOS, or hdparm
Misconfiguration
1. Not changing the Master or Drive Owner password2. Not enabling hard disk security
Side Channel Attacks
Considered for Evaluation
1. Buggy firmware
1. with regards to firmware signature verification2. with regards to firmware replacement despite load firmware capability disabled
3. with regards to randomly selecting an encryption key
4. with regards to proper encryption
5. with regards to backdoors
6. with regards to memory trespass or other “standard” vulnerabilities
2. Key Management
1. plaintext storage of encryption keys in system area2. poor password hashing practices of passwords
3. Encryption
1. lack of encryption of user data2. Improper cipher mode
3. Patterned initial fill of disk
4. Lack of ciphertext integrity
4. System Area
1. ability to read system area2. ability to write system area
====================
Again, all comments welcome, but particularly interesting in talking to
– Anyone familiar with these Seagate drives or DriveTrust.
– Anyone familiar with BIOS support for the AT Security Spec, who can help me locate a new netbook to work with.
– Anyone familiar with Data Recovery Services who could provide information on disk unlocking, AT password bypass, or moving platters between disks.
From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001[at]cs.auckland.ac.nz>
To: cypherpunks[at]al-qaeda.net, eugen[at]leitl.org
Subject: Re: [p2p-hackers] Verifying Claims of Full-Disk Encryption in
Hard Drive Firmware
Eugen Leitl <eugen[at]leitl.org> quotes Tom Ritter <tom[at]ritter.vg>:
>After reviewing the FIPs approval document for the drive[1], I’ve tried to
>put together a complete threat model outlining the major classes of attack on
>the hard drive in the interest of being rigorous.
Without wanting to sound too facetious, and mostly out of curiosity, what does FIPS 140 have to do with the threat modelling you’ve done? It doesn’t address the vast majority of the stuff you’ve listed, so the threat-modelling is kind of a non-sequitur to “starting with FIPS 140”. If you wanted to deal with this through a certification process you’d have to go with something like the CC (and an appropriate PP), assuming the sheer suckage of working with the CC doesn’t tear a hole in the fabric of space-time in the process.
Creators of TOR:
David M. Goldschlag <goldschlag[at]itd.nrl.navy.mil>
Michael G. Reed <reed[at]itd.nrl.navy.mil>
Paul F. Syverson <syverson[at]itd.nrl.navy.mil>
Naval Research Laboratory
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:57:39 -0400
From: Michael Reed <reed[at]inet.org>
To: tor-talk[at]lists.torproject.org
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Iran cracks down on web dissident technology
On 03/22/2011 12:08 PM, Watson Ladd wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Joe Btfsplk<joebtfsplk[at]gmx.com> wrote:
>> Why would any govt create something their enemies can easily use against
>> them, then continue funding it once they know it helps the enemy, if a govt
>> has absolutely no control over it? It's that simple. It would seem a very
>> bad idea. Stop looking at it from a conspiracy standpoint& consider it as
>> a common sense question.
> Because it helps the government as well. An anonymity network that
> only the US government uses is fairly useless. One that everyone uses
> is much more useful, and if your enemies use it as well that's very
> good, because then they can't cut off access without undoing their own
> work.
BINGO, we have a winner! The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the
invention of Onion Routing was, "Can we build a system that allows for
bi-directional communications over the Internet where the source and
destination cannot be determined by a mid-point?" The *PURPOSE* was for
DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering
of forward deployed assets, whatever). Not helping dissidents in
repressive countries. Not assisting criminals in covering their
electronic tracks. Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA
prosecution. Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn
filter. Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for
the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were
trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover
traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the
better...I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin). I should
know, I was the recipient of that question from David, and Paul was
brought into the mix a few days later after I had sketched out a basic
(flawed) design for the original Onion Routing.
The short answer to your question of "Why would the government do this?"
is because it is in the best interests of some parts of the government
to have this capability... Now enough of the conspiracy theories...
-Michael
_______________________________________________
tor-talk mailing list
tor-talk[at]lists.torproject.org
24 March 2011
A sends:
From: A
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:41:41 +0000
Subject: Cryptome Fwd: Re: Fwd: The onion TOR network
To: cryptome[at]earthlink.net
Following the publication of the email extract on TOR, I asked
the EFF what they made of it. Here it is. You can of course publish it.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rebecca Jeschke <rebecca[at]eff.org>
Date: 23 March 2011 21:29
Subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: The onion TOR network
To: A
Hi A. This is from Senior Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. Thanks -- Rebecca
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Fwd: The onion TOR network
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:15:24 -0700
From: Seth David Schoen <schoen[at]eff.org>
To: Rebecca Jeschke <rebecca[at]eff.org>
CC: chris <chris[at]eff.org>, Peter Eckersley <pde[at]eff.org>,
Seth Schoen <schoen[at]eff.org>
Rebecca Jeschke writes:
any thoughts on this?
It's totally true that the military people who invented Tor werethinking about how to create a system that would protect military communications. The current iteration of that is described at https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#militaryright on the Tor home page. However, the Tor developers also became clear early on that the system wouldn't protect military communications well unless it had a very diverse set of users. Elsewhere in that same e-mail discussion, Mike Perry (a current Tor developer) alludes to this: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2011-March/019898.html In fact, the best known way we have right now to improve anonymity is to support more users, and more *types* of users. See: http://www.freehaven.net/doc/wupss04/usability.pdfhttp://freehaven.net/~arma/slides-weis06.pdfThe first link is to a paper called "Anonymity Loves Company", which explains the issue this way: No organization can build this infrastructure for its own sole use. If a single corporation or government agency were to build a private network to protect its operations, any connections entering or leaving that network would be obviously linkable to the controlling organization. The members and operations of that agency would be easier, not harder, to distinguish. Thus, to provide anonymity to any of its users, the network must accept traffic from external users, so the various user groups can blend together. You can read the entire (ongoing) discussion about government funding for Tor development via https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2011-March/thread.html(search for "[tor-talk] Iran cracks down on web dissident technology"). -- Seth Schoen Senior Staff Technologist schoen[at]eff.org Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/ 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 +1 415 436 9333 x107
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Iran cracks down on web dissident technology
From: A3
To: John Young <jya[at]pipeline.com>
Cc: A2, cypherpunks[at]al-qaeda.net
On Tue, 2011-03-22 at 17:43 -0400, John Young wrote:
> Fucking amazing admission. No conspiracy theory needed.
Wasn't this already very common knowledge?
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Iran cracks down on web dissident technology
To: A3, A2, cypherpunks[at]al-qaeda.net
From: John Young <jya[at]pipeline.com>
That's what the Eff-folks advocating TOR are saying. And point to a
file on Torproject.org. See:
http://cryptome.org/0003/tor-spy.htm
However, this appears to be a giant evasion perhaps a subterfuge,
even reminds of what Big Boys say when customers learn they are
siphoning customer data. Read the privacy policy the lawyer-advised
apologists bark, and upon reading the privacy policy see that it only
emphasizes the subterfuge. Openly admitting siphoning is supposed
to make it okay because everyone does it under cover of lockstep
privacy policy. Reject that.
If the Tor operators really know what they are being used for, then
they should admit to being agents of the USG, as Michael Reed had
the guts to do.
Claiming this US spying role for Tor is well known is a crock of slop,
but then spies lie all the time and care not a whit that they peddle
shit for eaters of it. If you believe them and like what they do then
don't shilly-shally, just do what Michael Reed did but others are
too ashamed to do after having been duped since 1996.
If Reed's precedent for honesty is followed, there will be an
admission that the Internet was invented for spying by its inventor.
And then cryptography and other comsec tools. And then cellphones
and the like. Hold on now, this is getting out of hand, the apologists
will bellow, everybody has always known that there is no privacy
in digital world.
Actually, no, they did not. And those who knew keep their Janusian
mouths writhing to reap the rewards of deception. Now that is a truth
everyone knows. No conspiracy theory needed.
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 1997 18:20:49 -0800
To: cryptography[at]c2.net, coderpunks[at]toad.com, weidai[at]eskimo.com
From: Lucky Green <shamrock[at]netcom.com>
Subject: PipeNet implemented?
At the FC’97 rump session, Paul Syverson from NRL presented a paper titled “Onion Routing”. The description of the system sounds very much like Wei Dai’s PipeNet. However, the development team seems to be unaware of PipeNet and the discussions about it that we had in the past.
NLR has currently five machines implementing the protocol. Connection setup time is claimed to be 500 ms. They are looking for volunteers to run “Onion Routers”. It appears the US military wants to access websites without giving away the fact that they are accessing the sites and is looking to us to provide the cover traffic. What a fortunate situation.
