'Anonymous' collective hackers intensify cyber attacks across south-east Asia

[NewWorldRecord]

Buckingham Palace hit by fireworks during Anonymous protest [VIDEO]

Grae Stafford 1:23 PM 11/06/2013

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3iRK9_f1IZM?rel=0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe>

Fireworks launched by the hackivist group Anonymous struck Buckingham Palace, official residence of the Her Majesty the Queen, on Tuesday night.

In scenes reminiscent of the 2005 movie “V for Vendetta” protestors wearing Guy Fawkes masks gathered outside of the palace and the U.K. Houses of Parliament to protest as part of the Million Mask March. Anonymous planned to hold global protests on the 5th of November to commemorate the day that Guy Fawkes — a would-be assassin who wanted to re-establish a Catholic monarchy in England — attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

“Remember who your enemies are: Billionaires who own banks and corporations who corrupt politicians who enslave the people in injustice,” Anonymous wrote in a statement published on its Facebook page.

Protests occured in Spain, Australia, Japan and Washington, D.C. While the protests in Washington, D.C. were relatively peaceful, protestors in London started a fire close to the main palace gate, and damaged several other London landmarks. Eleven people were arrested after throwing glass bottles at riot police according to London’s police department, Scotland Yard.

Comedian Russell Brand also attended the London protest, sporting a Guy Fawkes mask.

Comedian Russell Brand at the Anonymous march. Photograph: Ik Aldama/Aldama/Demotix/Corbis

Protestors shrugged off the the damage done to Her Majesty’s palace.

“We turned up and the protest was at Buckingham Palace,” self-employed computer programmer Sean Roesner, 21, told The Guardian. “When we arrived, people were firing fireworks at the palace. It was funny. I didn’t have any, but I would have fired some if I had.”

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Woman Charged with Assaulting Two Police Officers at 'Peaceful' Anonymous Protest

By DAVID GILBERT | November 06, 2013 4:18 PM GMT

The police arrested 15 people during a planned demonstration in central London and have so far charged three of them.

15 people were arrested and three people charged following a planned demonstration in central London organised by Anonymous (IBTimes)

The most serious charge to arise from the arrests will see a 25-year-old woman facing two separate charges of assaulting a police officer at a protest which the organisers said would see "no sign of aggression" from demonstrators.

The arrests stemmed from a march organised by online hacktivist collective Anonymous, which coincided with similar protests taking place around the globe in 400 cities aiming to highlight a range of injustices and corruption.

The march in London was, for the most part peaceful, though police have confirmed they made 15 arrests in total with three of those already having been charged, one released without charge and 10 others still in custody.

Jemma McCarthy, 25, from Greenacres Drive, Bourne, Lincolnshire has been charged with two counts of assaulting a police officer during the demonstration and was remanded in custody to appear again on Wednesday at Westminister Magistrates' Court.

Public order offences

The two other defendants were charged with public order offences and will appear in court again on Tuesday, 19 November. Ashley Anderson Hunte-Smith, 25, of Lessness Road, Morden and Jordan Mark Perry, 21, of Allen Close, Wheathampstead St Albans were both arrested at the event in London on Tuesday.

While police wouldn't give any estimates for the number of people attending the protest in central London on Tuesday, reports put the figures at well over 1,000 people.

A 33-year-old man was arrested for an outstanding warrant but has been released with no further action. A 50-year-old man arrested for theft has been bailed pending further enquiries to a central London police station on a date in January, 2014.

The other 10 people arrested currently remain in custody at a central London police station.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Websites of Singapore president, PM hacked

AFP
November 8, 2013, 7:50 pm

Singapore (AFP) - The websites of Singapore's president and prime minister have been hacked after PM vowed to crack down on activist group Anonymous, which is demanding greater Internet freedom in the city-state, officials confirmed on Friday.

A "subpage" of the website of the Istana, the official residence of President Tony Tan, was "compromised" early Friday, telecommunication officials said without giving details.

The hacking happened about an hour after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's website displayed mocking messages and pictures from Anonymous, which is demanding the scrapping of rules requiring Singapore news websites to obtain annual licenses.

The rules, which came into effect in June, have sparked anger among some bloggers and activists who say they are designed to muzzle free expression.

While the defaced section of www.istana.gov.sg had been take offline by early afternoon, screengrabs widely circulated on social media showed the image of a stern-looking elderly woman raising a middle finger. Its authenticity could not be independently verified.

It was accompanied by the words "JIAK LIAO BEE!", a mildly offensive term in Hokkien, a southern Chinese dialect, referring to people who get paid for doing nothing.

Unlike the hacking of the prime minister's website, there was no indication of the involvement of Anonymous in the attack on the Istana page.

"Both the PMO (prime minister's office) and Istana main websites are still working, and we will restore the compromised pages as soon as possible. The matter is under investigation," the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said in a statement.

"We will continue to strengthen all Government websites. This includes the checking and fixing of vulnerabilities and software patching," it said.

The defaced section of Lee's official website www.pmo.gov.sg showed the message "ANONYMOUS SG WAS HERE BIATCH".

"It's great to be Singaporean today," read a headline next to Anonymous' trademark Guy Fawkes mask, a symbol of anti-establishment defiance worldwide.

