Archive
Edward Snowden Der Spiegel Interview
Posted on July 11, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Interview Translated from the original Der Spiegel Magazine interview German Version by Anonymous
Just before Edward Snowden became a world famous whistleblower, he answered an extensive catalog of questions. These came from, amongst others, Jacob Appelbaum, 30, a developer of encryption and security software. Appelbaum educates international human rights groups and journalists on how to work with the Internet in safe and anonymous way.
He became more publicly know in 2010, when he represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking at a hacker conference in New York. Along with Assange and other co-authors he has recently published the interview recording “Cypher Punks: Our Freedom and the future of the Internet.”
In the course of investigations into the WikiLeaks disclosures, Appelbaum came to the attention of American authorities, who demanded companies such as Twitter and Google to divulge his accounts. He himself describes his attitude to WikiLeaks as “ambivalent” – and describes below how it came about that he was able to ask Snowden these questions.
In mid-May I was contacted by the documentary-maker Laura Poitras. She told me, that at this time she was in contact with an anonymous NSA source, which had consented to be interviewed by her.
She put together questions and asked me to contribute questions. This was, among other reasons, to determine whether she was really dealing with a NSA whistleblower. We sent our questions via encrypted e-mails. I did not know that the interlocutor was Edward Snowden until he revealed himself as such in public in Hong Kong. He did not know who I was. I had expected that he was someone in their sixties.
The following is an excerpt from a extensive interview which dealt with further points, many of them technical in nature. Some of the questions now appear in a different order to understand the context.
The discussion focused almost exclusively on the activities of the National Security Agency. It is important to know that these questions were not asked as relating to the events of the past week or the last month. They were entirely asked without any unrest, since, at that point, Snowden was still in Hawaii.
At a later stage I was again in direct contact with Snowden, at which time I also revealed my own my identity. He told me then that he gave consent to publish his statements.
+++++
Question: What is the mission of the National Security Agency (NSA) – and how is their job in accordance with the law?
Snowden: It is the mission of the NSA, to be aware of anything of importance going on outside of the United States. This is a considerable task, and the people there are convinced that not knowing everything about everyone could lead to some existential crisis. So, at some point, you believe it’s all right is to bend the rules a little. Then, if people hate it that you can bend the rules, it suddenly becomes vital even to to break them.
Question: Are German authorities or politicians involved in the monitoring system ?
Snowden: Yes of course. They (the NSA people — ed.) are in cahoots with the Germans, as well as with the most other Western countries. We (in the U.S. intelligence apparatus — ed.) warn the others, when someone we want to catch, uses one of their airports – and they then deliver them to us. The information on this, we can for example pull off of the monitored mobile phone of a suspected hacker’s girlfriend — who used it in an entirely different country which has nothing to do with the case. The other authorities do not ask us where got the leads, and we do not ask them anything either. That way, they can protect their political staff from any backlash if it came out how massive the global violation of people’s privacy is.
Question: But now as details of this system are revealed, who will be put before a court over this?
Snowden: Before U.S. courts? You’re not serious, are you? When the last large wiretapping scandal was investigated – the interception without a court order, which concerned millions of communications – that should really have led to the longest prison sentences in world history. However, then our highest representatives simply stopped the investigation. The question, who is to be accused, is theoretical, if the laws themselves are not respected. Laws are meant for people like you or me – but not for them.
Question: Does the NSA cooperate with other states like Israel?
Snowden: Yes, all the time. The NSA has a large section for that, called the FAD – Foreign Affairs Directorate.
Question: Did the NSA help to write the Stuxnet program? (the malicious program used against the Iranian nuclear facilities — ed.)
Snowden: The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together.
Question: What are the major monitoring programs active today, and how do international partners help the NSA?
Snowden: The partners in the “Five Eyes” (behind which are hidden the secret services of the Americans, the British, the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians — ed.) sometimes go even further than the NSA people themselves. Take the Tempora program of the British intelligence GCHQ for instance. Tempora is the first “I save everything” approach (“Full take”) in the intelligence world. It sucks in all data, no matter what it is, and which rights are violated by it. This buffered storage allows for subsequent monitoring; not a single bit escapes. Right now, the system is capable of saving three days’ worth of traffic, but that will be optimized. Three days may perhaps not sound like a lot, but it’s not just about connection metadata. “Full take” means that the system saves everything. If you send a data packet and if makes its way through the UK, we will get it. If you download anything, and the server is in the UK, then we get it. And if the data about your sick daughter is processed through a London call center, then … Oh, I think you have understood.
Question: Can anyone escape?
Snowden: Well, if you had the choice, you should never send information over British lines or British servers. Send even the Queen’s selfies with her lifeguards would be recorded, if they existed.
Question: Do the NSA and its partners apply some kind of wide dragnet method to intercept phone calls, texts and data?
Snowden: Yes, but how much they can record, depends on the capabilities of the respective taps. Some data is held to be more worthwhile, and can therefore be recorded more frequently. But all this is rather a problem with foreign tapping nodes, less with those of the U.S. This makes the monitoring in their own territory so terrifying. The NSA’s options are practically limitless – in terms of computing power, space or cooling capacity for the computers.
Question: The NSA is building a new data center in Utah. What is it for?
Snowden: These are the new mass data storage facilities.
Question: For how long will the information there be stored?
Snowden: Right now it is still so, that the full text of collected material ages very quickly, within a few days, especially given its enormous amount. Unless an analyst marked a target or a particular communication. In that case the communication is saved for all eternity, one always get an authorization for that anyway. The metadata ages less quickly. The NSA at least wants all metadata to be stored forever. Often the metadata is more valuable than the contents of the communication, because in most cases, one can retrieve the content, if there is metadata. And if not, you mark all future communications that fits this metadata and is of interest, so that henceforth it will be recorded completely. The metadata tells you what you actually want from the broader stream.
Question: Do private companies help the NSA?
Snowden: Yes. But it’s hard to prove that. The names of the cooperating telecom companies are the crown jewels of the NSA… Generally you can say that multinationals with headquarters in the USA should not be trusted until they prove otherwise. This is unfortunate, because these companies have the ability to deliver the world’s best and most reliable services – if they wanted to. To facilitate this, civil rights movements should now use these revelations as a driving force. The Companies should write enforceable clauses into their terms, guaranteeing their clients that they are not being spied on. And they should include technical guarantees. If you could move even a single company to do such a thing, it would improve the security of global communications. And when this appears to not be feasible, you should consider starting one such company yourself.
Q: Are there companies that refuse to to cooperate with the NSA?
Snowden: Yes, but I know nothing of a corresponding list that would meet this. However, there would surely be more companies of this type, if the companies working with the NSA would be punished by the customer. That should be the highest priority of all computer users who believe in the freedom of thoughts.