They said that the source would soon be on the web page, but so far it has not appeared.
To: cypherpunks[at]cyberpass.net
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 01:24:29 -0700
From: Lucky Green <shamrock[at]netcom.com>
Subject: Re: A new system for anonymity on the web
At 12:59 PM 4/20/97 -0700, Steve Schear wrote:
>Hal,
>
>What do you think of the “onion routing” approach from the group at Naval
>Postgraduate? How would compare it to this newest proposal?
Neither one of them is any good in its present form. The folks at the FC’97 rump session got to watch Jim and myself poke truck sized holes into the NRL design within seconds of them ending their presentation. :-)
Here was a US military research lab presenting a system they thought would give them a way to surf the Net anonymously by using the public for cover traffic. [Let me just spell out here that I believe that the people from NRL and Cypherpunks are on the same side on this issue. Their concern is COMSEC, not SIGINT.]
Anyway, we knew how to crack their system without even having to think about it, since folks on Cypherpunks, especially Wei Dai, had discovered various venues of attack on such systems long ago. Cypherpunks are teaching the military about traffic analysis. :-)
The one good thing about NRL is that they seem to be willing to learn. [The other being that they get paid to write our code for us.] Though I get the distinct feeling that they don’t like the required solution. There is simply no way to harden the system against attack without using a constant or at least slowly varying (I would guess we are talking about periods of several hours here, certainly not minutes, but I haven’t done the math, nor do I have the time to do so) bandwidth data stream between the end user and the first Onion Router. This will invariably require special software on the end user’s machine. I think the best design would be a client side proxy. [That much Crowds got right.]
As to Crowds, they got to be kidding. How many end users are willing to become, even without their direct knowledge, the last hop to <enter evil URL here>? I believe that relatively few users would want their IP address to be the one showing up in the server log of <enter seized machine’s name here> because their jondo happened to be the exit point chosen.
— Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock[at]netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred
“I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.” Mahatma Gandhi
Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.
The documents—the highlights of which are cataloged and searchable here—were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month. Read more about the documents.
The documents fall into five general categories: hacking, intercept, data analysis, web scraping and anonymity. Below, explore highlights related to each type of surveillance, and search among selected documents
The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone.
Though the software is installed on most modern Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones, Carrier IQ was virtually unknown until 25-year-old Trevor Eckhart of Connecticut analyzed its workings, revealing that the software secretly chronicles a user’s phone experience — ostensibly so carriers and phone manufacturers can do quality control.
But now he’s released a video actually showing the logging of text messages, encrypted web searches and, well, you name it.
Eckhart labeled the software a “rootkit,” and the Mountain View, California-based software maker threatened him with legal action and huge money damages. The Electronic Frontier Foundation came to his side last week, and the company backed off on its threats. The company told Wired.com last week that Carrier IQ’s wares are for “gathering information off the handset to understand the mobile-user experience, where phone calls are dropped, where signal quality is poor, why applications crash and battery life.”
The company denies its software logs keystrokes. Eckhart’s 17-minute video clearly undercuts that claim.
In a Thanksgiving post, we mentioned this software as one of nine reasons to wear a tinfoil hat.
The video shows the software logging Eckhart’s online search of “hello world.” That’s despite Eckhart using the HTTPS version of Google which is supposed to hide searches from those who would want to spy by intercepting the traffic between a user and Google.
Cringe as the video shows the software logging each number as Eckhart fingers the dialer.
“Every button you press in the dialer before you call,” he says on the video, “it already gets sent off to the IQ application.”
From there, the data — including the content of text messages — is sent to Carrier IQ’s servers, in secret. (See this update debunking that.)
By the way, it cannot be turned off without rooting the phone and replacing the operating system. And even if you stop paying for wireless service from your carrier and decide to just use Wi-Fi, your device still reports to Carrier IQ.
It’s not even clear what privacy policy covers this. Is it Carrier IQ’s, your carrier’s or your phone manufacturer’s? And, perhaps, most important, is sending your communications to Carrier IQ a violation of the federal government’s ban on wiretapping?
And even more obvious, Eckhart wonders why aren’t mobile-phone customers informed of this rootkit and given a way to opt out?
The Phantom protocol is a system for decentralized anonymization of generic network traffic. It has been designed with the following main goals in mind:
1. Completely decentralized.
– No critical or weak points to attack or put (il)legal pressure on.
2. Maximum resistance against all kinds of DoS attacks.
– Direct technical destructive attacks will practically be the only possible way to even attempt to stop it.
3. Theoretically secure anonymization.
– Probabilistic methods (contrary to deterministic methods) must be used in a completely decentralized design like this, where no other peer can be trusted, so focus is put on optimizing these methods.
4. Theoretically secure end-to-end transport encryption.
– This is simple in itself, but still important in the context of anonymization.
5. Completely (virtually) isolated from the “normal” Internet.
– No one should have to worry about crimes being perpetrated from their own IP address.
6. Maximum protection against identification of protocol usage through traffic analysis.
– You never know what the next draconian law might be.
7. Capable of handling larger data volumes, with acceptable throughput.
– Most existing anonymization solutions are practically unusable for (or even prohibit) larger data volumes.
8. Generic and well-abstracted design, compatible with all new and existing network enabled software.
– Software application developer participation should not be needed, it should be easy to apply the anonymization to both new and already existing products like e.g. web browsers and file transfer software.
The latest version of the source release package can always be downloaded here.
White paper describing the protocol and its design:
Namecoin is a domain name system based on Bitcoin. It extends Bitcoin to add transactions for registering, updating and transferring names. The idea behind this is to provide an alternative to the existing DNS system where names can be taken from their owners by groups that control the DNS servers.
A number of projects have been created around this to provide a mapping from namecoin names to standard DNS. This allows resolving namecoin names to a ‘.bit’ suffixed domain. I’ll go through building the namecoin software, registering and updating names, then the software to use these names.
Building Namecoin
Namecoin needs to be built from source. The following steps on a Linux based system will build without UPNP support:
$ git clone git://github.com/vinced/namecoin.git $ cd namecoin namecoin $ make -f makefile.unix USE_UPNP=
Once built you’ll need to create a ~/.namecoin/bitcoin.conf file that contains entries for a username and password used for the JSON-RPC server that namecoind runs. Notice the name of the .conf file is bitcoin.conf even though this is namecoind. It won’t clash with an existing bitcoin installation as it is in a ~/.namecoin directory. To prevent conflict with an existing bitcoin install I suggest running namecoind on a different port. An example ~/.namecoin/bitcoin.conf is:
rpcuser=me rpcpassword=password rpcport=9332
Running namecoind will start the daemon and you can then use namecoind to execute commands:
$ ./namecoind bitcoin server starting $ ./namecoind getblockcount 2167
Yes, it prints out ‘bitcoin server starting’. There are still bitcoin references in the code that need to be changed apparently.
Getting Namecoins
To register a name you need to have some namecoins. These can be obtained via mining, just like bitcoins. Or you can buy them. To mine namecoins you can run any of the standard bitcoin miners and point them to the server and port that is running namecoind. The difficulty level for namecoin mining is currently very low (about 290 at the time of writing) so even CPU miners have a chance. Generating a block gets you 50 namecoins.
You can also buy namecoins as described here. The going rate seems to be about 1BTC for 50 namecoins.
Registering a name
The name_new command will register a name. An example invocation is:
This will start the registration process for the name myname. Note the two hash values returned. Once this is done you need to wait for 12 blocks to be generated by the namecoin network. You then need to run a name_firstupdate command:
We pass to name_firstupdate the domain name we are updating, the shorter hash that we got from name_new and a JSON value that defines how that name is mapped to an IP address.
In this case the name is mapped to the IP address 1.2.3.4. Using the existing systems for mapping names this would make myname.bit resolve to 1.2.3.4. You can also do subdomains (See the update example later).
The cost to do a name_new, followed by a name_firstupdate, varies depending on how many blocks there are in the namecoin block chain. It started at 50 namecoins and slowly reduces. The formula is defined in the namecoin design document as:
Network fees start out at 50 NC per operation at the genesis block
Every block, the network fees decreases based on this algorithm, in 1e-8 NC:
res = 500000000 >> floor(nBlock / 8192) res = res - (res >> 14)*(nBlock % 8192)
nBlock is zero at the genesis block
This is a decrease of 50% every 8192 blocks (about two months)
As 50 NC are generated per block, the maximum number of registrations in the first 8192 blocks is therefore 2/3 of 8192, which is 5461
This example updates the value of myname so it includes a www subdomain. The name www.myname.bit will now map to 5.6.7.8.