The double attacks came after Lee on Wednesday told local journalists that his government would "spare no effort" in going after Anonymous members who had threatened to wage a cyber war against the government.

A person claiming to be from Anonymous last week threatened to mount the attacks to protest recent licensing rules for news websites.

In the video posted on YouTube on October 31, a person speaking with a computer-digitised voice and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask said the group would "go to war" with the Singapore government.

A day later, a person claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous hacked the official blog of the Straits Times' technology correspondent.

The hacker also warned of further attacks on the tightly governed island's technological infrastructure if its demands were not met.

Singapore strictly regulates the traditional media, but insists the new licensing rules do not impinge on Internet freedom.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

​

 

[NewWorldRecord]

November 7th, 2013, 15:59 GMT · By Eduard KovacsBLOG

Anonymous Hackers Launch Operation Against Bullfighting

Anonymous hackers have launched a new campaign against bullfighting. The operation, dubbed OpTorosSiTorerosNo (Spanish for “Bulls Yes, Bullfighters No”) will start on November 11.

The hackers want to put an end to the Spanish traditions in which bulls are slaughtered. They offer as examples the bull run in Pamplona, and the Toro de la Vega festival in Tordesillas in which a bull is chased down and killed.

“We have the duty to try to put an end to bullfighting,” the hackers noted.

The hacktivists haven’t announced their immediate plans, but they urge all those who want to join the campaign to access their IRC channel.

In September, Anonymous hackers defaced a website of Tordesillas in protest against the controversial festival.

Anonymous has published a video to announce OpTorosSiTorerosNo. It contains graphic images of bulls being slaughtered. Viewer discretion is advised!

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous is winning its Craigslist battle against Scientology

By Curt Hopkins on November 07, 2013

Anonymous’ campaign against Church of Scientology recruiting attempts on Craigslist is a success, a member of the hacking collective told the Daily Dot.

The Church of Scientology reportedly posted between 100 and 200 Craigslist ads a day in a number of major metropolitan areas to attract recruits to the group, which many consider a cult. The ads, Anonymous maintains, broke Craigslist’s Terms of Service.

Anonymous posted a legion of counter-ads to focus attention on this breach, and the action seems to have been successful.

“Even though there has never been any public response from Craigslist, the tables have turned,” an Anonymous representative told the Daily Dot in an email.

“Within a day of stories breaking, our flagging seemed to be recognized. Church accounts appear to have been banned in a number of cities, and in larger cities where hundreds of ads were posted daily (such as New York City and San Francisco), all have been knocked down to pretty minimal amounts, which we can usually flag away with general ease," the source reported.

Anonymous' success hasn't entirely stopped the recruiting effort, though, and it seems to have angered Church of Scientology higher-ups.

Anonymous shared a letter it claimed to have received from a former Scientologist, which purports to give a glimpse inside the church’s reaction to the Anonymous campaign. They asked the Daily Dot to not quote the letter directly because “(t)hey still have family in the cult and if they are found to be the source of any information, they will force disconnection and they will never be able to speak to this person again.”

According to the letter, at least three Directors of Special Affairs, a Scientology executive rank, have found out about the Anonymous counter-posts and have informed the Office of Special Affairs, Scientology’s investigation service.

The author of the letter also informed Anonymous that several Scientology representatives have contacted Craigslist in an attempt to block the counter-ads as hate speech, a charge Anonymous denies.

“(M)any of our counter-posts distinctly say that we don't hate Scientologists,” said the same Anonymous source, “just that we cannot tolerate an organization that perpetrates various human rights abuses and bilks people out of their hard-earned money for access to so-called religious doctrine and to fund a vast real estate empire, and isolates its members from the rest of the world.”

A new development seems to be a crude phishing email targeting those posting counters to the Scientology ads on Craigslist:

"Hi,

Nice writing to you, a few minutes ago I read your post on craigslist and it attracted me, right now I have some work need you if you have time,

for the details please read [link] which I post with descriptions.

If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email.

Regards,

Jenna Hill"

The redacted link leads to a page that asks for the user’s Craigslist account password.

It is worth noting that Jenna Miscavige Hill is a well-known critic of Scientology and the niece of David Miscavige, the church’s current leader. This could be a coincidence, but Anonymous believes it’s evidence of a Scientology connection.

“We cannot confirm that the Church of Scientology is on the other end of this, but find it highly suspect given the name provided in the e-mail,” Anonymous said.

The Church of Scientology did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo by scragz/Flickr

 

[NewWorldRecord]

When the authorities fail: Anonymous campaigns over alleged rape and murder of 2-year-old

David Ferguson
The Raw Story

Thu, 07 Nov 2013 16:10 CST

[Anonymous protesters via Wikimedia Commons user Haeferl]

The online activist hacker collective Anonymous announced Thursday that it is taking up a new campaign in hopes of bringing to justice the people who allegedly raped and murdered a 2-year-old from the Phoenix, AZ area.

According to a notice posted at the text-sharing website Pastebin.com the hackers believe that authorities failed to properly prosecute the case of Savannah Cross, who was assaulted and ultimately killed, allegedly by two people who had been entrusted with her care.

Anonymous alleges that prosecutorial incompetency and budget shortfalls were the main factors that led to murder and child abuse charges being dropped against Ryan Alan Reed, 27, and Allison Ann Clement, 28. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office failed to provide key evidence in the case in time to meet prosecutors' deadline for the trial, forcing the judge to dismiss the case on grounds of lack of evidence.