Question: What are the sites you should beware, if you do not want to become targeted by the NSA?
Snowden: Normally one is marked as a target because of a Facebook profile or because of your emails. The only place which I personally know where you can become a target without this specific labeling, are jihadist forums.
Question: What happens if the NSA has a user in its sights?
Snowden: The target person is completely monitored. An analyst will get a daily report about what has changed in the computer system of the targeted person. There will also be… packages with certain data which the automatic analysis systems have not understood, and so on. The analyst can then decide what he wants to do – the computer of the target person does not belong to them anymore, it then more or less belongs to the U.S. government.
CIA whistleblower Speaks candidly of the right of Information
Posted on June 09, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Laura Poitras, an American documentary film director and producer, made public her video interview with Edward Snowden CIA leaker of the bomb shell Prims spying program taking place in the US since 2007, and Anonymous made binpasted a series of documents exposing even further 35 countries spying programs including Gig and Prism.
When people speaks of free speech, we speak passionately about a subject matter, or an issue that interest us. It is not only about yelling in the street of what I like to say or what I love to do, but about what everyone’s right to say what they like and and defending everyone’s audacity to do thing. The audacity to be let to do what they like. Not necessarily speaking hate language that insult others, or walking naked in the street expressing my willingness to take the world with clean face, with no makeup, no disguises of any kind. Free speech is more than just that.
Free speech encompasses absolutely everything. No matter how outrageous you think it is. No matter how insulting it sounds for some. No matter how immoral looks like to others. Free speech is about freedom, and freedom has no boundaries. The world of the free. The state of feeling free, the domain of freedom.
When whistle-blowers uncover information that needs to be made public because it is in the best interest of the people, then they are exercising their right of free speech. If this contravene their contract with the agency that contracted them, they have the right to quit, or the agency has the right to terminate the subject that had broken the contract. Should be easier as that.
We live in a free society where censorship is against the law, where spying is against the law, where invasion of privacy is against the law. We live in a free society in all the extent of the word.
So, why is the big deal when a person speaks rightfully his mind?
Why it is a big deal? When a person disclosure information he deems important to the others to know. Should be in the free exercise of his domain of freedom of speech. On this terrain our free society is walking in a thin line of interpretations, a shaky ground of definitions, where laws are interpreted to convenience, where laws are enacted to convenience of certain groups.
Our free society, it is not more free than a dog in a leash. A dog that has the freedom to eat from its bowl when it choses to, to bark at its pleasure, to drink from his water when thirsty, to enter his mini jail shelter anytime it wants to, and to walk the three meters around his post.
Is this what free society looks like to you?, hypothetically speaking we have the protection of the constitution of the United States of America. Why when it comes to expose dirty secrets of the people ruling our government, free speech become treasonous act?
Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant, said he had been working at the super-secret NSA as an employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and decided to break his silence after becoming disenchanted with Obama, whom he said had continued the policies of predecessor George W. Bush.
Snowden speaks in a video interview with Glenn Greenwald from his Hong Kong’s hotel, saying that he chose Hong Kong for being an autonomous territory that is famous for its protests in the street and free speech, he said.
The Guardian and the Washington Post recently published a ‘leaked’ information from a CIA whistleblower, news that went viral around the globe for their controversial content.
In their initial reporting neither of the two newspapers disclosed the source of their information, but three days later a video has emerged with the Self Proclaim CIA leaker, Edward Snowen, a 29 years old former technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency being interviewed by Gleen Greenwald for a film by Laura Poitras an American documentary film director and producer.
Snowden said that he came public with this information because he does not want to live this way, he went on to say that when you are in a position of privileged access like a system administrator, you are exposed to disturbing things, and recognized that this things need to be known by the public. National Security Agency takes information from where ever it can, and spying is one way to do it, he says.
I think that the public its own an explanation of the motivation behind the people who makes this disclosure that are outside of the democratic model, when you are subverting the power of the government, that is a fundamentalist dangerous thing to do democracy, Snowden said.
Responding as why he decided to come public as a whistleblower, that people working for the government, continuously do this things in secret, he said. When the government wants to benefit from a secret action that it took. It is a kind of given to its officials the mandate to tell the press about this, this thing or that thing just to have the public in our side, he said.
He said that he is just another guy without special skills and he thinks that the public is the ones that needs to decide on important issues not the government. He said that he is willing to go in the record to prove the authenticity of these documents.
“I did not change this, I did not modify the story, this is the truth, this is whats happening, you should decide whether we should be doing this”
Also Anonymous posted in Pastebin on Friday a series of documents exposing Gig and Prism programs, both programs saying that 35 countries are spying on their citizens,
“These documents prove that the NSA is spying on you, and not just Americans. They are spying on the citizens of over 35 different countries.These documents contain information on the companies involved in GiG, and Prism.Whats GiG you might ask? well…The GIG will enable the secure, agile, robust, dependable, interoperable data sharing environment for the Department where warfighter, business, and intelligence users share knowledge on a global network that facilitates information superiority, accelerates decision-making, effective operations, and Net-Centric transformation.Like we said, this is happening in over 35 countries, and done in cooperation with private businesses, and intelligence partners world wide.We bring this to you, So that you know just how little rights you have. Your privacy and freedoms are slowly being taken from you, in closed door meetings, in laws buried inbills, and by people who are supposed to be protecting you.Download these documents, share them, mirror them, don’t allow them to make them disappear. Spread them wide and far. Let these people know, that we will not be silenced, that we will not be taken advantage of, and that we are not happy about this unwarranted, unnecessary, unethical spying of our private lives, for the monetary gain of the 1%.” Anonymous
Copyright © 2013 Praxis Films / Laura Poitras
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this video is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
To close this article let me remind you of a guy name Pellicano, is serving a 15 years sentence for wiretapping people in behalf of his clients. Does Mr Pellicano did something worse that our US government did with PRISM Spying Program?… I don’t think so. What do you think?.
“to find me guilty “means just about every other private eye in the country is also a criminal enterprise, And maybe even some of these journalists out there.” Anthony Pellicano in his trial for wiretapping and racketing.
Laura Poitras
Director/Producer/Cinematographer
Laura Poitras was nominated for an Academy Award®, an Independent Spirit Award and an Emmy for My Country, My Country (POV 2006). She received a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy and an Independent Spirit Award for Flag Wars (POV 2003), made with Linda Goode Bryant. Poitras is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute. She has attended the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Edit and Story Lab as both a fellow and creative advisor. She is currently working on the third part of a trilogy about America post 9/11. Before making documentaries, Poitras worked as a professional chef. She lives in New York City.
Who is Anonymous and what is their mission?
Originally published on April 3, 2013 on Coast Report
by Marivel Guzman | Staff Writer at Coast Report |
It is hard to describe in words what Anonymous really is. To most, it is a group of hackers who disrupt web pages and steal data. However, some think that they are doing good things for society.