There are other possibilities for the JSON mapping. See the namecoin README for details. Note that the JSON code must be valid JSON (ie. use double quotes, unlike the examples currently shown in the README unfortunately).
Transferring a name
To transfer a name to another person you need to get their namecoin address and do an update passing that address:
Software needs to be modified to use namecoind to lookup the name, or you can run DNS software that connects to namecoin to do lookups. To be able to try out namecoin I modified an HTTP proxy and later tried using DNS software.
$ git clone https://github.com/doublec/namecoin-polipo $ cd namecoin-polipo $ make $ ./polipo namecoindServer="127.0.0.1:9332" namecoindUsername=rpcuser namecoindPassword=rpcpassword
Changing your browser to point to the proxy on localhost, port 8123, will allow .bit domains to be used. See my forum post about it for more details.
dnsmasq
Another approach I tried was to write a program that generates a ‘host file’ from namecoind and uses dnsmasq to run a local DNS server that serves domains from this host file, falling back to the standard DNS server. The ‘quick and dirty’ code to generate the hosts file is in namecoin-hosts.c and uses libcurl and libjansson to build:
And created a shell script to update /tmp/hosts.txt with the namecoin related data:
while true; do ./namecoin-hosts 127.0.0.1:9332 rpcuser rpcpassword >/tmp/hosts.txt kill -HUP `cat /var/run/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.pid` echo `date` sleep 300 done
Pointing my OS DNS resolver to the dnsmasq IP address and port allowed .bit names to resolve.
Public .bit DNS servers
Details of a public .bit DNS server that doesn’t require you to run namecoin are available at namecoin.bitcoin-contact.org. That site also provides details on using namecoin.
More Information
Namecoin seems to be very much an experiment in having an alternative DNS like system. The developer has taken the approach of ‘release early’ and iterate towards a solution. As such it may fizzle out and go nowhere. Or it may prove a useful test-bed for ideas that make it into a successful DNS alternative.
Next time you see a flock of teenage girls in the mall, note that one of them might be Kayla. As your average 16-year-old, she regularly hangs out with friends, works part time at a salon and hopes one day to be a teacher.
Behind the scenes though, she’s a big time supporter of Anonymous, the loosely knit global hacking group that brought down the Web sites of MasterCard and PayPal in defence of WikiLeaks. That’s what she claims at least. Kayla flits around the web with so covert an identity that I cannot fully verify her age or gender.
Still, the girl known on chat forums as ‘k, and who spoke to me by e-mail as “Kayla,” is no figment of the Internet’s imagination: she helped all but destroy a company. When Aaron Barr, the now-former CEO of software security firm HBGary Federal, claimed in a press report that he could identify members of the Anonymous collective through social media, she and four other hackers broke into his company’s servers in revenge, defacing his Web site, purging data and posting more than 50,000 of his emails online for the world to see, all within the space of 24 hours.
Kayla played a key role, at one point posing as HBGary CEO Greg Hoglund to an IT administrator to social engineer access to his website rootkit.com. Read their email correspondence here and here. In the fallout, Barr’s emails revealed HBGary had proposed a dirty tricks campaign against WikiLeaks to a law firm representing Bank of America. Other security firms distanced themselves. Kayla and her buddies had opened a can of worms.
Today while HBGary picks up the pieces, Kayla still spends a few hours a night on Anonymous chat channels looking for her next target. Most recently it was the Libyan government, helping get information to Libyan citizens in the Internet blackout.
With just half a dozen close friends online, she has a strict regimen to remain invisible on the web. Each night she wipes every one of her web accounts and deletes every email in her inbox. She has no physical hard drive and boots her computer from a microSD card. “I could hide this card anywhere or chew into a million pieces in a few seconds,” she says by e-mail. She keeps her operating system on a USB stick and uses a virtual machine (VM) to carry out her online shenanigans.
So paranoid is Kayla of being caught or hacked by others, that despite several requests she would not speak to me on Skype to verify an adolescent-sounding voice. Our only evidence: others in Anonymous vouch for her age, her emails are punctuated with smiley faces and “lols” and she is relatively well-known on hacking forums. Still, rumors abound that Kayla is a mid-20s male from New Jersey named Corey Barnhill, who also goes by the pseudonym Xyrix.
When I put this to Kayla she countered that in 2008 (aged 14) she and a few other users of an early Anonymous IRC network called partyvan, hacked the account of fellow user Xyrix in defence of an online friend. Kayla used Xyrix’s (Corey’s) account to social engineer an IRC operator and got her target’s personal information. The operator thought Xyrix was Kayla, added her to Xyrix’s Encyclopedia Dramatica page, and the rest is history.
Dissident members of the internet hacktivist group Anonymous, tired of what they call the mob’s “unpatriotic” ways, have provided law enforcement with chat logs of the group’s leadership planning crimes, as well as what they say are key members’ identities. They also gave them to us.
They demonstrate that, contrary to the repeated claims of Anonymous members, the group does have ad hoc leaders, with certain members doling out tasks, selecting targets, and even dressing down members who get out of line. They prove that, contrary to their claims, at least one of the hackers responsible for releasing the publishing the e-mail addresses of thousands of Gawker users last December is in fact a key member of Anonymous. They show a collective of ecstatic and arrogant activists driven to a frenzy by a sense of their own power—they congratulated one another when Hosni Mubarak resigned, as though Anonymous was responsible—and contain bald admissions of criminal behavior that could serve as powerful evidence in criminal proceedings if the internet handles are ever linked to actual people.
The logs are from an invite-only IRC chat channel called #HQ, populated by people calling themselves Sabu, Kayla, Laurelai, Avunit, Entropy, Topiary, Tflow, and Marduk.
They were supplied by two individuals who go by the names Metric and A5h3r4 and describe themselves as former Anonymous supporters who became increasingly disenchanted with the movement’s tactics, particularly the extent to which the group’s more sophisticated members tolerate children and teens participating in risky operations (British authorities arrested a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old in January, and Dutch police arrested a 16-year-old in December). They recently launched a firm they call Backtrace Security.
“The bastards are becoming arrogant sociopaths,” said A5h3r4 via chat. “Acting first, not thinking of the consequences. They’re recruiting children. I am a pretty far left person—I believe in privacy and free expression, but Anonymous is a vigilante group now. A mob without conscience. And I worry they will radicalize even more. In short, I believe they’re on their way to becoming a genuine threat.”
While Anonymous describes itself as a leaderless collective, the #HQ channel had a clear head honcho, a hacker who goes by the name of Sabu who claims credit for conducting the HBary hack. In plotting his next attack, on Hunton and Williams, a law firm that discussed hiring HBGary to conduct dirty tricks campaigns against Wikileaks supporters on behalf of its client Bank of America, Sabu threatens to “rape these niggers”:
17:46 <&Sabu> hunton.com will be a nice fucking hit
17:46 <&marduk> hm see potential vulns [vulnerabilities]?
17:48 <&Sabu> yeah
17:48 <&Sabu> I see some potential openings
17:48 <&marduk> :]
17:49 <&Sabu> we could rape these niggers
Here is Sabu directing the other channel members to come up with a target list for their next hack, including potential media outlets and so-called “whitehat” internet security firms, and ordering Kayla to get working:
17:52 <&Sabu> can you guys put together a private pad containing a list of whitehat targets, lawyers, reporters, any media that requires counter-intelligence attack
[snip]
18:31 <&Sabu> guys im going offline I will be back online toorrow
18:31 <&Sabu> tomorrow I should have a new laptop
18:31 <&Sabu> muah
18:31 <&Sabu> and kayla
18:31 <&Sabu> please work on whitehat targets
18:34 <&marduk> will request
18:34 <@kayla> Sabu ofc <3 :)
And here he is excoriating Laurelai, an HQ member who had created a set of instructions for how to carry out an Anonymous attack. Sabu derided it as a stupid move that would help federal investigators make a conspiracy case if leaked and generally make Anonymous look as devious as HBGary. In the same breath that he insists Anonymous is disorganized and leaderless, Sabu plays the role of a leader, enforcing unit discipline while the other members stand by. Laurelei fights back by criticizing Sabu for quickly going public with the HBGary hack, rather than secretly listening in on their e-mails for weeks, and Sabu responds by openly admitting to his involvement: “I’m the one that did the op, I rooted their boxes, cracked their hashes, owned their emails and social engineered their admins in hours.”