On December 11 of 2012, according to AZ Central, police and paramedics were summoned to Reed and Clement's house shortly before 7:00 in the morning. At the residence they found Savannah Cross unconscious, covered in bruises and receiving CPR from an unspecified adult. She was pronounced dead at Maricopa County Medical Center 30 minutes later.

For five months, the toddler had been left by her mother in the babysitters' constant care. Her mother, Ashley Dattoli Livengood, reportedly showed no interest in her daughter, only showing up every couple of weeks to pay for the girl's care.

Reed and Clement produced a set of conflicting and contradictory stories to police about what happened to the girl. Reed admitted that he had struck Savannah on repeated occasions, but Clement insisted to authorities that Savannah bruised easily and that Reed had not hit her with any real force. Clement later admitted that she was lying to police to protect Reed.

Savannah Cross was reportedly malnourished, severely abused and showed signs of repeated sexual abuse. Anonymous believes this should never have happened and that Reed and Clement should be in custody.

"Enough is enough," they wrote. "To the media of Maricopa County, the state of Arizona, the United States, and the world, you can not continue to ignore this. This is a child in your community, a child in your city, a child in our country. If you don't stand up for her, then who will? If not now, then when? There is nothing more important than seeking justice for an abused and murdered child. Step up to the plate and bring this horrendous story the attention it deserves."

The collective demanded that Phoenix Veterans' Administration Hospital terminate the girl's mother.

"At this time you have 7 days to terminate her employment or we will begin directly contacting veteran's and military groups in your area," Anonymous said to the hospital. "If you want protests on your campus, continue to ignore this demand. We will not ask again."

"Anonymous wishes to again state that we fully support the actions of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Phoenix Police Homicide Division, all first responders, and the Maricopa County Attorney's office in this case," the group concluded. "We thank you for doing your jobs. We again demand that others do theirs."

Anonymous was instrumental in bringing the Steubenville rape case to the public's attention. The group is hoping that by raising the profile of Savannah Cross' case, they can bring her alleged murderers to justice.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

November 7th, 2013, 14:00 GMT · By Eduard Kovacs

Anonymous Ukraine Launches DDOS Attack on NATO’s CCDCOE Website

CCDCOE website disrupted by hackers

Anonymous Ukraine has disrupted the official website of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). The hackers kept the website offline for close to two hours in response to NATO hacking a number of Ukrainian government websites.

“On Monday NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence hacked a number of Ukrainian websites including Medical Department of Security Service of Ukraine and Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office. It's payback time! We've just tango down NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence!” the hackers wrote.

That’s confusing, right? Why would NATO hack Ukrainian government websites? In reality, NATO has nothing to do with the attack on the government websites.

Some hackers breached them and defaced them with an image that read, “Website has been suspended. Security policy of the website does not meet the requirements of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. Steadfast Jazz 2013."

The attacks came shortly after Anonymous Ukraine announced OpIndependence, a campaign in support of the country’s independence from NATO and the European Union.

So it would seem that someone hacked the Ukrainian websites on behalf of NATO’s CCDCOE to troll Anonymous Ukraine. However, there’s more to it than that.

Over the past days, fake CCDCOE emails have been making the rounds. The CCDCEO is aware of the bogus notifications and has even issued a warning. The emails carry the same outdated CCDCOE logo that has been used in the defacements.

Conrad Longmore of Dynamoo’s Blog has also analyzed the emails, which don’t contain any malicious links or attachments. He believes they might represent only one part of a campaign.

The most interesting part is that the email sent by hackers to Softpedia regarding the “NATO attacks on Ukraine” and the spam emails that currently make the rounds have been sent from the same IP address: 213.157.216.139.

This IP belongs to a Georgian subscriber of Caucasus Online LLC ASDL, a service that, according to Longmore, has been seen in conjunction with botnets.

If you have any tips regarding these mysterious campaigns, be sure to let us know.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Hackers expose Asia's weak cyber defences

AFP
November 9, 2013, 2:29 pm

Singapore (AFP) - A rash of website hackings in the Asia-Pacific has exposed weak cyber defences which must be improved to help the region deal with more sophisticated and sinister threats, particularly from criminal organisations, analysts said.

Hackers claiming to be from the global activist group Anonymous compromised several government and commercial websites in Australia, the Philippines and Singapore recently, and vowed to mount wider attacks.

In the latest incident, Anonymous hackers on Thursday hijacked a section of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's official website, just a day after he vowed to "spare no effort" to hunt down anyone who attacks the regional financial centre's technological network.

Cloud computing, the proliferation of mobile devices and the increasing use of social media have allowed an escalating volume of data to flow through multiple channels, giving hackers a wider field to ply their trade, analysts said.

They warned that Anonymous, which carries out attacks to highlight issues such as Internet freedom and corruption, is just one of the groups involved, and others with a more sinister agenda could inflict serious damage.

"The more sophisticated group that government and business should fear are the cyber-criminal organisations who have much greater resources at their disposal," said Tan Shong Ye, information technology risk and cyber security leader at global business consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Their targets could be valuable intellectual property and critical infrastructure, including military and state secrets, Tan told AFP.