The irony of the situation is that Anonymous is not a group that can be traced to a building or to a country. They are dispersed around the world — they have no offices, no leaders, they do not follow a strategy.
With its ever growing popularity, it has become a case of whether or not they can actually be considered criminals.
At Orange Coast College, most haven’t heard of it, but the students who had agreed that while they are hackers, they do things that benefit society.
Jairo Navarete, 24, computer science major at OCC, said Anonymous is a group of Internet activists and it is good when the group exposes bad information about certain companies.
“The government should not punish them with long sentences, because what they do not affect the company’s people — only the money,” he said.
Another student said the group usually has the people in mind.
“They are a group that speaks in favor of society’s best interest and only mean well,” said Garret Smith, 19, a video-game science major.
Some students said releasing confidential information can be valuable for society.
“I know they expose information that would be valuable for the public to know, that otherwise is kept secret to fulfill the government’s agenda,” said 20-year-old Jimmy Wakem.
The Obama administration says organizations such as WikiLeaks and hacking group LulzSec may conduct economic 
espionage against U.S. companies.
In fact, Anonymous members work independently but when they finish, they leave their calling card where they use their famous quote, “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”
Anonymous has millions of followers on the Internet. Their Youtube videos have millions of views and they have become a type of cyber heroes.
Heroes or villains, the government has doubled its efforts to stop Anonymous’ activities, but it seems that the hacktivists are multiplying and Anonymous is growing every day.
Disclaimer: This article belongs to Coast report. The article was published on their print and online edition on April 3, 2013.
CISPA-Internet going black
Posted on April 19, 2013 by Akashma Online News
The collective anonymous group announced on Friday, that next Monday, the internet will go black as a protest for the passing in the senate of CISPA, another draconian law, which passed the House on Thursday. If signed into law, CISPA would make it legal for websites to give your personal information to the U.S. government without your permission.
The government had been using every event to push for laws that trample in our freedoms. Why they want to control us so bad?
A subset of Anonymous, posting on a site titled Anon Insiders, posted the following:
We are going dark on MONDAY April 22nd at 6 AM GMT for 24 hours to protest your illogical and terrorizing bill against the Internet itself. Even with the whole Internet crying out to stop this BILL, the US House of Representatives failed to do so blinded by lobbyist’s money and cum in your eyes. So we will take action ourselves and open your eyes. Every popular/mainstream websites will be black until you, Mr. DronObama promise us to use your VETO power to stop this bill at Senate. Take this as a protest or a warning, as you wish. One thing is for certain, neither you or anyone else in this world can control the Internet, so don’t even try.
The plan doesn’t involve shutting down or attacking the Internet in any way, it just wants all websites to go dark in protest for 24 hours on Monday. It is not yet known which websites will participate in this blackout. The popular Anonymous Twitter feed YourAnonNews echoed the message on Friday:
The YouTube account “anonops” published a video (above) as well calling for support. Various Anonymous-related accounts are attempting to get the hashtag #CISPABlackout to trend on Twitter, in order to spread awareness of the cause.
This will not be the first Internet blackout in protest of a government bill. On January 18, 2012, more than 7,000 websites, including Wikipedia, Reddit and Google, protested SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), which were accused of similar breaches on online privacy. Two days later, the bill was shelved indefinitely.
President Obama has threatened to veto CISPA for failing to adequately address privacy concerns.
The House has passed a controversial cybersecurity bill co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers, left, and Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press / October 8, 2012)
Remember Aaron Swartz, he fought for our internet rights, do not allow his dead to be in vane.
Aaron Swartz, the internet activist who wrote key parts of early RSS code, helped establish Reddit, opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act, and pushed hard for open access to information like U.S. case law and academic journals. Information that should be freely available to the public.
Operation Israel #OPISRAEL
Posted on April 06, 2013 by Akashma Online News
By Marivel Guzman
UPDATED: Newly released information End of the page
Anonymous had sent a warning for Israel to stop its attacks against the people of Gaza. A video had emerged announcing the biggest attack ever planned in history against Israel servers.
Hackers have threatened to disrupt Internet operations in Israel in a major cyber attack planned for Sunday, Facebook Event announced
As a part of operation code named OpIsrael, notorious hacking group Anonymous and similar collectives from Indonesia, and Albania had in recent days been exchanging information, via social media and other websites, on Israeli the government and corporate websites they plan to target.
On Thursday, Anonymous warned that it was poised to launch “the largest internet battle in the history of mankind,” Gulf News reports.
“We will once again be fighting for freedom. Freedom from tyranny, oppression, persecution, and from annihilation,” the group warned in a Facebook posting.
According to the report, in a YouTube video, Anonymous said that Israel had “crossed a line in the sand” by threatening to sever all Internet and telecommunications links out of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli radio reported that a number of large organizations had closed their websites to prevent hackers from sabotaging them.
Remember people are risking his/her freedom to hack in behalf of Palestine, all we need to do is share wide the information, a social media page said.
The web site said , “You do not need to be hacker, or need to carry any cyber attacks, but the distribution of the information is imperative to send a strong message to Zionist Entity of Israel and its supporters.”
This is a translation of the invitation event in a social media page:
Hello all. Here you had been invited for all those who want to contribute to #OPISRAEL ! Should be fair to cyber attack?.
OPIsrael as an organization, but is also in collaboration with other foreign groups and Albanian groups that had planned to undertake cyber attacks against the Jewish state servers.
The cyber attacks are to be carried out against Israeli servers, they said, but Israel government servers are the main target, the group said
Remember Israel had been continuously attacking the innocent population of Gaza and West bank. And when we say attacking, they are killing, burning alive, torturing innocent, they added.
They said, “Our cyber attacks will be carried out with the purpose of sending a message to Israel that the world is united to help Palestinians to regain their land and their freedom.”
“This is a boycott against Israel apartheid State, remember that only a world united can defeat a tyrant”, they said.
By the day brake Sunday #OpIsrael campaign have hit around 700 Israeli websites including high-profile government systems such as Israeli President’s official website and the Foreign Ministry. Official sources of Israel State reported around 44 million unique attacks on government websites, principal websites of the country suffered DDoS attacks and hacker also obtained personal data related to Israeli officials.
#OPIsrael Event Planned for Sunday announced in a facebook page
April 6, 2013 4:22 a:m
Defaced by Anonymous Albania 4 #OpIsrael http://הצעות-ביטוח.co.il/ http://insuranceoffers.co.il/ http://visionimprovement.co.il/ http://t-pool.co.il/ http://www.mpi.co.il/ http://misradneto.co.il/ http://levechad.org/ http://www.kahane.co.il/ http://inof.co.il/ http://hottam.co.il/ http://agreements.co.il/ http://alzheimer.org.il/
April 6, 2013 4:42 a:m
Leaked Info Click on your own risk
Israel cyberspace attacked by Procoderz Team Albania and Kosova Hackers Security.