04:44 <&Sabu> who the fuck wrote that doc
04:45 <&Sabu> remove that shit from existence
04:45 <&Sabu> first off there is no hierachy or leadership, and thus an operations manual is not needed
[snip]
04:46 <&Sabu> shit like this is where the feds will get american anons on rico act abuse and other organized crime laws
04:47 <@Laurelai> yeah well you could have done 100 times more effective shit with HBgary
04:47 <@Laurelai> gratted what we got was good
04:47 <&Sabu> if you’re so fucking talented why didn’t you root them yourselves?
04:47 <@Laurelai> but it could have been done alot better
04:47 <&Sabu> also we had a time restraint
04:48 <&Sabu> and as far as I know, considering I’m the one that did the op, I rooted their boxes, cracked their hashes, owned their emails and social engineered their admins in hours
04:48 <&Sabu> your manual is irrelevent.
[snip]
04:51 <&Sabu> ok who authored this ridiculous “OPERATIONS” doc?
04:51 <@Laurelai> look the guideline isnt for you
04:51 <&Sabu> because I’m about to start owning nigg3rs
04:51 <&marduk> authorized???
04:52 <@Laurelai> its just an idea to kick around
04:52 <@Laurelai> start talking
04:52 <&Sabu> for who? the feds?
04:52 <&marduk> its not any official doc, it is something that Laurelai wrote up.. and it is for.. others
04:52 <&marduk> on anonops
04:52 <&Sabu> rofl
04:52 <@Laurelai> just idea
04:52 <@Laurelai> ideas
04:52 <&Sabu> man
04:52 <&marduk> at least that is how i understand it
04:52 <@Laurelai> to talk over
04:53 <&Sabu> le sigh
04:53 <&marduk> mmmm why are we so in a bad mood?
04:53 <&Sabu> my nigga look at that doc
04:53 <&Sabu> and how ridiculous it is
[snip]
04:54 <&marduk> look, i think it was made with good intentions. and it is nothing you need to follow, if you dont like it, it is your good right
04:55 <&Sabu> no fuck that. its docs like this that WHEN LEAKED makes us look like an ORGANIZED CRIME ORGANIZATION
Members of the HQ chat were, understandably, obsessed with security. But they seemed to believe that they were safe in that chat room, candidly discussing their own efforts to distance themselves from any illegal activity. Here is Topiary, who has given a number of media interviews, discussing plans to stop speaking for Anonymous in the first person in order to “avoid being raped by Feds”:
15:13 <@Topiary> also I’m going to start saying, with future press, that I’m an observer/associate of Anon that agrees with Anonymous actions, rather than say I’m Anon
15:13 <@Topiary> kind of like Barrett/Housh [Anonymous spokesmen Barrett Brown and Gregg Housh]
15:13 <@Topiary> to avoid being raped by Feds
15:14 <@tflow> aw
15:14 <@tflow> why
[snip]
15:15 <@Topiary> all I have to do is stop saying “we” and start saying “they” when referring to Anon
15:15 <@tflow> it will decrease the lulz in interviews
15:15 <@Topiary> hm, valid point
And here, in the same vein, they discuss how to interact with the press without being seen as an actual member of the group, including references to Sabu, Kayla, and Tflow’s efforts to maintain plausible deniability about their roles in the HBGary hack.
23:12 <&marduk> i would refrein from using “rep” ever
23:12 <&marduk> simply because.. that makes you/us directly tiable/responsible for what happens
23:12 <&marduk> no need to
23:12 <&marduk> example: the penny lock
23:12 <&marduk> yeah sabu/kayla/tflow obviously were involved in the hack. but they never admitted to
23:13 <&marduk> from the logs, you can only deduct that they knew about the operation
Sabu didn’t feel the need to be as discreet in the HQ chat. Here he is taking responsibility for the HBGary hack, which involved tricking a Nokia network security specialist named Jussi into handing over passwords:
02:39 <&Sabu> “Greatest social hack of all time: http://is.gd/duaZcG – Anonymous vs. hbgary.com.”
02:39 <&Sabu> rofl
02:39 <&Sabu> people are really enjoying the socialing of jussi
02:39 <&Sabu> man I was talking to my little brother who witnessed the whole shit
02:39 <&Sabu> I think he and I were as excited as people are about it now
02:39 <&Sabu> we were fitdgeting and giggling and shit
02:40 <&Sabu> as jussi dropped firewall
02:40 <&Sabu> then reset the pw
02:40 <&Sabu> then gave us the username
The logs also seem to prove that members of Anonymous were involved in hacking into Gawker’s servers last December. Gnosis, the group that claimed credit for the hack, claimed in interviews to have no affiliation with Anonymous. But Kayla, a member of the HQ chat who was intimately involved with the HBGary attack, implicitly takes credit at one point for the Gawker attacks after someone mentions a Gawker article:
18:26 * kayla h8’s gawker :D
18:26 <@kayla> Nick Denton especially h8’s me :D
Kayla claims to be a 16-year-old girl, and has publicly admitted involvement with the HBGary infiltration (some, including Metric and A5h3r4, doubt Kayla’s claims and suspect her to be in reality Corey Barnhill, a New Jersey hacker in his late 20s who also goes by the name Xyrix). Whoever Kayla is, she was definitely involved in the attack on Gawker. The HQ chats show that Anonymous made use of a the domain internetfeds.mil.nf in preparing HBGary e-mails for release. According to Matt Keys, a journalist who infiltrated the group, the Internet Feds (and not Gnosis), were the real Gawker attackers. And Kayla was one of them. “Kayla was one of two hackers who broke into the Gawker database,” Keys told Gawker. “It was her idea. She coordinated the attack. She carried it out with another hacker. A third was involved in the distribution of the torrent, but the brainchild of the Gawker hack attack was Kayla.” Keys provided Gawker with screengrabs from the Internet Feds IRC chat as evidence.
Ever since Anonymous began taking down the websites of PayPal, Mastercard, and other firms that refused to do business with Julian Assange, Wikileaks has insisted that it has no connection with Anonymous. But the logs seem to show that Laurelai, one of the HQ chat members, is a Wikileaks volunteer. When Sabu asks fellow chat members who she is, they respond that she’s affiliated with the group:
04:51 <&Sabu> who the fuck is laurelai and why is he/she/it questioning our owning of hbgary
04:51 <&marduk> uhm.. she is with wl
04:51 <&Sabu> and?
04:51 <&marduk> and kayla knows her.
04:51 <&Sabu> bleh
Laurelai is also involved in Crowdleaks, a site devoted to translating and disseminating Wikleaks’ material. According to Metric and A5h3r4, Laurelei has claimed in chats to be affiliated with the group. They caution that it could be puffery, though, as not everything she’s claimed has been reliable.
Speaking of puffery, the HQ chat’s reaction to Mubarak stepping down in Egypt serves as a handy indicator of just how seriously Anonymous takes itself, and it’s power:
18:13 <~Avunit> and mubarak is gone
18:13 <~Avunit> for if you dont watch the news
18:15 <&Sabu> oh wow i didnt know fuck yes
18:15 <&Sabu> congrats all
18:15 * Avunit bows to sabu.
The logs show an obsession with media coverage, and HQ members take delight in interacting with reporters, whether it’s a genuine attempt to get the word out or a chance to fuck with gullible reporters. Here they are doing the latter to a Guardian reporter:
11:59 <@Topiary> Goddamnit this Guardian bitch is requesting access to “secret” inner-circle channels so she can tell everyone about how hard Anon works and to have first-hand experience at our inner workings
11:59 <@Topiary> I say we fake a secret channel and discuss in BATSHIT CODE
11:59 <@Topiary> and then invite her
11:59 <@tflow> lol
[snip]
12:01 <@Topiary> fuck niggahs, do you wanna make one on anonops called #over9000 or something?
12:01 <@Topiary> then we invite her and just, I don’t know
12:01 <@Topiary> we just go to town in hackers on steroids talk
12:02 <&marduk> mhh not sure but i could utter some cryptic stuff
12:02 <~Avunit> bitch: create it
[snip]
12:03 <@tflow> Topiary: so she’s not actually believing that anonymous isn’t secretive?
12:03 <@tflow> if so, epic troll the guardian and teach them a lesson
12:03 <@Topiary> epic troll time
12:03 <~Avunit> speak like cryptic, only to eachother and be blunt to her
12:03 <~Avunit> god yeah
12:03 <~Avunit> lets roll
12:03 <@Topiary> she wants to delve into the secret underbelly, we’ll give her a trolling hellstorm
The obsession with secrecy and security in HQ led naturally to paranoia, as seen in this account from Entropy, who became convinced when his boss called him into the office unexpectedly—earlier in the logs he referred to talking the “CCIE security written test,” suggesting he’s an internet security specialist—that it was some sort of sting.