Hackers turning sights on Asia

Shadowy hackers who have long targeted the West are turning their sights on Asia's fast-growing economies.

"As countries become wealthier, they have more assets and therefore are more likely to become targets," said Nina Laven, director for economics and country risk at consultancy group IHS.

"We will likely see the region attracting more attacks," she told AFP.

Southeast Asia and the wider Asia Pacific region "are growing in significance in terms of cybersecurity issues" as Internet usage becomes more pervasive, said Caitriona H. Heinl, a cyber security specialist at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore.

"These increasing levels of connectivity are raising the probabilities of cross-border cyber-related threats such as transnational cybercrime," she told AFP.

Research firm Euromonitor said there were more than 389 million smartphones and nearly 30 million tablets and other portable computers in the Asia Pacific in 2013. Mobile Internet subscriptions alone reached over 712 million, it said.

Governments and businesses are moving to protect their networks, but hackers, in many instances, are a step ahead.

"While information security risks have dramatically evolved, security strategies... have not kept pace," PwC said in its Global State of Information Security Survey released in September.

"In other words, most organisations are now defending yesterday, even as their adversaries look to exploit the vulnerabilities of tomorrow."

Most Asian countries have implemented some level of cybersecurity protection by having computer emergency response teams to deal with online attacks, Tan of PwC said.

However "more needs to be done in the form of investments as well as attention," he said, citing PwC's survey showing that the number of security incidents detected worldwide in the past 12 months rose by 25 percent and average losses climbed 18 percent from the previous year.

Asian businesses in general "are still not investing enough in cyber security," Tan added, noting that companies usually invest after they encounter a serious attack.

China, the world's second biggest economy, and Russia are "showing solid progress" in deploying cybersecurity safeguards while India is playing catch-up, Tan added.

"China's Internet infrastructure is in fact more heavily guarded than others, thanks to the state's role in the 'Big firewall' of China," he said.

Laven of IHS stressed that international cooperation is key to fighting cyber attacks.

"Cybersecurity is a cross-border issue. Governments can invest in prediction, detection and recovery, but a lack of alignment between countries leads to security weaknesses that no one government can address," she told AFP.

Criminal groups could attack well-protected countries from overseas locations with weaker cyber safeguards, Laven said.

"Until governments can find ways to work together on preventing cyber crime -- through penalties, incentives, or funding technical solutions that can be deployed across borders -- international attackers will always be able to find weaknesses to exploit," she said.

Heinl of RSIS said that so far, "national and regional efforts to adopt comprehensive cybersecurity strategies have been somewhat slow and fragmented".

 

[NewWorldRecord]

November 8th, 2013, 18:26 GMT · By Eduard KovacsBLOG

Anonymous Announces Operation Orangedays 2013 – Video

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/IRHpgIxDkIs?rel=0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe>

Anonymous hacktivists have launched a new operation called OpOrangedays 2013. The campaign is aimed at what they call “wars businessmen,” individuals who profit from weapons of any kind.

The operation particularly focuses on Agent Orange, or Herbicide Orange, one of the substances used by the US military as part of its herbicidal warfare program in the Vietnam War.

The hackers say the effects of this warfare program can be seen even today, with hundreds of thousands of children being born with birth defects because of it.

Anonymous accuses the US government of turning a blind eye to the issue. Furthermore, they claim the US is introducing new such weapons.

It’s uncertain what the hacktivists plan on targeting as part of this operation. It will be interesting to see if the campaign manages to attract any supporters. If it doesn’t, it’s unlikely that anything will become of it.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Tech at Night: Anonymous under attack worldwide. Wikileaks bails on Snowden.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | November 9th, 2013 at 01:30 AM |

Rooting for injuries watch: Anonymous Australia takes on Anonymous Indonesia. And then Singapore is after their own Anonymous cell. The blackshirts will be rooted out wherever they are, around the world*.

Cognitive dissonance watch: Google paints themselves as the Hobbits against Sauron that the NSA is supposed to be, even as they try to simultaneously goad people onto Google+ via Youtube comments, and then broadcast Google+ information to Android users, opting you in by default. I’m sorry, but these hobbits aren’t being taken to Isengard. They’re ruling Isengard.

Heard from a big business/big government critic of Aereo: “They must not be allowed to exist.” That’s Democrat regulation for you: picking winners and losers, in the attempted formation of a Communist-style planned economy.

That’s also why we can’t let them start picking quotas for Internet speeds like some Soviet-era factory in Yakutsk.

You know FCC is terrible when even Senate Democrats like Mark Warner are smarter than they are on issues like Spectrum. Because I mean, while Tom Wheeler claims he’s pro-competition, Wendy Davis claims to be pro-life. So yeah.

Heh, Edward Snowden is being denied access to Germany, but Wikileaks is bailing on him anyway. The traitor is betrayed.

* Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty and deserved the death penalty they got.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

November 8th, 2013, 21:10 GMT · By Eduard Kovacs

Anonymous Publishes Second Statement for OpJustice4Savannah

Anonymous members are displeased with the evolution of the Savannah Cross case. They’ve published another statement, once again urging authorities to take action.

In October, the hacktivists launched a campaign called OpJustice4Savannah, after the killers of 2-year-old Savannah Cross were set free because the Maricopa County Medical Examiner failed to do his job in time.