Operation Israel the devastating hacking rampage continues and becoming more and more venturesome for the Israeli cyber space. In the last week of March, it was dangerous hacker collective group Anonymous who called the operation also dubbed #OpIsrael, where the hacker group vows to erase Israel from the Internet. Muslim liberation Army and Kosova Hacker Security added their effort to the collective Anonymous
The biggest attack as of now has been the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s international development program, titled Mashav. Anonymous announced on Twitter they’ve hacked into the program’s database, with the website remaining inaccessible at the moment. Server Leaks
List of confirmed Israel websites disrupted by #OPIsrael
The Hackers wars
Posted on February 04, 2013 by Akashma Online News
by Marivel Guzman
Young bright computer geeks and social activists, at war with the establishment of governmental control and corporate greed.
Hacktivists against Government’s hackers-snitch-ex-anons or simply Fedhackers
What it is the maximum penalty for internet hacking? 1,5,10,35, or life in prison? All depend actually. If you are individual of interest for the district attorney’s office, you can be offer a deal, a deal you can not refuse.
If Aaron Swartz, our young privacy advocate, political and social activist was alive today, he probably can tell you about his 6 months in jail deal. Well, not that he accepted, so he was facing 35 years in jail, all because he did not want to play the district attorney’s sinister deal. This cost him his life.
What about the other “cyber breakers”? They all being offered a deal. One by one saw its day at the district attorney’s office. What do they do? All acted according to their conscience and sense of justice.
The district attorney’s office managed to brake few of them. Some of them “went to work” for the DA, some refused, but the simple truth is that now they are divided, scared and scattered.
Simple as this. The divide and conquer start showing inside the anon community. The paranoia is running wild. By now the Anons do not know who is snitch, who is being followed, and who is real anonymous. Once you see an anon’s name in the news, you are considered to be exposed.
The anons are doxing each other, they are snitching. And more scary for the anons, is that the Feds are hiring some of them and using them to infiltrate the ranks of the hackivist community. Who is wining this cyber war? Just in Indonesia, there is an estimate that
In some other instances the feds are blackmailing the anons already detained,they are being forced to work as snitches, in exchange to drop some of the charges.
By now, you should know how the district attorney’s office of crooks and escalators works. Once they arrest one anon, they will be offered two deals; One, to be an informant, a snitch in other words, if that is not accepted, they will probably be offer a deal, if that is refused also, the DA will play with the life of the defendants, using the unconstitutional trick called, plea bargain or blackmail. The DA assure with deals an 80 % of the cases a wining verdict. For them plea bargain or cases won sqare and fair in the court room is the same. They use this convictions to move up in the ladder of the office of the district attorney.
The less they care is justice being served. We can not help, but to remember Aaron Shwartz, the latest of its victims. Using the scare tactic, bringing outrageous charges, unheard charges on the book. Its call plea bargain. Aaron was offer 6 months in jail to plea guilty, off course innocent as he was he refused the Plea, Ortiz got mad and charged him with 9 counts of bogus charges that carried all together 35 years in jail.
Pleas Bargaining has come to dominate the administration of justice in America.
According to one legal scholar, “Every two seconds during a typical workday, a criminal case is disposed of in an American courtroom by way of a guilty plea or nolo contender plea. Even though plea bargaining pervade the justice system. He argue that the practice should be abolished because it is unconstitutional.
Government should not retaliate against individuals who exercise their right to trial by jury.
Plea Bargain it is one of the dirtiest tactics used by the government to coerce individuals into agreeing to plea guilty charges that they did not commit in exchange for waving their constitutional rights of a court trial.
Paul Lewis Hayes, serving life sentencing for writing a check of $ 88.30 and declining to accept a plea bargain of 5 years. The district attorney retaliated and charge him with another crime “Habitual Criminal Act”, which carries a mandatory life imprisonment. Hayes lost and appealed his conviction, took his case to the Supreme Court and 5 to 4 the supreme court upheld the conviction. The Case Against Plea Bargaining
The government has already understood that they lose the cyberwar, the youth in the planet outnumber the old. We seen the youth rebelling against the old in the
Please stop by and read International Strategy for Cyberspace, US government had said that will respond hackers attack military if necessary.
As a cyber space race looms, the military is looking for a few good geeks.
In Hacker Wars, rogue hackers on the payroll of malevolent corporations are taking over the Internet. Our privacy and basic liberties are being swept aside at an alarming rate. The only way to stop them is to beat them at their own game! Hackers like you have to stand on the side of freedom and fight for those who can not fight for themselves. In this war of the electron and the switch, there is no substitute for victory.
High school hackers, crackers and digital deviants: Uncle Sam wants you. Again the government blackmailing the youth of America. They want to use our youth to snitch each other in exchange for a pay check.
Anons hackers doxing each other. Who they working for? Feds? private firms, ego? Next Generation Fuckery
I Was a Cybercrook for the FBI-David Thomas ran one of the most popular online crime hubs, while the FBI ran him. El Mariachi
Anonymous hacker, commentator, journalist, and fameball Barrett Brown was arrested in a dramatic takedown last night live and on-camera, in the middle of a TinyChat with a dozen others.
Some weren’t worried. “Cool how the FBI staged @BarrettBrownLOL‘s arrest live on cam to bolster the idea he hasn’t been working for them for some time already,” said Methadonna on Twitter, voicing the suspicions of many. Daily Dot
The hacker group Anonymous is dealing with the arrest and betrayal of one of its most vocal members the only way it knows how: By hacking a security firm and covering its website with a rant against feds and snitches. To Snitch Sabu
Read the following story of Sabu, the mention of the victim SONY, makes the crimes more expensive and the years of jail multiply by the dollar $ Sign!!!!!
Hector Xavier Monsegur, a.k.a. Sabu, was outed Tuesday as a Puerto-Rican American resident of New York who pleaded guilty in August to an indictment on charges of computer crimes against targets ranging from Visa and Mastercard to the security firm HBGary and Sony that carried a maximum sentence of up to 124 years and six months in prison.
Six top computer hackers associated with groups such as Anonymous, LulzSec and AntiSec have been arrested and charged in New York in connection with a series of attacks on computers used by the entertainment industry, credit card companies, intelligence firms and even an Irish political party, U.S. officials announced Tuesday. Los Angeles Times
The FBI and Secret Service have successfully infiltrated the underground world of computer hackers in the US: 25 percent are secretly informing the government about their peers for fear of a long prison sentence. In fact, the community is riddled with paranoia and mistrust as it is not clear who is part of this “army of informants.” Tech Spot on hackers
One of the six, Hector Xavier Monsegur – also known by his computer name of “Sabu” – pleaded guilty and was said by officials to be working with the government against his former colleagues.