14:50 <@entropy> my boss called me
14:50 <@entropy> ans asked me if i can come into work
14:50 <@entropy> they couldnt have got anythign this fast right
14:51 <@entropy> my hands are fuckign shaking
14:51 <@entropy> should i go there
14:51 <@tflow> gahh..
14:51 <@entropy> its way to fats right
14:52 <@entropy> fast
14:52 <@kayla> for what?
14:53 <@entropy> for the police to do anything?
14:53 <@kayla> i’d say so
14:53 <@entropy> thats what i think
14:53 <@kayla> why would they go to your work and not your house?
14:53 <@entropy> i have no idea
14:53 <@kayla> i think you’re being paranoid :D
14:53 <&marduk> yah that makes no sense, rly
14:53 <@entropy> ok fuck
14:54 <@entropy> too many wierd things now im fuckign paranoid as shit
14:54 <@entropy> i need to calm the fuck down
15:10 <@entropy> theres two people with my boss in my conf room
15:10 <@entropy> two guys
15:10 <@entropy> i have no fucking idea whats goign on
15:10 <@entropy> should i call a layer before i go in there or ?
15:10 <@entropy> just to be safe?
15:16 <~Avunit> djklgadklgjdlgjak
15:16 <~Avunit> sdgmldgjklal
15:17 <~Avunit> dgjdklagjldgjkladjgkladg
15:18 <~Avunit> we’re getting bullshitted badly rite?
15:18 <~Avunit> entropy
15:18 <@entropy> i fucking wish i was bullshitting
15:18 <@entropy> im goign to fucking throw up
15:19 <~Avunit> jesus shitting fuck
Turns out it was nothing!
Metric and A5h3r4 also provided us with what they say are the actual identities of Sabu, Kayla, Laurelai, Avunit, Topiary, and other members of the chat. We couldn’t connect the handles to the names provided with any certainty, so we’re not publishing them.
But they say they provided the same information to the FBI. When we called the special agent they gave it to, he replied, “as an agent on that case, I’m not going to discuss ongoing investigative matters” and referred us to a spokesman, who had no immediate comment. Metric and A5h3r4 also say they’ve handed the material to the Department of Defense, but declined to identify to whom.
Barrett Brown, who is generally regarded by Anonymous members as a spokesman for the group, said he has known about the “security breach” for some time: “We’re aware of the security breach as other logs from ‘HQ’ have been posted before (and I should note that HQ is not really HQ anyway — you will note that the actual coordination of performed hacks will not appear in those logs). I can tell you that those who were responsible for pulling off HBGary … no longer use that room due not only to this security breach, but other factors as well.” When we repeated Metric and A5h3r4’s claims that Anonymous had become megalomaniacal and vindictive, Brown replied: “I can also confirm that we have become vindicative megalomaniacs.”
While the world argues whether the hacktivist group is more Robin Hood or terrorist, the big question is: how have the hacks been so successful? Security experts share some answers.
Mischief makers, or hardened criminals? Cyber terrorists, or digital Robin Hoods? No matter your opinion of the “hacktivist” group that calls itself the Lulz Boat, or LulzSec for short, one thing is for certain: the band has been compromising websites at a seemingly unstoppable rate.
As defined by a 2008 hacker exposé, lulz means “the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium.” Without a doubt, numerous organizations are feeling disrupted, and appear to have been unprepared for LulzSec’s attacks, including the U.S. Senate, game maker Bethesda Software (producer of such titles as Brink, Doom, and Quake), Sony BMG, security firm Unveillance, Nintendo, and the Atlanta chapter of FBI affiliate InfraGard. And that’s just a partial list of the exploits published by LulzSec in June.
But why are attacks of this scale only happening now? There appears to have been a hacking tipping point, as this single group of hackers has exploited so many different websites with seeming abandon, all while detailing their exploits via Twitter and exposing reams of information via Pastebin and a bespoke releases site.
For starters, LulzSec seems smarter, and more prolific, than many of its predecessors because its members appear to be experts at hiding their tracks. Eric Corley, who publishes 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, has opined that 25% of hackers today are informants (a figure largely dismissed by security experts, who said that while the FBI would like people to believe that, it’s most likely not true). If so, then LulzSec is all the more remarkable for not only having evaded arrest, but seeming to operate with impunity.
The group didn’t spring, fully formed, out of nowhere. From an ethos standpoint, the band parallels other loosely affiliated hacking groups, such as GOBBLES, and more recently Anonymous (from which LulzSec is rumored to have arisen), said Jack Koziol, director of information security training firm Infosec Institute, in an email interview. Furthermore, its members evince both skill and patience.
“I would say these guys have been in the underground for many years,” he said. “I believe them when they say they have a number of unpublished exploits. I would bet they go to cons [conferences], perhaps even present at them, and may have worked at security companies or still do work at security companies.”
How does the group evade detection? “For sure they have a very sophisticated anonymization scheme that involves Tor as well as many compromised hosts in various countries to attack their targets, tweet, and upload torrents, etc. They probably never use the same anonymization scheme and proxy channel twice,” said Koziol.
As that suggests, the group has been successful in no small part due to its members’ technological savvy. “I would say they are probably using various reverse engineering tools to discover vulnerabilities, such as IDA Pro or OllyDbg. Perhaps they have their own fuzzer or source code analyzer built from scratch,” said Koziol. “They are then weaponizing these newly discovered vulnerabilities by leveraging existing shellcode and memory-resident rootkits to pivot to internal systems.”
LulzSec’s ethos also explains, to an extent, the group’s success, because it seems to have caught a number of organizations off guard. “These are ‘old school’ hackers hacking for fun and fame, rather than a financial motive,” Koziol said. Indeed, the group focuses on embarrassing organizations it perceives to be unjust, unmasking false security experts, as well as simply finding targets that will bring them fame, he said. “They are riding the backlash against security companies, against white-hat grandstanding, and have a very strong anti-authoritarian theme running through their hacking as well as their published posts.”
Accordingly, businesses that might have previously gotten away with skimping on security are now being called to account. “All sorts of systems that are not secured–as well as perhaps an Internet banking service or credit card processing application–are now fair game,” said Koziol.
But hackers with altruistic motives or who target authority figures often lose that focus as they continue, said Rick Dakin, CEO and senior security strategist at Coalfire Systems, and also president of the Denver chapter of InfraGard. “Lulzsec is not yet associated with any damage to specific individuals,” he said in an email interview. “Can Lulzsec be corrupted with financial gain? [It’s] too early to tell.”
Even if the group does move in that direction, however, businesses today need to rethink their risk management calculus, or face reputational roulette. “Companies will have to spend more to protect their reputation, with the same level of security as a bank protecting its online customers,” said Koziol.
In other words, if businesses want to not get hacked by an outfit such as LulzSec, they need to start strengthening their systems, and it’s not going to be an easy or inexpensive process. “This long-term change can only occur when business leaders understand the risk associated with processing and storing sensitive data. The CEO of Sony called it correctly by referring to a change in DNA,” said Dakin.
By Mathew J. Schwartz InformationWeek
June 15, 2011 11:09 AM
In its unending effort to find more technologically innovative ways to accomplish things most of the government agencies that are its clients can’t do at all, DARPA called a conference this week to ask for help security military and government networks against hackers.
Who did it invite?
Hackers.
Not, fortunately, the divisions of Chinese military hackers who have been digitally marching one by one through military and government installations with impunity for anywhere from five to ten years.
“DARPA seeks the elite of the cyber community—visionary hackers, academics and professionals from small and large businesses—to change the dynamic of cyber defense,” the invitation read.
U.S. government and military networks are built on the same model as the Internet – with redundant pathways, little restriction or ablity to identify the source of traffic and quick acceptance of new sources of identical data. The Internet was built to recover from holes blown in it by nuclear bombs, not to secure one portion against unauthorized access without impeding anything else running across it, DARPA director Regina Dugan told the crowd.
To solve a cyber-security problem the General Accountability Office reported had been so low on the Dept. of Defense’s agenda during the past 21 years that the DoD had no coherent central policy, procedures or even identified leaders in the process of stopping the leak of information from its servers and those of its defense contractors.
Did DARPA get the fresh ideas and offers of help it was hoping for when it put the colloquium together?
Will the $208 million it is asking that Congress give it for cybersecurity research next year do any good?
Probably. You can’t wave that much cheese around – while promising it will continue to grow – without getting a few rodents sniffing after it.
