'Anonymous': How dangerous is hacker network defending WikiLeaks? - Polidicks

Note: I'm not sticking this in the Wikileaks megathread since it's more about Anonymous/hackers than Wikileaks. [url]http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1209/Anonymous-How-dangerous-is-hacker-network-defending-WikiLeaks[/url] [release][b]The borderless digital militia 'Anonymous' has taken down corporate websites to defend WikiLeaks. In so doing, say Internet security experts, it has become a new force to be reckoned with.[/b] A self-styled and loosely affiliated group of Internet-freedom fighters dubbed “Anonymous” has morphed into a borderless digital militia, slinging Twitter posts and virtual handbills across cyberspace to coordinate digital attacks in defense of WikiLeaks and becoming a new force to be reckoned with on the Internet. In the global furor since WikiLeaks' release of secret US documents and the arrest of the group's founder, Julian Assange, cyber attackers have crippled corporate websites. To do so they have deployed old digital weaponry forged by new social media tools into a novel virtual global attack system that is leaderless, anonymous and powerful. "Operation Payback" is the name that Anonymous has given its cyber-retribution campaign against corporations that have withdrawn support and services from Mr. Assange, who was arrested in Britain this week on a Swedish rape charge. As of Thursday, the group's attacks had crippled or brought down with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at least a half dozen major websites belonging to Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, the Swiss bank Postfinance and others that withdrew services to WikiLeaks. "This is probably the largest attack of its kind," Derek Manky, an Internet security expert at Fortinet, a Sunnyvale, Calif., computer security company. "It's not just one specific audience trying to launch an attack. It's a much more global audience – a global group – and these targets that they're taking down are not small." Large they may be, but DDoS attacks like those that hit Mastercard, Visa, Paypal and other corporate websites by flooding them with data and Internet requests are nothing new, or advanced, technically speaking. Such attacks involve creating or enlisting the support of botnets – many thousands of computers coopted to work in tandem – and getting several of them to focus on particular Internet sites to clog them by making virtual information requests simultaneously. A sort of cyber blockade. [indent][b]Use of social media is key[/b][/indent] But it is the use of social media and the novel way old digital attack weapons are being organized that experts say is at the heart of what's happening, say experts who have studied the group. Anonymous members have essentially posted virtual handbills across the Internet on websites and Internet relay chat forums to rally new participants. "We will fire at anyone or anything that tries to censor WikiLeaks. … Twitter, you're next,” reads one such handbill circulated Monday prior to a second DDoS attack on Paypal, according to Panda Labs, an Internet security research firm. There are signs that some of the social networking sites are responding. Facebook and Twitter Thursday morning were reported by Reuters to have deleted the accounts of cyber activists who targeted Visa and other Internet payment sites. There have been patriotically motivated attacks in the past. After the US accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, Chinese hacktivists posted messages on US government websites like “We won’t stop attacking until the war stops!” Russian hacktivists attacked Estonia after plans to move a Soviet era statue. Yet Operation Payback's "anonymous" global call to action to avenge Mr. Assange and to keep WikiLeaks information flowing free onto the Internet, has resonated and apparently garnered considerable firepower from both individuals and botnet operators in a number of countries, say Internet security experts. Operating on the model of inciting to action like-minded individuals – a so-called "hive mind" approach according to the group's literature – Anonymous has a track record of several years of Internet-based protest attacks and pranks on those it deems to have opposing values. Previous Anonymous targets include a white supremacist website, an alleged Internet child predator, YouTube, and the Church of Scientology, according to published reports and experts who have studied the group. "This group has a history of tongue-in-cheek attacks and pranks," says Patrick Underwood, a University of Washington researcher on online communities including Anonymous. "It is called anonymous because it really is. You have a small group that communicates entirely anonymously. Someone basically says 'We should give this thing a name, make some flyers put up on the [Internet] bulletin board saying, 'This is what happened. We think it's wrong. If you want to do something come to this website and we'll do something about it.' " Hacktivism – the use of nonviolent albeit illegal digital weapons toward political ends – is hardly new either. Nor is defacing websites, denial of service attacks, and the hacking and sabotage of computer systems – all things hacktivists specialize in doing. "One thing that's new about the Anonymous group is that they're not a group in any formally designated sense," says Ted Welser, a sociologist at University of Ohio who studies online communities. "This is more of an amorphous community. They post comments on sites like 4-chan where anyone can show up. The handle is anonymous for everyone. It includes teens and older, hugely varied, people with some sort of technical skills, from college-age kids to 14-year-olds in their parents’ basement." "If you go online and join in an operation and help the cause, if you act under the umbrella of Anonymous, or if you show up for an event, then you are 'Anonymous,' " says Gregg Housh, an unofficial spokesman for Anonymous and co-creator in 2008 of one of the Anonymous forums, WhyWeProtest.net. By day he is a technician manager at Boston company Geek Choice. By night, he goes by the title of "activist associated with Anonymous." He is very careful to mention that he has not participated in any of the DDoS attacks. [indent][b]A global mission[/b][/indent] Anonymous activists are chatting back and forth on the Internet Relay Chat system, he says. At one point Wednesday, he says, everyone began saying hello from their respective country, giving a sense of the global nature of the mission. "You saw this list of the world," Housh says. "Every continent but the frozen one seems to be in that channel." But to some observers, however, what's happening with Operation Payback may be more about a growing mob or vigilante mentality on the Internet – even if it pulls in idealistic people with a notion that the Internet needs to be free. Anonymous is urging others to join in taking action – without thinking too deeply about the ethics or consequences, say those who have observed the workings of the group on websites and chat forums. "The people doing this say they're ticked off, that they want to do something, that these people are bad, so I'm going to do a DoS attack," says David Dittrich, an expert in denial of service attacks at the University of Washington. "But this is the way a mob operates. No way can it be ethically justified and it just feeds on itself through anger and agitation. It may be anonymous now – and it may get bigger – but it can't end well for people who do this. Someday they may kick the wrong hive."[/release] While I object to all of Anonymous being considered hackers, this is a pretty interesting look into their motives and operations. The last sentence really rings true - I'd bet that the US government would love to make examples of a few people running DDOS programs from their home PCs.