Brian Salcedo, now 23, has been in custody since 2003, when an FBI stakeout caught him and a partner breaking into several Lowe’s networks over an unsecured Wi-Fi connection at a suburban Detroit store. 8 years for Crazy Long Hacker
A skilled San Francisco computer intruder was sentenced here Friday to 13 years in federal prison for stealing nearly two million credit card numbers from banks, businesses and other hackers — in what is the longest hacking sentence in U.S. history. Record Sentence for hacker Max Vision
We see these hackers thieves that stole millions of dollars in wire fraud, their sentences are very small compared to Aaron Swartz 35 years sentence.
Hackers and thieves are notorious nowadays. In fact it’s all anyone tends to hear in the news, and they get long sentences. A con artist/thief stole millions of dollars and got sentenced to 150 years in Jail. Which obviously he won’t ever survive. A man who murdered two children, aged 10, and 12 respectively, got 14 years combined.
Who decide when a crime deserve more years in jail? Justice, Judge, Governor, District Attorney? Make your opinion count, demand accountability for harsh punishment and outrageous district attorney charges for social activist and dissidents.
“Being a federal prosecutor isn’t just a job, it’s a privileged position of power… And one of the things that goes with the unbridled power to decide who to indict and what charges will be brought; is the responsibility to use that power appropriately. Anyone who does not understand that responsibility should not be allowed to pass the bar, much less be handed the power to ruin lives with relative impunity.” Kurt Hopking
On January 14, 2013, Yesterday, it became public that Stephen Heyman oversaw TWO excessive prosecutions of hacker-defendants who committed suicide, Aaron Swartz and Jonathan James.
Swartz was charged with using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s computer networks to steal more than 4 million articles from JSTOR, an online archive and journal distribution service. He faced a maximum sentence of 31 years if convicted. Federal Reserve HACKED
Jonathan Joseph James (December 12, 1983 – May 18, 2008), was an American hacker who was the first juvenile incarcerated for cybercrime in the United States.The South Florida native was 15 years old at the time of the first offense and 16 years old on the date of his sentencing. He died on May 18, 2008, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Leonard Harris Sassaman (1980 – July 3, 2011) was an advocate for privacy, maintainer of the Mixmaster anonymous remailer code and remop (operator) of the randseed remailer.
Sassaman was a well-known cypherpunk, cryptographer and privacy advocate. He worked for Network Associates on the PGP encryption software, was a member of the Shmoo Group, a contributor to the OpenPGP IETF working group, the GNU Privacy Guard project, and frequently appeared at technology conferences like DEF CON. Sassaman was the co-founder of CodeCon along with Bram Cohen, co-founder of the HotPETS workshop (with Roger Dingledine of Tor and Thomas Heydt-Benjamin), co-author of the Zimmermann–Sassaman key-signing protocol, and at the age of 21, was an organizer of the protests following the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. He committed suicide.
Ilya Zhitomirskiy (12 October 1989 – 12 November 2011)[1] was a Russian-American software developer and entrepreneur. Zhitomirskiy was a co-founder and developer of the Diaspora social network and the Diaspora free software that powers it. Diaspora could have destroyed facebook platform if being developed as Zhitomirskiy had planned.
On the evening of 12 November 2011, Zhitomirskiy was found dead in his San Francisco home by police responding to calls about a suspected suicide. An autopsy report from the Medical Examiner’s office formally ruled the death a suicide in April 2012. While press reports questioned whether the pressure of working on Diaspora had led to his suicide, Diaspora co-founder Maxwell Salzberg disagreed. Salzberg stated, “Yes, I agree that being a startup founder is stressful. But it wasn’t the stress of work that killed Ilya. He had his own issues. He was sick.” Zhitomirskiy’s mother, Inna Zhitomirskiy, did not comment on reports of his history of mental illness, but she did say on his participation in Diaspora, “I strongly believe that if Ilya did not start this project and stayed in school, he would be well and alive today.”
Diaspora is the Privacy Aware Open Source Social Network that puts you in control of your information.
With Diaspora you decide what you’d like to share, and with whom. RIP Ilya Co-founder of Diaspora
“”Indonesia has 65 thousand hackers and the largest base in Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta hackers on a more active and creative,” says IT analyst Onno W. Purbo here on Thursday. and the largest base in Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta hackers on a more active and creative,” says IT analyst Onno W. Purbo here on Thursday.
CHINA has revealed that millions of its computers have been hacked by the US in the past year, as it hits back at claims foreign media organisations had been infiltrated by Chinese spies. The Australian
Iranian official says bank attack blame is a smoke screen for the U.S. to continue launching cyber attacks against Iran. US blame Iran for hacking US bank
Justice for Aaron Swartz
Justice for Aaron Swartz
by John Halle on January 13, 2013
UPDATED by Marivel Guzman
Remove United States District Attorney Carmen Ortiz from office for overreach in the case of Aaron Swartz.
Aaron Swartz’s death needs justice. He was not a crazy person with suicide thoughts. Aaron was perfectly sane individual charged with bogus made up crimes. We all know that our system is rotten. The prosecutors in our “justice” system make crimes to climb up in their careers.
In our system The People (Prosecutor) has to prove a person guilty and the judge needs to have hard evidence before he/she allows a person to be charged with a crime.
In Aaron Swartz’s case neither the Prosecutor Ortiz or the Judge had any hard evidence to charge Aaron with the dozens or so crimes he was charged with, and regardless of the evidence they went ahead with the outrageous charges.
With the abuse of power they displayed, Aaron was overwhelmed by the outcome of wrong verdict, and saw his bright future blurred by 35 years in federal prison plus 1,000,000 dollars.
Who ever had felt the power of the justice in the flesh knows the power of the District Attorney’s office. How they Deal with the life of the “Defendants”. They deal with the lives as if dealing in a game of cards. The district Attorney and the Defendant’s attorney interchange cases as conveniently as they come. The two sides build illustrious careers with the people lives.
Aaron Swartz is one special case, they, the District Attorney’s office conspired with other powerful behind the scenes actors, they played a macabre game to show Aaron a lesson.
They wanted to send a lesson to all the internet dissenters, to all the social and political activists, to the hacktivist community. They wanted to silence Aaron and all the Aarons in the world.
They certainly did, they did it so well that Aaron could not survive the bullying, bullying that drove him to kill himself.
Our system needs balance, needs honesty, and Aaron Swartz needs justice.
In the name of Justice and truth, the culprits need to be brought to the real justice system and pay for the crime. SHARE AND SIGN THE PETITION Akashma News
Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on Friday, was by all accounts a remarkable person. But he was by no means a radical. In his brief role as an organizer with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, he was among those who were convinced that with sufficient pressure from its activist base, the Obama administration would eventually reveal its deeply obscured roots in traditional New Deal/Great Society liberalism.