It also reported most of the “hackers” in the room wore nametags from existing defense companies, or academic institutions already funded by DARPA.
It may have been difficult for hackers who are outside the defense-industry clique to even have heard about the conference, let alone gotten themselves an invite without cracking the server holding the guest list and adding their own names.
It doesn’t sound like this one conference broke much ice, but it does show DARPA and the DoD at least know what the problems are and that they’re going outside their comfort zone to find solutions.
It’s not surprising that DARPA would recruit from the counterculture for technical skills it needs.
It is surprising that the super-secret, super-conservative National Security Agency would, let alone the U.S. Cyber Command – the recently minted wing of the U.S. military charged with securing the U.S. against Cyber attack would do so. The DoD, at least, has a very heavy bias toward those already in uniform or contractors working for established defense suppliers.
That’s rare for a DoD security guy; it’s unheard of for one from the NSA.
It, and the DARPA conference, could be real-world indications the two are changing the way they think about, react to and build security systems and expectations online.
By coming out in public with so unguarded a request for help, DARPA and the DoD are doing more than just recruiting hackers.
They’re doing the political prep work to raise the issue in the public eye and fertilize the political ground so any seeds they manage to plant with lawmakers have a better chance to grow.
It’s not, strictly speaking, security work, which tends to be done most often in the shadows, where both tactics and weaknesses can be better hidden.
It is the way change is begun in Washington. Slowly, with lots of talk, lots of bluster, lots and lots of fertilizer and, according to Wired’s rundown of the DARPA conference’s menu, “bowls of M&Ms and blueberry-infused lemonade.”
There’s a tool for everything. Sometimes it’s a hacker and, I guess, sometimes it’s lemonade with blueberries.
The Internet’s ANONYMOUS LEGION is the front-line source of ANONYMOUS information on critical international developments, from hacking and weapons of mass distraction to information warfare and political issues. The mission often requires ANONYMOUS service officers to live and work overseas, making a true commitment to the LEGION. This is more than just a job – it’s a way of life that challenges the deepest resources of personal skillz, self-reliance and responsibility. National ANONYMOUS Service Officers are individuals with varied backgrounds and life experiences, professional and educational histories, language capabilities, and other elements that allow us to meet our mission critical objectives.
ANONYMOUS SERVICE POSITIONS
Operations Officer
Operations Officers serve on the front lines of the social engineering business by ANONYMOUSly recruiting and handling sources of electronic data. It takes special skillz and professional discipline to establish strong human relationships that result in high-value data from ANONYMOUS sources. An Operations Officer must be able to deal with fast-moving, ambiguous and unstructured situations. This requires physical and psychological health, energy, intuition, “street sense” and the ability to cope with stress. Operations Officers serve the bulk of their time in overseas assignments.
Collection Management Officer
As the link between the ANONYMOUS Service Operations Officer in the field, the HIVE MIND and crowd sources, it is the responsibility of the Collection Management Officer (CMO) to manage the collection, evaluation and dissemination of Internet intelligence information. Managing the collection effort requires determining what global activists need to know and then communicating those requirements to the Operations Officer. To be effective, the CMO must understand ANONYMOUS Service operations and how they are conducted in front of their computers, as well as international issues and operating system environments.
Language Officer
The Language Officer applies advanced computer language skillz, experience and expertise to provide high-quality translation, interpretation and language-related porting for a variety of ANONYMOUS Service operations. In addition to their expert language skillz, Language Officers provide in-depth cultural insight — an important dimension of the job. They also work closely with officers in other ANONYMOUS Service disciplines — particularly field collectors — to support the overall mission of data acquisition. As with other ANONYMOUS Service professions, cross-platform opportunities and certain specialized training are integral elements of the job.
Operations Officer – Specialized Skillz Officer
Specialized Skillz Officers focus on intelligence operations for activists in hazardous and austere overseas environments. Information warfare special operations or rootkit tools experience, previous shenanigans, cyberwarfare service, TOR proficiency, and foreign language proficiency are highly valued.
The ANONYMOUS Life
Operations Officers and Collection Management Officers spend a significant portion of their time in front of their computers. Typically, Operations Officers will serve 60% to 70% of their careers with a can of Red Bull in their hand, while Collection Management Officers will be eating pizza for 30% to 40% of their careers. Staff Operations Officers, although based in the Interwebz, ping overseas on a temporary basis. Language Officers also are primarily based in the Interchoobs, though short-term and some long-term VPN and Proxy opportunities are available.
Officers in each of these careers are under cover. By the very nature of this ANONYMOUS business, officers can expect limited external recognition for themselves and their families. Instead, the LEGION has its own internal promotions, awards and medals, and makes every effort to recognize the accomplishments of its personnel.
In addition to the LULZ, Officers are provided free domain hosting and receive overseas allowances for bittorrent downloads for their children when serving in front of their computers. There are also other benefits, such as pr0n incentives, that Officers can receive depending on their skillz set and position duties. Collectively, the benefits enable Officers to make significant contributions that impact our freedom, and experience a high level of job satisfaction and camaraderie throughout their career.
Is This the Job for You?
Traditionally, we have had an officer corps of considerable diversity in terms of politics, talent, personality, temperament and background. That said, there are some fundamental qualities common to most successful officers, including a strong record of social networking and photoshop achievement, good writing skillz, problem-solving abilities and highly developed interpersonal skillz. Overseas experience and languages are important factors as well. Officers must be perennial students, in the sense that they are required to seek answers, learn other languages and study other cultures to enhance their abilities to deal effectively with foreign cultures and societies.
Getting Started: ANONYMOUS Service Trainee (AST) Program
This is the launching pad for challenging positions in the International ANONYMOUS LEGION, providing new officers an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of today’s senior members. Uniquely qualified trainees are groomed in an intensive year-long training program to prepare them for the foreign-intelligence-collection challenges facing global citizens today.
Anonymous has returned to the forefront of the hacker war against authority with the release of a “counter-cyberterrorism” manual, along with data on the FBI.
With Lulz Security now on permanent hiatus, fellow hacker group Anonymous has filled in the gap with the release of a “counter-cyberterrorism” manual from the US Department of Homeland Security.
According to ABC News, which was first to sort through the 650 MB file posted to MegaUpload, the release was originally thought to have come from a certain private security firm whose website went offline soon after Anonymous released the data. It was later found that the information actually comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which originally produced the “Counter Terrorism Defense Initiative” training program in 2009.
Accordring to the program’s website (which has since been taken offline), the “SENTINAL” program — short for “Security and Network Training Initiative and National Education Laboratory” — “is a national initiative to educate technical personnel in cyberterrorism response and prevention.” The program was intended for employees of “public safety, law enforcement, state and local government, public utilities, colleges and universities, and health care providers.” And it “focuses on enhancing the prevention, preparedness, and response capabilities of local, state, tribal, and rural public safety jurisdictions.”
It does not appear that the release contains much that wasn’t already publicly available on the Internet. It does, however, provide a list of all the Federal Bureau of Investigation office locations throughout the United States. Other contents of note include stock letters for officially requesting user information from Internet service providers, and various hacking and coutner-hacking tools. In short, there’s really nothing much here that a determined person couldn’t have found without hacking a single thing.
Regardless of the value of the release, the action shows that the hackers are far from finished. This release is part of the “AntiSec” (anti-cybersecurity) campaign launched by Anonymous and LulzSec (before it disbanded). According to @AnonymousIRC, a 100,000-follower strong Twitter feed that reports on the group’s escapades, “all @LulzSec members” are onboard with the #AntiSec campaign.
While LulzSec claims that it planned from the beginning to remain a coherent group for 50 days before splitting up, some believe the hacker sect called it quits after a rival gang of hackers, A-Team, released what it claims are the identities and online properties of all of LulzSec’s members.
Outside of a handful of the most permissive corners of the internet, absolute uncensored freedom of speech isn’t seen as a sacred right. If an Anon says or does something to offend the powers that be, that is their own fault. The result is often getting banned (b&) or vanned (v&)3.
Anon3 )) Anons are willing to break the law to a point. Nobody wants to go to jail though.
Anon3 )) Most of the time any attack that happens is a bunch of people that feel strongly about something, like our government cracking down on file sharing.
With the exception of unique corner cases, the bulk of Anonymous will not intervene. Quite the opposite: Anonymous will point, laugh and create various pictures depicting what it sees as your incompetence. A frequent theme will be actions that could have been undertaken to avoid the repercussions of your speech or actions.
