Hacker group Anonymous takes over Syrian Ministry of Defense website

The loose band of global hackers known as Anonymous has claimed another scalp in its ongoing fight against tyrants, corporate crooks and naysayers, taking over the Syrian government Ministry of Defense website and replacing it with message of support for the Syrian people.

News of the hack, just the latest in a string of high profile takedowns that include Rupert Murdoch's News of the Word newspaper, Paypal and others, spread like wildfire over Twitter Sunday night as social media users echoed support.

The hacking excursion comes jus tours after Syrian forces were accused of firing on civilians, killing an estimated 50 people in the rebel-controlled city of Deir al-Zour.

Replacing the traditional website at http://mod.gov.sy/ was an adapted Syrian flag, now featuring the Anonymous logo, with a message below in Arabic and English, saying the following:

"To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Know that time and history are on your side - tyrants use violence because they have nothing else, and the more violent they are, the more fragile they become. We salute your determination to be non-violent in the face of the regime's brutality, and admire your willingness to pursue justice, not mere revenge. All tyrants will fall, and thanks to your bravery Bashar Al-Assad is next."

It continued, "To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people, and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country - rise up against the regime! - Anonymous"

This is just the latest incident in a weekend of hacker activity; On Friday, Anonymous hackers broke into the websites and emails of 70 U.S. police networks, and Saturday saw hackers at the DefCon convention run a contest to see which company had the most lax computer security. Oracle had the misfortune of winning the competition.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Hacker+group+Anonymous+takes+over+Syrian+Ministry+Defense+website/5220327/story.html#ixzz1UQFZM0D9

Spain Nabs 3 Suspected Members of Anonymous

Spanish police arrested three suspected computer hackers who allegedly belonged to a loose-knit international activist group that has attacked corporate and government websites around the world, authorities said Friday. A National Police statement identified the three detainees as leaders of the Spanish section of a group that calls itself "Anonymous."
A computer server in one of their homes was used to coordinate and carry out the cyber attacks on targets including two major Spanish banks, the Italian energy company Enel and the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand, the statement said.
The statement said the only other countries to act against "Anonymous" so far are the United States and Britain. It attributed this what it called complex security measures that members use to protect their identity. The suspects in Spain were arrested in Barcelona, Valencia and the southern city of Almeria, the statement said without specifying when the detainees were picked up.

http://news.hitb.org/content/spain-nabs-3-suspected-members-anonymous?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=s3cb0t

Keeping up with the times......wikileaks video thread!

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" George Orwell

Police arrest boy of 16 over WikiLeaks attacks

Twitter and Facebook have also deleted accounts believed to be affiliated with Anonymous

Dutch authorities have arrested a 16-year-old boy in relation to the cyberattacks against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, which were aimed at punishing those companies for cutting off services to WikiLeaks.
The boy was arrested in The Hague, and he will be arraigned before a judge on Friday in Rotterdam, according to a press release from the Netherlands' Public Prosecution Service. The boy, whose computer equipment was seized, has allegedly confessed to taking part in the attacks.
The Public Prosecution Service said he is likely part of a larger group of hackers.
The arrest follows a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks aimed at websites that have been critical of WikiLeaks, which has been releasing portions of 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables since late last month. The attacks seek to overwhelm websites and services by sending streams of meaningless traffic.
Part of the attacks originated in the Netherlands and the main site coordinating the attacks, anonops.net, was hosted in a Dutch data center in Haarlem. The site is down since police actions Wednesday.
Right after the police found out that there were cyberattacks coming from the Netherlands, the Team High Tech Crime started an investigation, the Dutch attorney general reported.
The attorney general also noted that "probably thousands of computers" took part in the attacks. The police are still investigating and will probably arrest more people.
Since the release of the documents began, several companies have decided to cut WikiLeaks off from their services, including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa and the Swiss payment transaction firm PostFinance, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange held an account.
In response, a loose affiliation of hackers called Anonymous have orchestrated DDoS attacks against those websites over the past two days or so, knocking many of the sites offline. The group has dubbed that effort "Operation: Payback." Other websites that have been attacked include those of vocal critics of WikiLeaks, including US Senator Joseph Lieberman and former Alaska Governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Twitter and Facebook have also deleted accounts believed to be affiliated with Anonymous.
On Thursday, BBC Radio 4  broadcast an interview with a 22-year-old who goes by the nickname "Cold Blood" and claims he is part of Anonymous. Cold Blood, who appeared in the BBC's studios, said that more people were downloading a botnet tool that enables them to perform a DDoS attack.
The campaign is aimed at companies that have decided not to deal with WikiLeaks, Cold Blood said, and is also a protest against what Anonymous believes is increasing control over the Internet by governments and the European Union.
"We are trying to keep the Internet open and free for everyone," said Cold Blood, who described himself as a software engineer.
WikiLeaks and its founder and editor Assange have come under fierce criticism from U.S. government officials and politicians for releasing the information, which is believed to have been leaked to the site by US Army Private Bradley E. Manning.
Manning has been charged with mishandling and transferring classified information in connection with the cables and a video of an Apache helicopter shooting civilians in Iraq.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3252776/police-arrest-boy-of-16-over-wikileaks-attacks/