[quote]Someday they may kick the wrong hive.[/quote] The way the Internet is now you cannot factually win anything against Anonymous.

Not very.

[QUOTE=Tu154M;26590558]The way the Internet is now you cannot factually win anything against Anonymous.[/QUOTE] To be fair, it wouldn't be hard for the authorities to subpoena the IPs of people making thousands of requests an hour from one page.

Their reasoning for attacking Amazon, Paypal and Mastercard is shoestring at best, but at least it's slightly related to wikileaks. Twitter, not so much. Still, I love Wikileaks, it's generated the most entertaining news I've seen in a long time, and as for Anonymous, I'm not a staunch supporter but it's entertaining to watch FP argue about them. Over and over again.

[QUOTE=Prismatex;26590582]To be fair, it wouldn't be hard for the authorities to subpoena the IPs of people making thousands of requests an hour from one page.[/QUOTE] The problem is that it's not a fixed group and basically anyone can become an Anon so even if they block all currently attacking IPs today, there will be a thousand more tommorrow.

[QUOTE=Prismatex;26590582]To be fair, it wouldn't be hard for the authorities to subpoena the IPs of people making thousands of requests an hour from one page.[/QUOTE] Then what? Technically there is very little they can do even if they did spend thousands of Police hours finding out all their true identities. Ban them from the internet? Won't happen.

abc news called them a "dark sided elite hacker group" last night

Well they can't physically hurt you or anything so they're not that dangerous. Just because they can use LOIC doesn't mean they're :foxnews: :siren: [B]CYBER TERRORISTS ON STEROIDS!![/B] :siren: :foxnews:

[QUOTE=Prismatex;26590582]To be fair, it wouldn't be hard for the authorities to subpoena the IPs of people making thousands of requests an hour from one page.[/QUOTE] It would be pretty hard to convince the ISP to hand over the contact details of thousands of people and subsequently prosecute them all though. [editline]9th December 2010[/editline] [QUOTE=tehfrog;26590655]abc news called them a "dark sided elite hacker group" last night[/QUOTE] [img]http://26.media.tumblr.com/GG6bFkcfcmyherqgmFQgP99vo1_500.jpg[/img]

They're making Anonymous seem a like a much bigger deal than it really is. "Militia"? Who the hell would describe a bunch of nerds on their computers sending bullshit requests to servers over and over again as a militia?

Here we go again with the media observing Anon and his fags as 'Freedom fighting militia'

[QUOTE=MrEndangered;26590650]Then what? Technically there is very little they can do even if they did spend thousands of Police hours finding out all their true identities. Ban them from the internet? Won't happen.[/QUOTE] Participating in a DDoS is illegal - the denial of service part is what gets it. Making a computer service unavailable to its registered users is illegal in the US, and these guys are putting their asses on the line by doing this. Chances are only a few people will get caught, but it's believed that we'll see a bit of a deterrent effect. Also, if convicted of cybercrime, you can be banned from purchasing a computer for a certain number of years.

When will the media realize that anon = everyone? Also why are they being called hackers when all they're doing is being a bunch of script kiddies?

[quote]say experts who have studied the group.[/quote] lol

[QUOTE=stablemist;26590784]When will the media realize that anon = everyone? Also why are they being called hackers when all they're doing is being a bunch of script kiddies?[/QUOTE] Deal with it, most people don't know much about computers and 'hackers' is a pretty easy to understand term.