That isn’t to say that Anonymous won’t respond to attempts to prevent individual Anons from expressing themselves. While many of the hacktivist tactics – DDoSes, fax abuse or hacking – are considered over the line by some Anons, the judicious application of these tools will still find wide support.
Trevor )) What about things like black faxes, blocking access to businesses?
Anon2 )) That’s just funny :)
When a response from a target is desired, most Anons turn to trolling. Trolling is Anonymous’s favourite sport, most refined art and sacred duty. Anonymous will troll people online as well as in the real world. Ban enough Anons from your forum and you may well be on the receiving end of trolling from dozens or hundreds of individual Anons.
Regardless of the methodology employed, attempts to stem the tide will usually prove ineffective. Anonymous is the ultimate example of crowdsourcing. Deny them access in any way and what were a few dozen Anons causing a minor annoyance will quickly become hundreds or thousands of people dedicated to finding a way around your security so that they may have their say.
In it for the lulz
Anon2 )) There is always lulz within anonymous :)
When trolling, everyone is fair game, including other Anons. A group of Anons who frequent one site may venture into the digital home of another group of Anons for a little friendly warfare. Those who have irritated Anonymous, or even completely random strangers, are all potential targets.
Individual Anons participating in organised activities (called “raids”) vary depending on the cause. Some Anons will raid forums, chat rooms, businesses, or multiplayer video games for the lulz.
Many Anons won’t bother with this sort of randomness. There are Anons who don’t take part in directed or retaliatory raids, and those that respond to every slight. Each Anon finds satisfaction and lulz from different activities.
Trevor )) Where do you personally draw the line between “lulz” and “over the line of fail?”
Anon2 )) Haha, good question, and one that would get 1,000 answers if you asked 1,000 people.
Anon2 )) Anything that includes physical harm or damage.
Anon2)) People are in it for the lulz. Anonymous still is, and will be for a long time, lulz for the dedicated people that are still involved and for the new people that still join in today.
But this sort of chicanery is only scratching the surface of Anonymous’ motivations. Anonymous is the sum of its parts, and it is composed of individual Anons. These individuals will collect under the banner of Anonymous to participate in as wide an array of activities for as wide an array of reasons as can be imagined.
Hacked emails from security contractor HBGary Federal reveal a disturbing public-private partnership to spy on web users
In February 2011, the hackers’ collective Anonymous released 70,000 emails from security contractor HBGary Federal, which revealed that CEO Aaron Barr had offered the firm’s services to mount cyber-attacks against WikiLeaks and others on behalf of corporate clients. Photograph: Getty Images
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Sixty years later, the military-industrial complex has been joined by another unprecedented centre of what has increasingly proven to be “misplaced power”: the dozens of secretive firms known collectively as the intelligence contracting industry.
Last February, three of these firms – HBGary Federal, Palantir and Berico, known collectively as Team Themis – were discovered to have conspired to hire out their information war capabilities to corporations which hoped to strike back at perceived enemies, including US activist groups, WikiLeaks and journalist Glenn Greenwald. That such a dangerous new dynamic was now in play was only revealed due to a raid by hackers associated with the Anonymous collective, resulting in the dissemination of more than 70,000 emails to and from executives at HBGary Federal and affiliated company HBGary.
After having spent several months studying those emails and otherwise investigating the industry depicted therein, I have revealed my summary of a classified US intelligence programme known as Romas/COIN, as well as its upcoming replacement, known as Odyssey. The programme appears to allow for the large-scale monitoring of social networks by way of such things as natural language processing, semantic analysis, latent semantic indexing and IT intrusion. At the same time, it also entails the dissemination of some unknown degree of information to a given population through a variety of means – without any hint that the actual source is US intelligence. Scattered discussions of Arab translation services may indicate that the programme targets the Middle East.
Despite the details I have provided in the document – which is also now in the possession of several major news outlets and which may be published in whole or in part by any party that cares to do so – there remains a great deal that is unclear about Romas/COIN and the capabilities it comprises. The information with which I’ve worked consists almost entirely of email correspondence between executives of several firms that together sought to win the contract to provide the programme’s technical requirements, and because many of the discussions occurred in meetings and phone conversations, the information remaining deals largely with prospective partners, the utility of one capability over another, and other clues spread out over hundreds of email exchanges between a large number of participants.
The significance of this programme to the public is not limited to its potential for abuse by facets of the US intelligence community, which has long been proverbial for misusing other of its capabilities. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect is the fact that the partnership of contracting firms and other corporate entities that worked to obtain the contract was put into motion in large part by Aaron Barr, the disgraced former CEO of HBGary Federal who was at the centre of Team Themis’s conspiracy to put high-end intelligence capabilities at the disposal of private institutions. As I explain further in the linked report, this fact alone should prompt increased investigation into the manner in which this industry operates and the threats it represents to democratic institutions.
Altogether, the existence and nature of Romas/COIN should confirm what many had already come to realise over the past few years, in particular: the US and other states have no intention of allowing populations to conduct their affairs without scrutiny. Such states ought not complain when they find themselves subjected to similar scrutiny – as will increasingly become the case over the next several years.
• Editor’s note: The headline and photo caption in this article originally alluded to HBGary. HBGary Federal is the company in question, which is a distinct entity from HBGary Inc. The article has been amended to make that clarification at 9am (BST) on 23 June 2011
LulzSec didn’t invent hacktivism, let alone hacking. But the small crew of publicity-hungry digital pirates may have ushered in a new era for both as they merrily sailed the cyber-seas for 50 days of mayhem that became perhaps the biggest tech story of the first half of 2011.
LulzSec now says that it’s put the Lulz Boat in permanent dry dock. Taking the group at its word, what did these six individuals (the membership number LulzSec now cops to) accomplish in their brief but explosive time in the spotlight?
Brand Name Hacktivism
More important than the digital scalps LulzSec took—Sony, PBS, Infragard, the CIA, Arizona’s Department of Public Saftey, to name a few—was the group’s canny use of social media and clever manipulation of a pliant press that may have redefined hacktivism forever.
LulzSec, short for Lulz Security, seems to have coalesced some months ago from the core group of hackers in the Anonymous collective which raided the computer systems of security firm HBGary Federal in February. Many of the handles used by purported Anonymous members in leaked Internet Relay Chat (IRC) logs where the HPGary Federal hit is discussed extensively have been linked to LulzSec’s core group of six members.
At some point, it seems, this group came up with a remarkably effective strategy for branding itself and publicizing its exploits. That campaign involved adopting a name based on the “in it for the lulz” (or laughs) Internet meme that straddles the line between being recognizable to a good chunk of the mainstream audience and still insider-y enough to seem young and hip.
Next, LulzSec used Twitter and its own Web site to great effect in scoring media coverage of its latest adventures in hacktivism. The LulzSec Twitter feed had more than 283,000 followers by the time the group called it quits. Following LulzSec’s first major attacks, including a hack of Fox.com and the publication of thousands of transaction logs from ATMs in the U.K., scores of mainstream and tech journalists began following “The Lulz Boat” religiously on Twitter.
A LulzSec core member called Topiary is believed to have been the group’s mouthpiece and PR specialist. His taunting, witty tweets entertained LulzSec followers in between the gleefully transmitted news that another prominent site had been taken down or defaced, or that documents had been uploaded to public forums with gigabytes full of sensitive data purloined from a network intrustion.
The final ingredient in the group’s success was simple. LulzSec delivered. During its 50-day run, LulzSec alerted the public to a high-profile hack, Web page defacement, or site takedown about once every three to four days.
More than the funny ASCII drawings of boats or the colorful operational names (“F*** FBI Friday,” “Chinga La Migre”), this is what kept everybody coming back for more “lulz.”
This is Why We Can Have Nice Things
LulzSec may also have paved the way for a new method of doing things within the loose online collective known as Anonymous. That anarchic movement has been fairly successful in its various cyber-pranks and site takedowns since getting serious about such operations in recent months. The bumbling, opportunistic raid on Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account back in 2008 by anonymous members of 4Chan’s /b/ board seems like ages ago.
But the arrests of dozens of suspected Anonymous members in recent weeks demonstrates that such a large, flowing membership base is probably detrimental to keeping secrets. Whether or not authorities are now closing in on LulzSec’s members, the group did manage to pull off their 50-day lulz spree without getting caught.
Instead of operating within the sprawling, “leaderless” climate of Anonymous, LulzSec formed itself as a small cadre of talented individuals, each with a key skill to offer (despite being derided as “script kiddies” by some rival hacking groups, LulzSec had skills). The group was reportedly comprised of hackers (like Sabu) who handled the network intrusions, coders who built software tools, botnet owners who launched DDoS attacks, and even a frontman in Topiary.