The hackers want authorities to take action not only against Ryan Reed and his wife, Allison Clement, but also against Savannah’s mother.

Anonymous says the mother, Ashley Dattoli Livengood, is also responsible for the child’s death. They’re displeased with the fact that she is working at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Phoenix. They want her to be fired, arguing that she is not fit to care for anyone.

“To the media of Maricopa County, the state of Arizona, the United States, and the world, you can not continue to ignore this. This is a child in your community, a child in your city, a child in our country. If you don't stand up for her, then who will? If not now, then when?” the hacktivists noted.

“There is nothing more important than seeking justice for an abused and murdered child. Step up to the plate and bring this horrendous story the attention it deserves.

Anonymous has given authorities seven days to terminate Ashley Dattoli Livengood’s employment with the veterans hospital in Phoenix.

“If you want protests on your campus, continue to ignore this demand. We will not ask again,” they warned.

The initiators of Operation Justice4Savannah say they support the work of the Police Homicide Division, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. However, they demand that the other organizations involved in this case do their jobs as well.

The complete statement from Anonymous on OpJustice4Savannah is available on Pastebin. (Below)

....................................................................................................................

Anonymous Operation Justice4Savannah

Press Release 2
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 7, 2013

Greetings. We are Anonymous.

On October 11, 2013 Anonymous informed the local and national media of our involvement in the case of Savannah Cross, age 2, raped and murdered in the Phoenix, Arizona area. As of this writing her killers remain free due to the inefficiency of the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's office and her equally culpable mother continues to provide medical "care" for our Nation's veterans due to the uncaring bureaucracy of the Phoenix VA Hospital.

Enough is enough.

To the media of Maricopa County, the state of Arizona, the United States, and the world, you can not continue to ignore this. This is a child in your community, a child in your city, a child in our country. If you don't stand up for her, then who will? If not now, then when? There is nothing more important than seeking justice for an abused and murdered child. Step up to the plate and bring this horrendous story the attention it deserves.

Anonymous reiterates our demand that the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office stop playing budget politics with this case and get your job done so the County Attorney can re-file charges forthwith. You have had more than enough time. If the lab is the problem, then get on the telephone and fix the problem. Your seeming ineptitude is criminal in its own right.

Phoenix VA Hospital, you have had more than enough time to remove Ashley Dattoli Livengood from your employ. Indeed, she is not even a full-time employee and Arizona is a "right to work" state. You need prove no misconduct to terminate her employment. Our Nation's veterans deserve far better than to be "cared" for by this uncaring monster who reportedly told co-workers she would "see her when I see her" regarding Savannah. At this time you have 7 days to terminate her employment or we will begin directly contacting veteran's and military groups in your area. If you want protests on your campus, continue to ignore this demand. We will not ask again.

Anonymous wishes to again state that we fully support the actions of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Phoenix Police Homicide Division, all first responders, and the Maricopa County Attorney's office in this case. We thank you for doing your jobs. We again demand that others do theirs.

That is all.

OpJustice4Savannah continues to be engaged.

We Are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

Email Contact: [email protected]
Twitter Contact: @Op4Savannah / #OpJustice4Savannah
Website: http://opjustice4savannah.blogspot.com/

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Saturday, 9 November 2013

#opXMAS from Anonymous NSW

OpXmas is the Anonymous way of spreading some love in our communities at a time of year which is all about giving.

While the event will run the entire month of December on Friday the 13th we will be in Martin Place helping the Occupy Sydney 24-7 Homeless Support Network and giving gifts to the homeless and less fortunate.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Huge Italian Mafia, Drugs, Cover ups & Giuseppe Scopelliti Documents Leaked by #Anonymous

By Lee J on Saturday 9th of November 2013 at 7:10:54 pm

Its that time of the month again, where Anonymous hacktivist release a load of data from governments they have breached and this time the target is the Italian Government.

The leaked data which was first posted to cyberguerrilla.org has been dedicated to Giuseppe Scopelliti and is the first part of a upcoming series of leaks.

TheAnonymoushackers have stated that they have managed to infect all the personal computers of regional politicians: “we managed to infect most of the personal computers in regional administrations, mainly presidents of Calabria, Lombardia, Sicilia, Toscana, Campania and Puglia”.

After speaking to one of the hackers they have stated they have been carried out via spear phishing and that it is in fact all personal computers and devices that this information has been obtained from.’

The Data has been posted to anonfiles as a 349mb rar file and a preview of the documents within it has been posted to imgur with 27 documents as previews from Scopelliti’s personal computer and mobile device. When uncompressed the leak is about 440mb with about 1000 files in PDF, doc and image formats.

No Operation has been set for this but it is in support of the on goingAnonymous@OperationItaly and the agenda is to show how corruption in the Italian government has taken place over all regional administrations.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

MafiaLeaks: Italian Portal Takes Aim at Organized Crime

By Hans-Jürgen Schlamp in Rome

A new group in Italy is seeking to break the mafia's code of silence by providing informants the means to safely reveal information to the media or authorities via an anonymous Internet portal. The site's founders are hoping for tip-offs from abroad too

The mafia's power rests on unwavering loyalty and discretion or "omertà," which means silence as far as the grave. Brutal force and intimidation ensure that members of Mafia clans such as Calabria's 'Ndrangheta toe the line.

