Exactly as I Suspected: F.B.I. used Anonymous to Conduct Cyberattacks Abroad
Last edited Wed Apr 30, 2014, 06:52 PM - Edit history (2)
redacted due to copyright notification. --LGPretty much exactly what I was saying at the time, or would have said if I thought it appropriate.
F.B.I. Informant Is Tied to Cyberattacks Abroad
By Mark Mazetti April 23, 2014 (New York Times)
WASHINGTON — An informant working for the F.B.I. coordinated a 2012 campaign of hundreds of cyberattacks on foreign websites, including some operated by the governments of Iran, Syria, Brazil and Pakistan, according to documents and interviews with people involved in the attacks. Exploiting a vulnerability in a popular web hosting software, the informant directed at least one hacker to extract vast amounts of data — from bank records to login information — from the government servers of a number of countries and upload it to a server monitored by the F.B.I., according to court statements [that] suggest that the government may have used hackers to gather intelligence overseas even as investigators were trying to dismantle hacking groups like Anonymous and send computer activists away for lengthy prison terms. The attacks were coordinated by Hector Xavier Monsegur, who used the Internet alias Sabu and became a prominent hacker within Anonymous for a string of attacks on high-profile targets ... By early 2012, Mr. Monsegur of New York had been arrested by the F.B.I. and had already spent months working to help the bureau identify other members of Anonymous, according to previously disclosed court papers.
One of them was Jeremy Hammond, then 27, who, like Mr. Monsegur, had joined a splinter hacking group from Anonymous called Antisec. The two men had worked together in December 2011 to sabotage the computer servers of Stratfor Global Intelligence, a private intelligence firm based in Austin, Tex. Shortly after the Stratfor incident, Mr. Monsegur, 30, began supplying Mr. Hammond with lists of foreign websites that might be vulnerable to sabotage, according to Mr. Hammond, in an interview, and chat logs between the two men. The New York Times petitioned the court last year to have those documents unredacted, and they were submitted to the court last week with some of the redactions removed. “After Stratfor, it was pretty much out of control in terms of targets we had access to,” Mr. Hammond said during an interview this month at a federal prison in Kentucky, where he is serving a 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to the Stratfor operation ... He has not been charged with any crimes in connection with the hacks against foreign countries.
The hacking campaign appears to offer further evidence that the American government has exploited major flaws in Internet security — so-called zero-day vulnerabilities like the recent Heartbleed bug — for intelligence purposes. Recently, the Obama administration decided it would be more forthcoming in revealing the flaws to industry, rather than stockpiling them until the day they are useful for surveillance or cyberattacks. But it carved a broad exception for national security and law enforcement operations.
Over several weeks in early 2012, according to the chat logs, Mr. Monsegur gave Mr. Hammond new foreign sites to penetrate. During a Jan. 23 conversation, Mr. Monsegur told Mr. Hammond he was in search of “new juicy targets,” the chat logs show. The sentencing statement also said that Mr. Monsegur directed other hackers to give him extensive amounts of data from Syrian government websites, including banks and ministries of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. “The F.B.I. took advantage of hackers who wanted to help support the Syrian people against the Assad regime, who instead unwittingly provided the U.S. government access to Syrian systems,” the statement said.
Jeremy Hammond, aka Anarchaos -- online political activist who was convicted in hacking cases.
One expert said that the court documents in the Hammond case were striking because they offered the most evidence to date that the F.B.I. might have been using hackers to feed information to other American intelligence agencies. “It’s not only hypocritical but troubling if indeed the F.B.I. is loaning its sting operations out to other three-letter agencies,” said Gabriella Coleman, a professor at McGill University and author of a forthcoming book about Anonymous.
He added that Mr. Monsegur never carried out the hacks himself, but repeatedly asked Mr. Hammond for specific details about the Plesk vulnerability. “Sabu wasn’t getting his hands dirty,” he said. Federal investigators arrested Mr. Monsegur in mid-2011, and his cooperation with the F.B.I. against members of Anonymous appears to have begun soon after. In a closed hearing in August 2011, a federal prosecutor told a judge that Mr. Monsegur had been “cooperating with the government proactively” and had “literally worked around the clock with federal agents” to provide information about other hackers, whom he described as “targets of national and international interests.”
Mr. Monsegur’s sentencing hearing has been repeatedly delayed, leading to speculation that he is still working as a government informant. His current location is unknown.
During a conversation on Feb. 15, 2012, Mr. Hammond said he hoped all the stolen information would be put “to good use.”
“Trust me,” Mr. Monsegur said, according to the chat logs. “Everything I do serves a purpose.”
Now, sitting in prison, Mr. Hammond wonders if F.B.I. agents might also have been on the other end of the communications.
[font color="green"]that feeling when everything you assumed turns out to be true.[/font]
[font size="3"]... or perhaps ...[/font] 
= new reply since forum marked as read
How many spooks can dance on the head of a pin? 
And that was on the basis of extremely limited knowledge at the time...
There is a clear way leaders speak, and there is mic check.
If you want to not convey ideas and get things done, then "mic check" is the way to go.
Name one accomplishment of occupy, besides spectacle, it was all theatre and no substantial change.
The state we are in confirms that.
If this were mic check this one post, would actually be 6 posts..
I would update it, remove "Exactly as I Suspected: " from the titie Im guessing you'll get more engagement.
Last edited Fri Apr 25, 2014, 07:14 PM - Edit history (4)
But it *is* exactly what I assumed... 
the Articles and Discussion about the "1%" that "Occupy" with their movement managed to put out there into the "memes" we live with put out by the 99%.
They Coined that Phrase and it GREW a LIFE OF ITS OWN! And the Retaliation exposed the Underside of What Protestors in America TODAY are up Against.
As you say:
"What OWS accomplished was to expose the incredible hypocrisy of the US, the willingness to brutally beat up and falsely arrest its own citizens exercising their supposed rights.
And as a result the world simply laughs when that same government points its hypocritical fingers eslewhere."
And what you said is the other benefit of "Occupy Wall Street." Exposing the Police Brutality and lack of "Freedom of Speech" that we Citizens THOUGHT we had a right to express. That made "American Freedoms" a laughing stock for the rest of the world to observe.
Anonymous, or another person of the same name,
is testing a free communications tool that doesn't require phone or internet access
It ain't FireChat or Hyperboria, tho:
http://www.techinasia.com/unblockable-unstoppable-firechat-messaging-app-unites-china-and-taiwan-in-free-speech-and-its-not-pretty/
infiltration by agents provocateurs these days.
Democracy is the enemy of the status quo, and the status quo has the bucks to pay the best talent to do whatever is necessary to prevent democracy.
LG, would it be ok with you if I borrowed your Agent Mike smiley?
It's public image-hosted.
And just because you're so special: ^3^/)
I have an animated one of this, it seems to have been mysteriously replaced by the image-host with a picture of a buxom babe.
OK, there you go.