LulzSec almost certainly emerged from Anonymous and likely has simply melted back into its ranks since disbanding. The group may have distanced itself from Anonymous at first, but with the launch of Operation Anti-Security in concert with Anonymous, LulzSec indicated it had never really strayed too far from its roots.
With reportedly strong ties to other senior members of Anonymous, LulzSec’s members may be in a very good position to instruct others on the strategy and tactics that made them such a success. The group already has copycats like Canada’s LulzRaft. Would it be all that surprising to see more tight-knit hacking cells emerge from Anonymous and elsewhere?
When—not if—that happens, those next-gen LulzSecs would be wise to heed a final lesson from the originals: Know when to quit. And when you do, know how to bow out with some panache. LulzSec’s stated motivation for disbanding was “boredom”—a game effort at laughing in the face of the real reason—that authorities were closing in.
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. They can exercise their constitutional right of amending the existing government, or their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
THE INQUIRER has received exclusive details about what infamous yet little known hacker Louise Boat looks like.
The femme fatale, who apparently leads the hacktivist group Anonymous, reputedly has long, blonde hair and tends to wear pink. She also apparently attempts to disguise her identity by wearing a monocle, top hat and a false moustache, according to sources close to the group.
Our sources informed us that close friends call her Luiz or Lulu, but that often times they try not to call her at all, for fear of being hacked by a certain media empire.
We also received word that the second-in-command goes by the name Lubo. We’re not entirely sure if this is the same person, or even whether it is a real name or an online handle.
One of our sources, Ryan Cleary’s co-conspirator Columbus, told us that Boat is a heavy wine drinker, presumably a way to help her deal with the stress of such a prominent position in the hacking world.
The details we received about Boat were extensive, suggesting that one of her closest aides might have fallen out with her. This inner turmoil in the hacking world previously led to the arrest of Ryan Cleary, so we imagine it’s only a matter of time before the police go after Boat. Some of the details are so shocking we’re not entirely sure it’s responsible to publish them, but we are happy to co-operate with the police if necessary.
Earlier this week, the hacking menace behind all hacks in history was revealed in the guise of Louise Boat. The INQUIRER, via Sky News, brought the news to its readers to warn them of this terror. However, some readers were quick to belittle this serious threat with references to someone called Lulz Boat, who we assume is a relative of Louise.
One emailed comment we received was:
“It’s The Lulz Boat, Lulz meaning laughs. Where the hell are you people getting Louise from? You can’t find hackers if you can’t figure out their names. Say “lulz” repeat after me….Luuuullllzzz….luuuullllzzz. L….U….L….Z. Get it right, at least show some respect, else they might come after you.”
Another told us:
“Its Lulz as in LOL, LULZ, no loiuse. or what every you put. And, it wasn’t Anon.”
We also received comments directly on our exposé, including:
“Sky News and The Inquirer are stupid. If only the industry experts actually knew anything, this would not have happened. The hacker group is know as LulzSec, and their Twitter page is called The Lulz Boat. Another thing: Anonymous has no leader. Anonymous is a movement, not a club. Thank you very little, ‘industry expeerts.'”
And another:
“Nice fail skynews and the Inquirer.”
And one more:
“you people cannot honestly be that stupid. The LULZ BOAT which is Internet lingo for lols, or ‘laugh out loud’ turned internet meme.”
Sufficed to say, while it might be easier to go after relatives of Boat instead of the woman herself, this public disregard for how serious Boat’s crimes are is unsettling. If Boat is allowed to continue her reign of terror unchecked, the internet will soon become no better than the Wild Wild West. µ
SANTA CRUZ — A homeless activist facing federal charges for allegedly hacking Santa Cruz County computers in December is out of custody. Christopher Doyon, who is homeless himself, was in Santa Cruz on Saturday to declare his innocence and address what he sees as oppression of homeless people.
A federal grand jury indicted Doyon last month in what appears to be part of a nationwide crackdown on the hacker community. The indictment alleges that Doyon is a computer hacker known as Commander X who is part of Massachusetts-based group Peoples Liberation Front, a self-described organization of “cyber-warriors” who work on behalf of the downtrodden. It also alleges that he’s a member of Anonymous, an international collective that’s been linked to a number of online hacking attacks worldwide, and played an instrumental role in a recent series of BART protests.
“I am Commander X,” said Doyon, outside the Santa Cruz County Courthouse on Saturday morning. “Yes, I am immensely proud and humbled to my core to be a part of the movement known as Anonymous.”
He also said he’s a founding member of Peoples Liberation Front.
Doyon, 47, was arrested on Sept. 22 on a street corner in Mountain View by federal agents.
“Both my co-defendant, Josh Covelli, and I are categorically innocent of the charges against us and our legal team will provide irrefutable evidence of this,” said Doyon, who describes himself as homeless.
According to the federal
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document, Doyon and Covelli of Fairborn, Ohio, hatched “Operation Peace Camp 2010” on behalf of PLF, and enacted what’s known as a Distributed Denial of Service DDOS on county computers, rendering them temporarily inaccessible. The indictment also states that the actions were taken as retribution for the events of the so-called Peace Camp of August 2010, in which more than 50 people slept outside the County Courthouse for 60 days in protest of the city’s law against sleeping outside.
“The city of Santa Cruz does not regulate camping. It forbids it completely, and this is in a city with over 1,000 houseless people and shelter for less than 10 percent on our best days,” “Peace Camp 2010” organizer Becky Johnson wrote last month on the group’s blog.
Johnson and other organizers of the 2010 protest have stressed that they had nothing to do with the hacking and did not plan nor approve it.
Doyon, who has long red hair and was wearing a shirt that said “Free Bradley Manning,” said he chose to speak in front of the County Courthouse on Saturday because it was the site of the 2010 protest, which he’d attended. He’s one of five people who was ultimately charged with illegal camping, including Gary Johnson and Ed Frey, a homeless activist and attorney. Both men were sentenced to six months in jail in June and are currently appealing the decision.
“The protest was about standing up to the rich and powerful few in Santa Cruz and to demonstrate a better way of building community,” said Doyon. “And it was those powerful few who, fearing the effect that peaceful protest might have on upcoming elections, ordered Peace Camp 2010 to be ended by force, arresting dozens.”
Doyon was released from federal custody Thursday on his own recognizance, and has been prohibited from accessing social networking sites Twitter and Facebook, and Internet Relay Chat.
“They’ve taken away my freedom of speech,” he said.
Doyon strongly believes U.S. citizens have a “moral imperative” to protest what he says are unjust actions by our governments and law enforcement, such as punishing people for sleeping outside.
“All you need to be a world-class hacker is a computer and a cool pair of sunglasses,” he says with a flourish. “And the computer is optional.”
Heretic Productions brings you an extraordinary piece of Poetry by Bill Allyn. “Expect Us.”
Expect Us
Once we were weak; but now we stand tall.
Millions of citizens, heeding the call.
Demanding our freedom, the birthright of all.
The Arab Spring turns to The American Fall.
We’re the 99, and we’ll never forgive.
We’ll never forget how you’ve made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The reign of the moneyed and privileged now ends.
Once we were few; now we grow by the hour.
The lamb sheds its mask—the emperor cowers.
The wolf bares her teeth, her hunger devours,
The gleaming skyscrapers, the ivory towers.
We’re the 99, and we’ll never forgive.
We’ll never forget how you’ve made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The world of the moneyed and privileged now ends.
There’s no “job creators”, a “trickle-down” bust.
And time’s running out for your greed and your lust.
You’ve earned no respect, and squandered our trust.
From this day forward, you must expect us!
We’re the 99, and we’ll never forgive.
We’ll never forget how you’ve made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The reign of the moneyed and privileged now ends.
While Anonymous describes itself as a leaderless collective, the 
And here he is excoriating Laurelai, an HQ member who had created a set of instructions for how to carry out an Anonymous attack. Sabu derided it as a stupid move that would help federal investigators make a conspiracy case if leaked and generally make Anonymous look as devious as HBGary. In the same breath that he insists Anonymous is disorganized and leaderless, Sabu plays the role of a leader, enforcing unit discipline while the other members stand by. Laurelei fights back by criticizing Sabu for quickly going public with the HBGary hack, rather than secretly listening in on their e-mails for weeks, and Sabu responds by openly admitting to his involvement: “I’m the one that did the op, I rooted their boxes, cracked their hashes, owned their emails and social engineered their admins in hours.”
InformationWeek
THE INQUIRER has received exclusive details about what infamous yet little known hacker Louise Boat looks like.