Anonymous busts Internet pedophiles

03.08, 23:13

Attorney General Eric Holder announced this morning that 72 individuals have been charged with being linked to a massive child pornography ring started in Louisiana and spreading across five continents and 13 countries.

28.10, 20:53

With wounded veteran Scott Olsen unable to speak following an assault from police during a raid on Occupy Oakland earlier this week, thousands of Americans across the country are lending their voice to the movement to do the talking for the hero.

Occupy Wall Street 18.10, 20:42

In the days before President Obama approved American-led airstrikes in Libya without congressional go-ahead, the White House considered using cyberwarfare to attempt to crush the army of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Libyan conflict Osama Bin Laden killed 29.07, 23:44

Ex-DEA Investigator, Scott James Whitcomb, was sentenced to 25 years in a federal penitentiary for producing child porn videos.

13.10, 19:36

Some people go online for sports scores; others log on to check email. Military personnel with the US Air Force, however, recently used the Web to learn that their controversial and exuberantly expensive drone fleet had been hacked.

16.08, 19:39

As many as 100 protestors in San Francisco, California successfully closed down four subway stations in the city’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system yesterday, signaling the latest bout in a battle between activists and the San Fran transit cops.

26.07, 20:13

If your position at Homeland Security requires you to keep cyber attacks at a minimum, you might not have been doing your job justice as of late.

Published: 03 November, 2011, 21:02

Anonymous takes on pedophiles or somethig

TAGS: Children, Crime, Scandal, Sex, Internet, Information Technology, USA, Photography, Culture

Anonymous moved from targeting Wall Street, corrupt governments and corporate sites last month. The latest attack from the hacking collective rather was directed at an unaware group that navigated the web for child porn assumingly undetected.

Throughout October, Anonymous waged a war against online child pornography under the name of OpDarkNet. The crusade pinned the hacktivists against the web servers and users of sites such as Lolita City and Hard Candy, where patrons trade graphic images of sexually exploited children. With a series of attacks, Anonymous managed to infiltrate the message board forums of the illegal sites and flood the pages with malicious material. For their grand finale, however, Anonymous managed to trick the kiddie porn fanatics into downloading a plug-in that reported their every move.

To navigate the dark underbelly of the Internet — a place where drugs and guns and porn and, well, everything is made available — web surfers must cloak their identity with special software that covers up footsteps. Tor, a program that is easy to use and does just that has become a favorite for people stumbling upon the Internet’s vast and often unreported black market, and Anonymous was well aware of it. Knowing that an update for the program is on the horizon, hackers coded an update for Tor that they knew the patrons of the porn sites would race to download.

What Anonymous made though didn’t do as advertised.

For 24 hours, Anonymous was able to track every online move of anyone that was using their fake Tor update. “The purpose of #OpDarknet was to collect evidence and prove that [one percent] of Tor users who use Tor for [Child Pornography] are the ones causing the problems for the rest of the Tor community, the 99%,” reads a post from Anonymous dated November 2. In their ambush, which they consider a “social experiment,” Anonymous managed to track down the IP addresses and histories of 190 users of the shady underground Internet.

After collecting the info, Anonymous made the material available to the Web and retired from their Dark Net operation. From here, they say, it’s up to authorities to decide what to do with it.

"They'll take forever… due process for some of these guys are so weak," one hacker told a reporter for Gawker. "The best way for Law Enforcement to react is for us to release it. They can chose to follow or not."

Should authorities chose to use Anonymous’ groundwork to open up an investigation, all the material is now readily available for them. Detailed descriptions of how the project was planned, carried out and even authorized with the approval of Mozilla, the company behind the popular FireFox browser, are now available through the hacktivists.

In a statement, Anonymous that the last strike in OpDarkNet was to avenge those that were using Tor for evil when it actually can be a crucial tool to some people. While “the one percent” of users operate under Tor’s cloak for child pornography, says Anonymous, the rest of the users work through it for good. “The rest, 99% consists of Chinese/Iran journalists, Government intelligence fighting a secret war with Al-Qaeda, and us Anons who believe in the right to Free Speech,” says Anonymous.

For the 190 users of the fake Tor that have their tracks now exposed online, Anonymous says that they have forwarded the material to both Interpol and the FBI. Political site NewEurope adds that an official with the European Commission says that authorities are aware of Anonymous’ operation.

So what do the pedophiles do while they await a knock on the door from investigators at 4 in the morning?

“You should consider running anti-virus/malware programs and/or fully wiping your hard drives,” cautions an administrator on the Hard Candy forum.

"If you were stupid enough to install the recently linked Tor button 'update'… then your anonymity has no doubt been compromised.”

03.11, 19:54

A third woman in less than a week has come forth with allegations that GOP candidate Herman Cain exhibited unwanted behavior towards her in the past.

US Election 2012 03.11, 21:56

The White House is outraged today and says a request from Congress to hand-over emails pertaining to the massive loan the Obama administration okayed for Solyndra shortly before the solar panel plant went bankrupt is unprecedented.

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Anonymous threatens violent Mexican drug ring

03.11, 21:02

Anonymous moved from targeting Wall Street, corrupt governments and corporate sites last month. The latest attack from the hacking collective rather was directed at an unaware group that navigated the web for child porn assumingly undetected.