It hardly needs to be said that those of us who argued against him at the time, as I did, take no pleasure in having been proven right in the years since. The most tragic indication came two years ago when the Obama justice department charged Swartz himself with a 12 count violation of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for his attempt to acquire, via the MIT server, the JSTOR scholarly archive and make it available to the general public.
A small, delicate and bookish 26 year old, the prospect of a lengthy prison term, according to friends, terrified him and this, compounded by a history of depression, was, according to a statement released by this family, a primary reason for his suicide.
This was, of course, an almost unspeakable tragedy for those who knew him.
For them there is an understandable tendency to focus on Swartz’s extraordinary life and accomplishments and a reluctance to point fingers at those who are responsible.
Those of us who only know of Swartz’s work in passing shouldn’t feel any compunction about doing so, and there is plenty of blame to go around.
Most conspicuously, there is the Obama administration, and its deep pocket contributors in the high tech, publishing and entertainment industries who have attempted to make what they call the “theft” and what Swartz regarded as the liberation of intellectual property a crime meriting the most severe punishment. A ridiculously disproportionate 35 year sentence was being aggressively pursued by Massachusetts Federal Attorney, Carmen Ortiz who likely viewed the prosecution as an opportunity to raise her profile within the party. The strategy seemed to be working: Massachusetts Governor and close friend of Obama Deval Patrick mentioned her as a likely successor.
It should be our job to ensure that Ms. Ortiz’s cynical calculation will not pay off. A petition demanding her removal from office is being circulated and should be signed, though this is a bare minimum. Demonstrations at her office should become routine and her public appearances should be greeted with conspicuous displays of opposition. Should she receive the nomination for governor, or any other position in the future, those honoring Schwartz’s memory should pledge to nominate, finance, and actively support a third party candidate who can benefit from the legitimate outrage at Ortiz’ exercise in prosecutorial over-reach and extreme Democratic Party triangulation.
The other target, MIT, is not used to having the light of publicity affixed to it, but it is well deserved. As the Swartz’s family notes, by filing charges when the primary victim JSTOR refused to do so, MIT’s acquiesence was required for the federal prosecution to proceed.
Although MIT enjoys a near pristine reputation as America’s premier scientific and technical institution, it has more than a few skeletons in its closet due to its having been for years a leading beneficiary of federal government contracts, much of this tied to the development and production of costly, destabilizing and unnecessary weapons systems.
Complementing this flow of cash is the revolving door connecting its faculty with high level positions in industry and the federal government. MIT Professors such as CIA director John Deutsch, Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, among many others, have been leading figures within the Washington establishment.
The presence of these naturally raises suspicions with respect to the Obama Justice Department having influenced MIT’s decision to pursue prosecution. While this is necessarily a matter of speculation, it is difficult to see what MIT gained, since its own intellectual property was not being compromised. Furthermore, the climate at the institute, particularly within higher technology circles has historically promoted a culture of openness and sharing of ideas. The prosecution seriously if not fatally undermined this culture and this is what the Swartz’s family meant by MIT failing “to stand up for… its community’s most cherished principles.”
MIT faculty, particularly those in fields such as computer science and software engineering where Swartz made, at a very young age, substantial contributions, should demand an explanation for the administration’s catastrophic and tragic decision to move forward with the prosecution. And it should demand the release of all communications with federal officials relating to the Swartz case, should they exist.
Doing so would serve justice and, ultimately, the best interests of MIT as an institution.
It is the least which the MIT community can do to honor Swartz’s memory.
Reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to reflect the realities of computing and networks in 2013. The act is much too open ended. Any reasonable use of a computer system that isn’t explicitly authorized can be classified a computer crime.
ShareTagged as: Aaron Swartz, Carmen Ortiz, JSTOR, MIT
Aaron Aarons January 13, 2013 at 8:43 pm
-
While I am fully in solidarity with the major points of this article, I want to point out, in a comradely way, an example of the kind of thinking, or at least of rhetoric, that leftist enemies of the ruling order should avoid, even in making an incidental point:
[MIT has] been for years a leading beneficiary of federal government contracts, much of this tied to the development and production of costly, destabilizing and unnecessary weapons systems.
This use of the word “unnecessary” leaves the implication that some weapons systems that are developed and produced for the U.S. government are “necessary”, without questioning what interests they might be “necessary” for, and will reinforce in many minds the notion that some such weapons systems are “necessary” in the abstract, and not “necessary” specifically to serve the interests of the U.S. ruling class.
Again, I am fully in solidarity with the intent of this post and hope to see further discussion of the topic, including on how to accomplish exactly the kind of liberating task that Aaron Swartz was persecuted for attempting.
Aaron Swartz First Hacktivist Martyred
Posted on January 12, 2013 by Akashma Online News
UPDATED:Aaron Swartz’s supporters will be remembering Aaron’s 30-year birthday Saturday, Nov. 5 and Sunday, Nov. 6 in San Francisco, Calif. in a two-day lectures, workshops and reception.
Aaron Swartz was not criminal, he was not a hacker, Aaron was an intellectual, a young social activist looking for balance in our society.
Co-founder of Reddit Aaron Swartz found dead 😦 😥
Aaron Swartz Indicted For Hacking JSTOR.-
Tragic that the imminent end of life rotten in a federal prison pushed this young intellectual to take his life.
Aaron Swartz, the internet activist who wrote key parts of early RSS code, helped establish Reddit, opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act, and pushed hard for open access to information like U.S. case law and academic journals. Information that should be freely available to the public.
Last year Aaron Swartz the internet hacktivist was indicted for charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, data theft and property damage, Today Aaron Swartz is death. Found death in his apartment on apparently suicide.
A spokeswoman for New York’s Medical Examiner says 26-year-old Aaron Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment. He was found Friday.
Swartz’s death was confirmed by his attorney, Elliot Peters, in an email to MIT’s The Tech newspaper.
“The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true,” Peters wrote.
Before you go any further on the indictment charge of our young bright Aaron Swartz, you need to learn about his alleged crime.
The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”- hardly a crime at all
25-year-old Swartz, who is best known as co-author of the initial RSS specification, allegedly broke into a computer closet at MIT, accessed MIT’s network connected to JSTOR and downloaded “a major portion of JSTOR’s archive” without authorization, and distributed the acquired content through file sharing networks.
These are are words used in the indictment of Aaron, but this could have been proven wrong by an IT specialist that had cracked the most difficult cases in the IT industry. Alex Stamos is the CTO of Artemis Internet, he was the defense witness in Aaron Swartz case. Please take a minute to read his post “The truth about Aaron Swartz’s Crime”.