Operation Leakspin....

If this image is to be believed—and I have no reason not to, other than that I found it on the internet—the rebel squadrons behind Anonymous (attn. "news" hacks - that would be an entirely different group from Wikileaks and/or Wikipedia) are about to change their approach. So far, as we've witnessed, they have been launching point-and-click distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at companies perceived as the enemies of Wikileaks. Those targets included Mastercard, Paypal, and Visa (companies that froze donation funding), and Amazon (which denied hosting services). The new approach suggests more sophisticated thinking. This new mission, apparently, is to actually read the cables Wikileaks has published and find the most interesting bits that haven't been publicized yet, then publicize them.
In my opinion, this action would have far more positive impact. Anonymous often repeats the Orwell quote, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." Looks like they decided to take those words to heart.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/09/anonymous-stops-drop.html

Who is Annonymous?

Operation Payback

A voice of the people for the people!

We’ve been following Operation Payback closely since it surfaced back in early September and even after two months of strikes against antipiracy advocates, little is known about the group behind the DDoS attacks. Known simply as Anonymous, the DDoS participants remain shrouded in mystery and undoubtedly prefer to remain that way.
This week, TorrentFreak was able to speak with some of the members of Anonymous and gain some insight as to who they are and why they choose to participate in Operation Payback missions. According to one spokesperson who talked with the website, there are two main groups that make up Anonymous.
A core group, made up of about a dozen members, plans and manages the organization’s activities. Another, much larger group actually assists in carrying out the DDoS strikes. Most are geeks, file-sharers, and programmers.
“The core group is the #command channel on IRC. This core group does nothing more than being some sort of intermediary between the people in that IRC channel and the actual attack,” the spokesperson claims. “Another group of people on IRC (the main channel called #operationpayback) are just there to fire on targets.”
While it’s clear from the name Operation Payback why Anonymous is carrying out their attacks, it hasn’t been well explained what the group actually wanted to accomplish by causing disruptions to organizations like the RIAA and MPAA. It would seem that they are rallying for an end to copyright laws, but that isn’t exactly the case.
“Some of us have the vision of actually getting rid of copyright/patents entirely, but we are at least trying to stay slightly realistic,” explains the group’s spokesperson.
And Anonymous does believe that they’ve made some mistakes along the way and hope to improve in the future. While some members of the group believe that anarchy is the answer, the core group seems to harbor some regret in having executed the attacks on the UK Intellectual Property Office and the US Copyright Office.
So where does Operation Payback go from here?
“What we are now trying to do, is to straighten out ideals, and trying to make them both heard and accepted,” the spokesperson told TorrentFreak. “Nobody would listen to us if we said piracy should be legal, but when we ask for copyright lifespan to be reduced to ‘fair’ lengths, that would sound a lot more reasonable.”
From the sounds of the statements made by Anonymous members, there seems to be much less animosity and more rational consideration going on in this stage of the group’s mission. Time will tell if this change of attitude helps the group gain more traction in accomplishing revisions to copyright law.
 
http://www.myce.com/news/who-are-these-anonymous-people-behind-operation-payback-36698/