Now insiders who want to reveal information have a new way of doing so: MafiaLeaks is a new platform that allows whistleblowers to tip off the authorities or the media anonymously.
The site is aimed at mafia insiders as well as victims of crime and normal citizens who have seen or witnessed something suspicious. MafiaLeaks aims to serve as a bridge between government authorities or media outlets and informants who choose not to contact them directly because of safety concerns.

'Some Have Families'

The founders of MafiaLeaks prefer to remain anonymous -- an understandable choice given that they would otherwise likely have to fear for their lives. SPIEGEL ONLINE was able to talk to them via an intermediary about the project and their motives. They claim that they are a group of "more than five, but less than 10" like-minded people and that, "some have families."

Bobby, whose name has been changed by the editors to protect his identity, says what was missing in the past was a safe way to report information about the mafia to the media or the authorities. The traditional means of doing so by phone, e-mail or mail were all too dangerous and informants risked being exposed.

MafiaLeaks relies on Tor, a system that routes data through a cascade of servers designed to mask a user's IP address, to protect the identity of potential informants. And MafiaLeaks' cryptic URL (http://pliqhphjyny4yglg.onion) is only accessible using the Tor browser.

Users can use the leaks portal to pass tips on to the site's creators, who have no information about the identity of the informants. They stress that they wouldn't want to have that information, either. MafiaLeaks then passes the information on to what they describe as "trustworthy individuals" in the police force, anti-mafia organizations and the media.

The idea is to provide as much protection as possible to informants. Of course, the very nature of the site is bound to attract fake informants, and it remains the reponsibility of the authorities and media to review information and determine whether the lead should be pursued or if it is a fake tip-off.

'Nobody Says or Does Anything'

A visit by one of the founders to his hometown after an absence of some years inspired him to launch the MafiaLeaks project. He was appalled to find the town transformed -- long established local firms had been shut and the entrance to the town's bar was pockmarked with shot holes. The town of 5,000 people had been "taken over" by a mafia family, which now ruthlessly enforced payment of "pizzo" or protection money.

"Everybody knew that the family was terrorizing the town, but nobody said or did anything," Bobby says. What made things even more troubling for him was that this wasn't happening in the south of the country, a stronghold of mafia activity, but up in the north. "The clans are extending their influence and we wanted to do something about it," he says.

Bobby is proud of the fact that the website received information within the first 24 hours of going live. He said he also hopes information and tips will be submitted from outside Italy.

Mafia organizations such as 'Ndrangheta have long operated internationally -- also in Germany. Six people died in a shooting in front of an Italian restaurant in Duisburg in August 2007, the product of a turf war between two "families" from Calabria in southern Italy. More often, though, they operate quietly. Bobby claims the mafia is buying up entire tracts of real estate north of the Alps, sometimes even entire neighborhoods.

People from many walks of life could help to shed light on such deals, including lawyers, notaries, bank employees and civil servants. Naturally, "their information would be most welcome in Italy" and "MafiaLeaks" would provide "a safe way for them to submit their information at no risk to themselves" says Bobby.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous Attacks Telegraph Columnist Martha Gill Over Mask 'Sweatshop' Article

By DAVID GILBERT | November 08, 2013 4:10 PM GMT

Covert hacktivist collective Anonymous has hit out at Telegraph columnist Marth Gill for her article linking their Million Mask March with sweatshops in Brazil.

An Anonymous member at the Million Mask March in London this week (IBTimes UK)

Anonymous has been grabbing headlines this week for its Million Mask March which took place in 400 cities around the world, even attracting Russell Brand to take part in the London event.

The march attracted a lot of attention, both positive and negative, but one opinion piece seems to have raised the ire of the group more than any other.

On Wednesday, the day after the march, UK newspaper The Telegraph published an article entitled: "Anonymous have been exposed as hypocrites. Watch them try to wiggle out of it."

The article was written by Martha Gill and argued that because the iconic Guy Fawkes masks used by Anonymous to identify themselves were produced in "sweatshops," the group was being hypocritical when criticising organisations and individuals for not doing the right thing.

Sweatshop

The problem is that the "sweatshop" Gill talks about is in fact a well-respected factory in Brazil which produces masks mainly for the country's famous Carnival.

In an open letter to the media, Anonymous said:

"This factory is actually a 55-year-old family-owned workshop, where artists produced an estimated 200,000 masks yearly. Most of them are designed by Catalan artist Sergi Arbusa y Amoros and are sold for the annual Carnival in Brazil, which is attended by more than 3 million people in Rio de Janeiro every year."

This is backed up by an Associated Press report from February of this year, when a reporter visited the offices of Condal and spoke to Olga Valles, the owner of the factory which is "Brazil's oldest and most productive mask factory." Valles' started the factory in 1958 with her Spanish-born husband.

Assumption

The problems stems from Gill's assumption that the masks were made in a "sweatshop" based on a photo taken by Getty photographer Buda Mendes of the production line which appeared on the front page of Reddit this week.

Gill claims: "[The Picture] shows the masks being manufactured in bulk in a factory in Brazil. Maybe it isn't a sweatshop, but that's certainly the word being bandied around at the moment."