Aaron Swartz, was web pioneer who advocated for free online content. This more than suicide it is a crime delivered directly from the the Justice Department in their attempts to keep the profits soaring for the Corporate Gangsters.
Demand Progress, a website for which Swartz previously served as Executive Director, set up a web page and petition in support of Swartz, indicating that the indictment came with surprise and questioning a legal strategy that makes downloading “so many journal articles” a felony that should be punished with jail time. Demand Progress also noted that “the alleged victim has settles any claims against Aaron, explained they’ve suffered no loss or damage, and asked the government not to prosecute.” Toms Guide
Swartz himself reached out to his Twitter followers and thanked for their support via tweets. Demand Progress’ current Executive Director David Segal said that “Aaron’s career has focused on serving the public interest by promoting ethics, open government, and democratic politics. We hope to soon see him cleared of these bizarre charges.”
It is outrageous to think that the life of a young person be wasted this way. The Justice Department should respond for this crime.
It is not that we do not have enough with the trampling of our rights as a citizens, now we are facing greater threats to our physical integrity, when Law Thugs like District Attorneys base their career creating crimes with the pen.
35 years in prison for distributing old academic journals/papers? I can’t imagine a non-profit like JSTOR going after someone with the fury of the entertainment industry. If anything they should see the writing on the wall; most journals are required to move towards open access. According to JSTOR they did not want to press charges, but the Federal Government went full blown against this 25 year old internet activist, and was facing 50 years in Jail and more than 1,000,000 in fines. What a ridicule and out of proportion judgment, when we have Real criminals directing our life.
Most of our politicians are hacking each other, they have the best technology money can buy and they get away with it.
Last year, Swartz openly criticized the US and the Israeli regime for launching joint cyber attacks against Iran. The blogger was also vocal in criticizing Obama’s so-called kill list and other policies. Obama has been reportedly approving the names put on the “kill lists” used in the targeted killing operations carried out by US assassination drones.
Every week or so, more than 100 members of the US national security team gather via secure video teleconference run by the Pentagon and go over the biographies of suspects in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, and “nominate” those who should be targeted in the attacks.
Obama is then provided with the identities of those put on the “kill list” and signs off on every strike in Yemen and Somalia as well as the risky strikes in Pakistan.
Swartz was critical of monopoly of information by corporate cartels and believed that information should be shared and available for the benefit of society.
“Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves,” he wrote in an online “manifesto” in 2008.
Some DA at the United States Attorney’s Office was trying to get herself a promotion and killed this amazing young man in the process. Justice is backward, law enforcement is covering the real criminals. There are real crimes out there, this is not one of them.
“I’m so sick of living in a world without compassion and understanding. The laws on the books don’t automatically force prosecution and saying ‘its just my job’ is a justification that has never worked in history. In fact, those who claim this are often the worst of us, and by far. I’m sick of the monied interests having so much power and controlling our fates. From the office of the President down to the lowliest street beggar – money rules. Money become the evil that control our everyday lives. Copyright, IP, patents aren’t more important than my freedom or my ability to educate myself and others. This is an attack on my basic right to speak!
I’m so angry right now. The world only produces a few thousand Aaron Swartz’s a generation. Instead of us building a system to enable and empower people like him, we build systems by old men to protect the assets of old men while pissing on young men. They are destroying the boomer generation, you’ve become traitors to the American dream and to basic American freedom. The systems they build enable DAs and money men to toss the people who try to do better in this life in jail.” Internet Forums
The family of Aaron Swartz and the internet community are demanding the Federal Prosecutor to be charge with the murder of Aaron. The unjustifiable thread of excessive charges brought our young activist to depression and ultimately to his death. The office of the Federal Prosecutor unable to stop the chains of hacking events in the internet and DDS attacks prompted them to look for scapegoats. Aaron’s death demand justice.
I hope Anonymous and others hacktivists show a lesson to the Corporate Scam of the world, and their prostitutes. This is a crime against our youth. This is not how our youth deserve to be treated.
Aaron Swartz was a truly beautiful person. The world is unquestionably dimmer without him. RIP Aaron, you will be missed and remembered. The more since condolences to his family and friends.
Aaron Swartz Speech on SOPA
The Network Transformation
Anonymous petitions U.S. to see DDoS attacks as legal protest
Posted on January 10, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Source CNET
The hacking group claims DDoS attacks are like the Occupy movement — only instead of physical spaces, they’re occupying the Internet.
It’s hard to imagine a group that adheres to anarchic ideology would want its actions legalized under U.S. law. But that is exactly what Anonymous is doing.
The loose-knit group of hackers submitted a petition to President Obama this week asking that distributed denial-of-service attacks be recognized as a legal form of protest.
The petition, which is posted on the White House’s “We the People” Web site, claims that DDoS attacks are not illegal hacking but rather a way for people to carry out protests online. Similar to the Occupy movement when protesters pitched tents in public spaces, the petition says DDoS attacks also occupy public spaces in order to send a message.
With the advance in internet techonology [sic], comes new grounds for protesting. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), is not any form of hacking in any way. It is the equivalent of repeatedly hitting the refresh button on a webpage. It is, in that way, no different than any “occupy” protest. Instead of a group of people standing outside a building to occupy the area, they are having their computer occupy a website to slow (or deny) service of that particular website for a short time.As part of this petition, those who have been jailed for DDoS should be immediatly [sic] released and have anything regarding a DDoS, that is on their “records”, cleared.
Anonymous has claimed responsibility for many DDoS attacks over the years, the majority of which had political overtones. For example, in an effort to defend WikiLeaks in 2010, the hacking group launched a slew of DDoS attacks on companies, government agencies, and organizations it believed to be “impairing” WikiLeaks’ efforts to release classified information.
This year, Anonymous has also led DDoS campaigns against Syrian government Web sites for the government’s alleged shutdown of the Internet; and it has conducted a “cyberwar” against the Israeli government in protest of government attacks on Gaza.
The U.S. government may be hard pressed to accept Anonymous’ plea. Just yesterday, news hit that the massive DDoS campaign that has been targeting several U.S. banks is most likely being waged by Iran. It seems that it would be difficult for the U.S. government to accept this cyberattack as merely a legal form of protest.
Since Anonymous doesn’t have any particular structure or leader, it’s unclear who in the movement actually sent in this petition and agrees with what it’s asking of the government. So far, the request has gained little traction. It needs 25,000 signatures just for Obama to respond, and as of this writing it has only 729 signatures.
Whether Anonymous gets the ear of Obama or not, it’s looking like the group’s DDoS attacks will continue. Earlier this month, Anonymous announced, “Expect us 2013,” and said that it has no plans of slowing down. “We are still here,” it warned.
Anonymous Takes From The Rich, Cyberhoods Everywhere!