I'm not sure why I'm saying some of this, I don't like the state anon is in at the moment, but I feel there are some here who have the wrong idea. Anonymous isn't a group because the word is not a name. The phrase "we are everyone, and we are no one" isn't meant to sound scary. A more angsty youth taking part in it has tended to make the anonymous concept illegitimate. Despite the reality of what everyone thinks of it and some of the idiots who take part in it, if you think deeply about what anonymous could really be like if everyone was to understand the idea properly, it's quite cool. In some ways, anonymous still works if everyone kept their mouth shut about it. Some of you may go to larger schools, so do you ever think that there are some in your school who took place in this DDoS attack? You can never know. The actions are the opinions of millions that will, tommorow, continue to live out their normal lives. Don't hate me for saying this. I don't like how anonymous is being either. It's like trying to correct someone over what happened in a shitty movie. It's a shitty movie, but you still want to set the record straight.

Hacker network ? They're a bunch of fat nerds with no friends

[QUOTE=Laserbeams;26591293]Hacker network ? They're a bunch of fat nerds with no friends[/QUOTE] I remember when gamers were thought to be fat kids with no friends, but many of us see the real light of that fact now. Undoubtedly there are some huge losers who follow anonymous, but putting it that way just shows disagreement and dislike for anon, not a fact.

[img]http://kontraband.se/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/hackers.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Hostel;26591257]I'm not sure why I'm saying some of this, I don't like the state anon is in at the moment, but I feel there are some here who have the wrong idea. Anonymous isn't a group because the word is not a name. The phrase "we are everyone, and we are no one" isn't a phrase meant to sound scary and nothing more. A more angsty youth taking part in it has tended to make the anonymous concept illegitimate though. Despite the reality of what everyone thinks of it and some of the idiots who take part in it, if you think deeply about what anonymous could really be like if everyone was to understand the idea properly, it's quite cool. In some ways, anonymous still works if everyone kept their mouth shut about it. Some of you may go to larger schools, so do you ever think that there are some in your school who took place in this DDoS attack? You can never know. The actions are the opinions of millions that will, tommorow, continue to live out their normal lives. Don't hate me for saying this. I don't like how anonymous is being either. It's like trying to correct someone over what happened in a shitty movie. It's a shitty movie, but you still want to set the record straight.[/QUOTE] Vigilante justice usually fucks up some or other person's life.

[QUOTE=stablemist;26590784]When will the media realize that anon = everyone? Also why are they being called hackers when all they're doing is being a bunch of script kiddies?[/QUOTE] Because every person in every facet of the media has their head shoved so far up their ass, only editorialized shit spews out of their mouth. Most people (especially people in the media) don't know jack-shit about computers or internet culture.

[QUOTE=Hostel;26591358][b]I remember when gamers were thought to be fat kids with no friends[/b], but many of us see the real light of that fact now. Undoubtedly there are some huge losers who follow anonymous, but putting it that way just shows disagreement and dislike for anon, not a fact.[/QUOTE] Yeah, 2010 used to be a good year

[QUOTE=Prismatex;26590582]To be fair, it wouldn't be hard for the authorities to subpoena the IPs of people making thousands of requests an hour from one page.[/QUOTE] Also they've never completely met their larger goals. They've been resilient against powerful groups, but they rarely make more of a permanent impact than simply raising public awareness.

HAY GUYS I'M ANONYMOS CAUS I USE NO NAME I'M SO DARK AND EDGEY CAN I BE IN MASS MEDIA WHATS LOIC. or, what every dark moody teenager will be after the media runs this story a few dozen times.

[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;26590643]Their reasoning for attacking Amazon, Paypal and Mastercard is shoestring at best, but at least it's slightly related to wikileaks. Twitter, not so much. Still, I love Wikileaks, it's generated the most entertaining news I've seen in a long time, and as for Anonymous, I'm not a staunch supporter but it's entertaining to watch FP argue about them. Over and over again.[/QUOTE] Their problem with Twitter seems to be its censoring of Wikileaks related hashtags from appearing on the trending list. If you use the various websites for working out what is trending apparently the wikileaks hashtags are way more popular than the trending topics.

Anonymous is not a group. It is a name.

ITT: Debating over whether Anon is a name or group and contemplating how dark and edgy teenagers are while they are still fucking shit up, instead of doing anything about it.

At least they're not sellouts like Adrian Lamo.

[QUOTE=Prismatex;26590772]Participating in a DDoS is illegal - the denial of service part is what gets it. Making a computer service unavailable to its registered users is illegal in the US, and these guys are putting their asses on the line by doing this. Chances are only a few people will get caught, but it's believed that we'll see a bit of a deterrent effect. Also, if convicted of cybercrime, you can be banned from purchasing a computer for a certain number of years.[/QUOTE] Wrong.