Anonymous says it admits many other people on Twitter and in the media made the same assumption as Gill adding: "Frankly, it's sad that a photograph of dark-skinned people at work is immediately associated with forced labour."

Anonymous goes on to suggest Valles files a lawsuit against the Telegraph for defamation, adding about the media in general:

"What is also unfortunate is that members of the press have chosen to attack Anonymous, while ignoring the important issues we've raised about human rights, our environment, and the corrupt acts of our business and political leaders. As it turns out, it's just much easier to take pot shots at average citizens who express logical grievances with the status-quo."

Warner Bros

Another fact which Gill raises is that Time Warner owns the royalty for the Guy Fawkes mask which was originally seen in Alan Moore's 1982 comic V for Vendetta but more recently in the 2005 film adaptation.

Gill says: "It's also been known for a while that Time Warner, one of the world's largest media companies, makes a profit every time a mask is sold. Isn't this all a little... hypocritical?"

Anonymous in its open letter confirms this, saying that prior to the march one of the major Anonymous Twitter-affiliated accounts tweeted that protestors should not buy the iconic masks - a warning most seemed to ignore in London.

"Wear anything you want to #MillionMaskMarch, including Guy Fawkes. We just want people to be conscious about their consumer choices" adding that "there are inherent consequences with any consumer purchase."

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Hacktivist Group Targeting Healthcare.gov

By Jennifer LeClaire
November 8, 2013 1:50PM

The government should be using some readily available high-grade mitigation tools like CloudFlare to stop the hacktivists from taking down the Healthcare.gov Web site. There are very sophisticated companies that design tools that can stop this group from destroying Healthcare.gov pretty easily, said technologist Joseph Lorenzo Hall.

The Obamacare Web site debacle has angered many citizens, but one hacking group has vowed to “Destroy Obama Care!” Actually, the hacktivists go by that very name.

Destroy Obama Care has created a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS Relevant Products/Services) tool that’s available for free download online. The hacker code aims to bring down the Healthcare.gov Web site, which has already had a slew of challenges servicing citizens.

“This program continually displays alternate page of the ObamaCare Web site. It has no virus, Trojans, worms, or cookies,” according to the group’s home page. “The purpose is to overload the ObamaCare Web site, to deny serivce [sic] to users and perhaps overload and crash the system. You can open as many copies of this program as you want. Each copy opens multiple links to the site."

Could it Backfire?

Destroy Obama Care isn’t doing anything entirely new here. The nefarious hacktivist group Anonymous took a similar approach with Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), which is essentially an open source network Relevant Products/Services stress testing and DDoS attack app. Anybody can download and use it. Anonymous used LOIC to spark a widespread attack against PayPal.

We asked Joseph Lorenzo Hall, a senior staff technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology, for his feedback on Destroy Obama Care. He told us the group could be asking for trouble.

“People need to realize that just because you hate Obamacare doesn’t mean you can engage in criminal activity to try to affect the technical functionality of Healthcare.gov. It sounds like this group is masterminding this type of campaign,” Hall said.

“Even if they claim that they are doing it on the up and up just by loading web pages, the intent is there. They are essentially distributing an attack tool. That’s going to get someone in trouble. The FBI is probably on it already,” he added.

How Serious Is It?

In a blog post, Marc Eisenbarth, an analyst at security Relevant Products/Services firm Abor Networks, said the hacking tool is written in Delphi and performs layer seven requests to get the Healthcare.gov Web pages. As he sees it, “the request rate, the non-distributed attack architecture and many other limitations make this tool unlikely to succeed in affecting the availability of the Healthcare.gov site. It appears this application is available for download from a few a sources and has been mentioned on social media.”

Hall doesn’t think it would be too difficult for the government to stop because the in-progress attack likely gives off a regular signal that can be easily detected. Then again, he said, he’s not sure if the government has the security chops to see these types of issues.

“There have been so many egregious security flaws and the ones that have been exposed lately are not hypothetical. They are actually pretty serious,” Hall said. “I’d like to think the government is using some readily available high-grade mitigation tools like CloudFlare. There are very sophisticated companies that design tools that can stop this stuff pretty easily.”

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous fights Zionist 'apartheid' with a Twitter hashtag. Doesn't it know how stupid it looks?

By Willard Foxton Politics and tech Last updated: November 11th, 2013

This weekend the hacktivist collective Anonymous launched what it calls #OpBOYCOTTIsrael, a Twitter campaign aimed at encouraging "disinvestment" from Israeli goods. The manifesto for this operation, posted on Pastebin, says "Disinvestment works – the strategy played a potent role in dismantling apartheid in South Africa and it can work to dismantle Israeli apartheid in Palestine, too."

The plan – explained in excellent detail here by The Daily Dot – is to highlight the 729 barcode which identifies Israeli goods, and thus enable a boycott. Facetiously, I could suggest that therefore that Anonymous should stop using Intel processors (invented in Israel), removable hard drives (invented in Israel) and VOIP Internet calls (you guessed it, Israel).

Anonymous seems to me to have a shaky grasp of an extremely complex situation. For example, the slur "apartheid" is pretty frequent in the Anonymous material. The existence of an "apartheid" in Israel I imagine comes as a surprise to the Bedouin and Druze Arab-Israeli soldiers I met during the Israel-Lebanon war, the million or so Arab-Israeli citizens or the 12 Arab MPs who sit in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, making up 10 per cent of the chamber.