25.10, 22:29

An attack on Fox News from the hacker group Anonymous has been a longtime coming. Now the collective says that an infiltration on the website for the Fair and Balanced news network will occur next month with Operation Fox Hunt slated for November 5.

Occupy Wall Street 16.08, 19:39

As many as 100 protestors in San Francisco, California successfully closed down four subway stations in the city’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system yesterday, signaling the latest bout in a battle between activists and the San Fran transit cops.

26.07, 20:13

If your position at Homeland Security requires you to keep cyber attacks at a minimum, you might not have been doing your job justice as of late.

18.10, 20:42

In the days before President Obama approved American-led airstrikes in Libya without congressional go-ahead, the White House considered using cyberwarfare to attempt to crush the army of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Libyan conflict Osama Bin Laden killed 28.10, 20:53

With wounded veteran Scott Olsen unable to speak following an assault from police during a raid on Occupy Oakland earlier this week, thousands of Americans across the country are lending their voice to the movement to do the talking for the hero.

Occupy Wall Street

Published: 04 November, 2011, 00:57

Mexican army soldiers stand guard around a car where a forensic team works on recovering corpses of alleged members of a drug cartel in Veracruz, on October 30, 2011 (AFP Photo / Lucas Castro)

TAGS: Crime, Health, Scandal, Drugs, Internet, Information Technology, Corruption, USA, Culture, War, North America

Hackers with the online collective Anonymous say that they will press on with a war against their latest target despite threats of certain death. Anonymous says they are about to battle it out with the notorious Mexican drug cartel the Zetas.

­Citing an abduction of a fellow hacker as the motivation for their upcoming assault, Anonymous members say that they will release thousands of names connected with the Zetas drug cartel if their comrade is not released by Saturday, November 5. According to Anonymous hackers, they’ve illegally obtained around 25,000 emails from the Mexican government which they will leak online to out people affiliated with the Zetas through a mission they are calling OpCartel. They say that the roster they’ve managed to put together by combing through the governmental emails identify at least 75 individuals affiliated with the Zetas.

Anonymous officials say police officers and other authorities are all connected to the violent drug ring. Given the notoriety of the Zetas and the seriousness of the ordeal, leading hackers with the collective say that only veteran “Anons” should participate in the online onslaught.

Unofficial Anonymous spokesperson Barret Brown of Texas has posted a video to YouTube in which he warns rookie hackers to sit out this sting, but despite acknowledging the possibilities of an attack on the Zetas, he says he isn’t scared.

"I mean, it's a drug cartel, they're violent people," says Brown. "But they're not going to come streaming up the street in downtown Dallas and kill me."

Others say that that might exactly be the case.

Stratfor, an internationally renowned security company, tells The Guardian that the Zetas have already hired experts in an attempt to hunt down the Anonymous users responsible for the rally. According to Stratfor, this could mean “abduction, injury and death" for any hackers that are caught.

Earlier this week disemboweled bodies were founding hanging from a bridge near the border city of Nuevo Laredo, where the corpses were accompanied with signage warning social network users to keep "funny things" off the Internet. Both of the deceased were young bloggers who wrote about the drug ring.

Earlier this week, however, Brown warned the Zetas via his Twitter account that he was serious himself. “Give us back our Anonymous participant or many of you die within a week,” he tweeted.

Another Twitter user aligned with Anonymous using the handle @Sm0k34n0n also called participating in the leak as a risky maneuver and warned new members to not partake. He added, however, that trying to stop the movement from happening would mean equivocate to pledging allegiance to the Zetas.

Brown adds that this attack won’t necessarily take down the Zetas, but it will pose a problem for the drug lords. He did say, however, that it could open the door for further Anonymous assaults in the future.

"Fundamentally, there's no way to stop the Zetas or any other cartel other than legalizing drugs, which is something that's more of a long-term ambitious effort that Anonymous could potentially pursue,” Brown says in his YouTube video.

In the meantime, however, Anonymous officials have confirmed that they do plan to go ahead with their attack on the Zetas, regardless of whether some hackers say it isn’t the best move for the collective to make. Many Anons have already retreated and given up on the cause and no hackers have yet to provide concrete proof that they have in fact obtained the 25,000 emails they say they have in their possession.

"Are we afraid? Clearly so. Do we fear for our lives? Obviously. Notwithstanding that, we think it is time to say 'enough,'" reads a statement posted by the group on the Anonymous IberoAmerica website. "We will go ahead with the operation, because people have asked us to."

Brown has appeared on YouTube unmasked speaking to the Zetas and Anons and shows no sign of backing down, even with his identity out in the open for a Zetas-ordered hit. When asked why he showed his face, Brown responded "because I was asked to do so by several Mexicans who are risking their lives for this, too."

03.11, 22:57

As unemployment remains stagnant, it’s easy to see that impoverished Americans are growing in numbers. A recent analysis of census data offers an even sadder insight, as a report reveals that 1-in-15 Americans live below half of the poverty line.

Today: 03:53

A new IAEA report is expected to show that the country of Iran is investing in nuclear activity and it has America and its allies running scared. Is it a legitimate threat or is the US fishing for reasons to invade?

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