Anonymous takes down internet security firm

[aimeeandbeatles]

A lot of mp3s, documentaries and books in .pdf form. Now that you pose the question, I'd be a lot more worried about people getting access to my gmail account. I should go do some housekeeping there.

They'd probably take one look at my data partition and go "Wow, this lady sure likes aging musicians" and leave.

 

[innonimatu]

This is why we need more legislation and enforcability over the internet. Whatever we think about the victim, for people to be able to break into private and often confidential parts of someone's computer and publish the contents without reprecussions is awful. If somebody did this for real; stole somebody's post, graffitied their place of work and sent letters in their name, we would justly call them criminals at best. Any support for these people worries and sickens me.

And you know what is really funny? It's that the emails revealed that HBGary had been creating and selling the tools to do exactly that, peddling these to government agencies and banks. It's their whole business model.

HBGary didn't just sell "defense against malware", it is part of an "industry" which sells the malware itself!

Of course, neither government agencies nor banks published all stolen info: they'd use it for more subtle attacks, I expect.

btw, there are some rather interesting user accounts in this forum. If you want to be paranoid, remember that even a small picture may deliver a rootkit. I must wonder how many unknown vulnerabilities Window's rendering libraries still have...

 

[ParkCungHee]

Id say that if /b/ memes are stupid and forced, all memes must be stupid and forced.

How does that follow at all?

 

[pesgores]

http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r

They are, you just don't know where to look.

Anon's parent site was down several times due to this dude.

Why does he keep taking muslim sites down if they come back up? Can't he pull a Hollywood and make their computers explode?

He apparently blocked Wikileaks as well. Daaaaaamn.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Why does he keep taking muslim sites down if they come back up? Can't he pull a Hollywood and make their computers explode?

My mom once watched this dumb movie where this detective guy opened an email attachment and his laptop blew up. I nearly wet myself laughing before I got out of the room.

I posted about it in detail here.

 

[Dachs]

Id say that if /b/ memes are stupid and forced, all memes must be stupid and forced.

Not even /b/ claims to generate every meme on the internet

 

[civ_king]

Pro tip: If it is connected to the Internet it can be haxed

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Pro tip: If it is connected to the Internet it can be haxed

Pro tip: Unless its not connected to any network and locked away, it can be haxed

 

[civ_king]

Pro tip: Unless its not connected to any network and locked away, it can be haxed

I meant remotely over the internet

 

[innonimatu]

Pro tip: If it is connected to the Internet it can be haxed

That would hold true for all off-the-shelf, commodity systems. And pressure to keep up with new features makes sure that almost all systems on the internet are of that kind - it's extremely costly to create and maintain special-purpose ones capable of interoperability usefully with the rest of the internet, even if we're only talking of a simple kernel and network layer for controlling something. Even embedded systems are commoditized by now.

I'm sure that a few exist, nevertheless. Theoretically, even those would be are hackable - formally proving that large amounts of complex code contain no bugs is virtually impossible. But being hackable and actually having working hacks are very different things. That's what gave companies such as this one a market for selling the hacks.

 

[civ_king]

That would hold true for all off-the-shelf, commodity systems. And pressure to keep up with new features makes sure that almost all systems on the internet are of that kind - it's extremely costly to create and maintain special-purpose ones capable of interoperability usefully with the rest of the internet, even if we're only talking of a simple kernel and network layer for controlling something. Even embedded systems are commoditized by now.

I'm sure that a few exist, nevertheless. Theoretically, even those would be are hackable - formally proving that large amounts of complex code contain no bugs is virtually impossible. But being hackable and actually having working hacks are very different things. That's what gave companies such as this one a market for selling the hacks.

If a group of good hackers is determined to hax you it will be haxed

 

[Whomp]

this is not exaaaaaactly what 'delicious cake' references

honestly I am surprised whomp would say such a thing

To be honest, I had no idea it was a reference to anything. I simply posted the quote from one of the IRC conversations the anon guys had with Barr when they dropped 70k emails on the web.

I am curious to what Whomp's opinion in all of this story. He has created this thread, now he has to tell us why this interest him instead of just simply sharing it for us all to comment in it.

It is an interesting story. But I am not sure I can really understand it since it is something of a cloak and dagger story that anyone can paint whatever picture onto it.

It interests me because I see these activities as a tipping point of sorts. We've seen businesses and individuals attacked in the past but neither is really my bigger picture concern. My bigger picture concern has much broader implications than just Anon and is more geopolitical.

As Contre mentioned earlier, he's less concerned about his hard drive as he is about his gmail account. My concern revolves around the trend towards the cloud computing and smarter power grids. Both have huge benefits however they also increase risks exponentially. The cloud centralizes networks and as the power grid becomes more digitized it opens more entry points for attacks.

So playing defense in this environment just went up considerably and the offense is getting better and much more sophisticated. Last years attack on Google was extremely sophisticated and stuxnet was just brutal.

So my concern is not only Anon anarchists and their cyber martyr Julian Assange vs. anything they don't like but State vs. State and State vs. Corporate attacks. In particular, technology companies and power related companies. I think the US military setting up a separate cyber command gives us a peek into our future and why.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

What does delicious cake refer to?

 

[illram]

The cake is a Portal reference, no? (Video game with hilarious dark-humor theme involving Cake...)

Anyway barring some sort of major rethinking of privacy rights or a major cultural shift insofar as government surveillance goes, I am skeptical that there is anything the government or any security firm could do to stay ahead of hackers and their ilk.

 

[Cutlass]

What we need is the NSA as dedicated to locating them as they are to spying. And then round them up for prison terms.

 

[innonimatu]

As Contre mentioned earlier, he's less concerned about his hard drive as he is about his gmail account. My concern revolves around the trend towards the cloud computing and smarter power grids. Both have huge benefits however they also increase risks exponentially. The cloud centralizes networks and as the power grid becomes more digitized it opens more entry points for attacks.

So playing defense in this environment just went up considerably and the offense is getting better and much more sophisticated. Last years attack on Google was extremely sophisticated and stuxnet was just brutal.

It's the old "convenience or security" dilemma, you lose on one side to gain on the other. There's no way around it. But choice still exists.

So my concern is not only Anon anarchists and their cyber martyr Julian Assange vs. anything they don't like but State vs. State and State vs. Corporate attacks. In particular, technology companies and power related companies. I think the US military setting up a separate cyber command gives us a peek into our future and why.

I expect that it would be ruled by a MAD-like reasoning: between states at least, "you attack my systems, you get attacked in turn". Theoretically, "cyberwar" makes a very good threat, but for practical purposes the fallout of any large-scale attack would be too dangerous for rational governments to start it. But the weight of the threat would still hang upon the governments of the more exposed countries, and still allow some leverage.

Threatening critical infrastructure of a country for political leverage is nothing new. The most famous "recent" example was Eisenhower's threat of collapsing the pound and with it the favored world position of the UK's financial system during the Suez crisis. This is really just a new version of that kind of "soft" power.

 

[civ_king]

It's the old "convenience or security" dilemma, you lose on one side to gain on the other. There's no way around it. But choice still exists.



I expect that it would be ruled by a MAD-like reasoning: between states at least, "you attack my systems, you get attacked in turn". Theoretically, "cyberwar" makes a very good threat, but for practical purposes the fallout of any large-scale attack would be too dangerous for rational governments to start it. But the weight of the threat would still hang upon the governments of the more exposed countries, and still allow some leverage.

Threatening critical infrastructure of a country for political leverage is nothing new. The most famous "recent" example was Eisenhower's threat of collapsing the pound and with it the favored world position of the UK's financial system during the Suez crisis. This is really just a new version of that kind of "soft" power.

It wont be ruled by MAD because a properly done cyber attack doesn't trace back to the actual country plus the time between initiating an attack and it connecting is negligible.

 

[Dachs]

It wont be ruled by MAD because a properly done cyber attack doesn't trace back to the actual country plus the time between initiating an attack and it connecting is negligible.

Are you willing to bet your economy on that?

 

[civ_king]

Are you willing to bet your economy on that?

Meaning?

 

[Ajidica]

A properly executed cyber attack can literaly destroy our entire economy due to how much is done electronicaly. (Isn't most of the world's currency in e-currency?)