Equally, there's a great deal of rhetoric about how the Palestinians have no army, and no defences and that therefore the IDF's actions are by definition a "genocide". Again, anyone who has been to Israel will know how often rockets launch from Gaza, aimed at Israeli civilian targets. Tens of thousands of the grenade-sized rockets, called "Qassams", have been fired in the last few years. Every house in Israel has a bomb shelter in it by law for a reason.

It's not just Israelis who think this bombardment is wrong – United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated that he believes that the rocket attacks by factions in Gaza are "completely unacceptable". He has also stated that he believes that the Palestinian Authority should "take the necessary steps to restore law and order, and for all factions to abide by the ceasefire".

As for a genocide, the populations of Gaza and the West Bank have hugely increased, not decreased – that of the Gaza Strip is now estimated at 1.7 million people, almost a million of whom are hereditary rather than actual refugees, having been born since 1948. If Israel is running a genocide, it's not doing a very good job. Indeed, the current projections are that Israeli Arabs (let alone the Palestinians) will comprise the majority of the population by 2048.

The Anonymous material is about as sophisticated as a Stop The War leaflet. The hacktivists don't really follow the situation. They want a Star Wars-style evil empire to rail against and always like to support the underdog. But the truth is that for every tweet of nasty Israelis bulldozing houses, you could tweet one of Hamas throwing their political opponents off buildings or stringing up "collaborators" from electricity pylons.

Hamas aren't shy about this sort of thing. In 2008, spokesman Fathi Hamad went on the record to boast about his organisation's use of "human shields of the women, the children, the elderly and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine". Hardly the heroic freedom fighters Anonymous would prefer them to be.

That gets to the root of the problem. Even if a boycott got the Israelis to the table, what guarantees that Hamas will negotiate? Its current stance is that it doesn't even accept Israel's right to exist. How is it possible for the Israelis to negotiate when the other side's one demand is "cease to be"?

This "operation" by Anonymous is classic meddling in a problem that the meddlers don't understand. The arrogance of looking at one of the worlds most intractable conflicts from behind your computer screen, picking a side, and then "solving" the problem with Twitter is breathtaking to behold.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

November 11th, 2013, 12:36 GMT · By Eduard Kovacs

Anonymous Sends Message to Japanese Government Regarding Killing of Dolphins

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/N2DCtKEEy9c?rel=0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe>

Anonymous hackers have initiated a new operation. The campaign, called OpKillingBay, is aimed at the Japanese government.

The hackers are unhappy that the government is allowing people in the Japanese town of Taiji to slaughter dolphins.

Anonymous hacktivists say they’ve been monitoring these activities for a long time but now, since Japan has ignored pleas from the international community, they’ve decided to take action.

“This is our final warning, stop these slaughters immediately, or get ready to face the extent of our wrath,” they warn.

The hackers say they’ve already launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack against wakayama.jp. Wakayama is the prefecture in which the town of Taiji is located.

For additional details regarding OpKillingBay, check out the video statement published by Anonymous. More information is available on Pastebin.

 

[NewWorldRecord]

Anonymous Launches #OpBOYCOTTIsrael, Gets Huge Support on Twitter

By Vanilla Sharma | November 10, 2013 9:14 PM PST

Internet hactivist collective Anonymous has its sights set on a new project. Raising voice against one of the current social concerns, the group has launched #OpBOYCOTTIsrael and garnered a massive Twitter response.

Anonymous Launches #OpBOYCOTTIsrael

The protest comes on the heels of the Palestinian authority requesting 50 countries worldwide to stop business dealings with Israel after the European Union proposed a ban on providing any kind of financial assistance to Israel in July, reported The Daily Dot.

Through this operation on Twitter, Anonymous aims to raise awareness about the cruelty and injustice the Palestinians are subjected to, at the hands of Israel.

Staying true to traditions, Anonymous announced its operation through a document on Pastebin. “JOIN US This Saturday, November 9th at 8pm-9pm EST for a twitter InfoStorm to spread awareness about using economic pressure to hit Israel where it hurts – using disinvestment as a tool to undermine the cash that bankrolls Palestinian oppression,” the announcement read.

“We'll provide 70 tweets with images and articles that promote boycott and divestment, expose Israeli war crimes and crimes against Palestinian children, and call out companies who profit off Israeli apartheid. Use our tweets, or make your own from 8p-9p, using hashtags #opBOYCOTTisrael and #FreePalestine.”

The collective also announced that it would update a “care package” that would include information about how to use the internet in Arabic and English and connect to the outer world, despite governmental restrictions.

Anonymous explained that disinvestment would be the best way to bring down the West Asian country and remove the oppression.

#OpBOYCOTTIsrael has garnered a massive response with the Twitterati coming forward to support the cause. Along with disinvestment, users of the micro blogging site are also urging controversial pop star Miley Cyrus to cancel her June 2014 concert in the country.

“@MileyCyrus It's awesome you want to deliver to your fans worldwide, PLEASE don't play in Israel until Palestine is free,” wrote a user. “Miley oh @MileyCyrus, as ur ppl r talkin 2 their ppl abt June'14 theres still a chance 4u 2 stand on right side & boycott #apartheid. #BDS,” another added.