Posted on January 10, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Source Forbes
CyberHoods sprout every where
Cyber activists supporting Anonymous have passionately sought to punish the corruption they see in authority – from digital security firms to big corporations to, now, banks themselves. A hacker splinter group called TeaMp0isoN says it has partnered with supporters of the extremely loose-knit network of hacktivists and pranksters, to steal credit cards from several banks including Chase, Bank of America and CitiBank and give the money to charities and “the 99%.” The project, announced yesterday, is called Operation Robin Hood and in response to the Occupy Movement.
Also announced yesterday: the cyber security market is (surprise) booming. This is the industry making money from companies and governments who want to defend and attack digital threats like Operation Robin Hood. Total spending will reach $60 billion by the end of this year, then grow at close to 10% each year for the next three to five years, according to a report from accounting giant Price Waterhouse Coopers. The United States accounts for more than half the total, with Japan and the U.K. the next largest markets.
The report says that “growing threats” and “increasing awareness” of cyber threats are key to the rise in spending, and it points squarely at Anonymous and LulzSec, a hacker splinter group that terrorized the Internet for 50 days last summer. LulzSec struck everyone from FBI affiliate Infragard, to Sony Pictures, to PBS. Like TeamPoison, the group, made up of about six hackers, had split from Anonymous at first, before partnering with the collective towards the end of their spree to collaborate on reviving the Anti-security (Antisec) movement. The group received plenty of headlines from the mainstream media on their hacks, their eventual disbanding and the arrest of alleged members.
All this, PwC says, is helping drive cyber security deals. “Against the backdrop of heightened awareness of hacks and deliberate attacks on institutions by semi-organized groups, the cyber security market is undergoing significant change and attracting investment from sectors that span technology, telecommunications, defense, professional services and financial investors,” said Rob Fisher, PwC’s U.S. technology leader for transaction services.
Money isn’t just flowing through goods and services, but deal-making too: nearly half the $22 million spent globally on cyber security deals since 2008, was spent in the first half of 2011. Thirty seven deals accounted for more than $10 billion in deal value, according to PwC.
Plenty of folks in the cyber security field have debated whether the rise of Anonymous would actually lead to increased spending on services like protection from DDoS attacks, which can temporarily paralyze a website, and SQL injection-type attacks that can raid a database and sometimes purge it of all contents.
Aaron Barr, the former CEO of digital security firm HBGary Federal, which Anonymous attacked in February after Barr tried identifying supporters, recently predicted that spending would not increase because of Anonymous, but shift in terms of its type. “Some companies have shifted the money towards website security and… anti-DDoS,” he told the press during a conference held by digital security giant RSA in London in October. Before Anonymous, the industry was seeing demand for DDoS-type technology focused primarily in Asia, but since then it had spread around the world.
PwC’s report suggests Barr may have been wrong, though it seems not to have been able to quantify the “Anonymous” factor in the spending rise.
The irony in all this is that Anonymous by nature is not a massive, global organization constantly plotting new cyber attacks against governments and corporations, but small cells of people working independently across the globe, some vastly more skilled than others in hacking, but sharing the same name. It’s the name that amplifies their voices, no matter how unlikely their threat may be (witness the much-hyped plot against Facebook earlier this year). When “Anonymous” and “We are legion” are invoked, many people take note, and a few get worried enough to get their wallets out.
Supporters of Anonymous are great at playing up the scary persona – the collective is borne out of the internet culture for trolling and exaggeration, and the macho, confrontational rhetoric that’s all over IRC (chat) networks and prevalent in hacker culture. In the end that may translate to one thing for the digital security industry: dollars.
Honey Trap? Dear Hackers, Warm up your keyboards! Because Facebook open Registration for third Hacker Cup 2013, an annual worldwide programming competition where hackers compete against each other for fame, fortune, glory and a shot at the title of world champion, with $5,000 top prize. Warm Up Your Keyboards Cup?
This is what you should be fearful of, not us releasing things publicly, but the fact that someone hasn’t released something publicly. We’re sitting on 200,000 Brink users right now that we never gave out. It might make you feel safe knowing we told you, so that Brink users may change their passwords. What if we hadn’t told you? No one would be aware of this theft, and we’d have a fresh 200,000 peons to abuse, completely unaware of a breach. Gizmodo
Israel preparing Cyber Iron Dome Shield
Posted on January 06, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Source The HackersNews
And Hack Read Cyber Forever
UPDATED
Anonymous on Israel Tracks
IDF’s Communication Supplier & 21 Other Israeli Sites Hacked by AnonGhost
The government of Israel is now starting its own cyber warfare training program for its youth to get a professional grip over cyber attacks that are being conducted against Israel every day.
Israel’s Prime Minister officially opened a new national program to train teenagers in the art of cyber-warfare. The program named “Magshimim Le’umit”, is to prepare them for their future role in the military and intelligence community.
Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the country’s computer systems are facing attacks from Iran and other countries, and such attacks are set to increase in the digital age.
The program which has been named as ”Magshimim Le’umit” was under planning for last three years, allows youth between the age of 16 to 18 to participate in this extraordinary training.
At the occasion, the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that:
Israel is under massive cyber attacks everyday; hackers from Iran and other countries are disturbing the country’s online infrastructure, it is now time for Israel to develop a better and secure cyber world for the country and for this purpose the government has finally unveiled the training program through Israel National Cyber Bureau (INCB).
He added that the trained students are the future and guardian of the country, Israel is world leader in Cyber intelligence and it is our duty to maintain that position and don’t loose it to any other nation.
The decision of opening a cyber warfare training program at such a high level shows that past hacks from Anonymous hackers for #OpIsrael has affected and damage the country’s cyber space.
However, It will be important to see the content of training at Magshimim Le’umit and results will be seen in future.
Source Of Sound Ltd. (SOS), established in 1971, is the primary supplier of high quality communication headsets and other military communication accessories to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). SOS has acquired considerable expertise in military as well as in communication technologies, in extreme environmental conditions.The hacker also hacked 21 other Israeli websites and left his deface page and a message on all of the hacked website, the message threatens Israel to stop its occupation against the Palestine and get expect the hacker to return soon.
According to the deface message:
To the Government of Israel, We are watching you.. We can see what you are doing, we control you. We are everywhere.. Remember this. The people you are trying to stop on, we are everyone you depend on. We are the people who do your laundry and cook you food and serve you dinner. We make bed. We guard you, while you are sleeping. We drive the ambulances We direct your calls.. We are cooks and taxi drivers. We are everyone you come into contact with on a daily bases. We know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life . Together we stand against Israel.
We are anonymous We are legion.. United as ONE. Divided by Zero.. We do not forgive injustice. We do not forget oppression We are coming soon to release Gaza.. Expect Us..
We are AnonGhost we are legion. We do not forgive, we do not forget. Expect us.
Akashma Online News 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }