WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

LulzSec suspect arrested in U.K., reports say
(by Don Reisinger, CNET News, June 21, 2011)

A 19-year-old U.K. man has been arrested on suspicion of hacking and online attacks, the U.K.'s Metropolitan Police announced this morning.

Last night's arrest was part of "a pre-planned intelligence-led operation" that also involved the FBI, according to the Metropolitan Police. Following the arrest, the man was brought to a London police station where he is currently in custody for questioning.

Sky News reported early on that the teenager is the mastermind behind LulzSec, a prominent hacking group that has wreaked havoc on several companies and government organizations of late. However, the Metropolitan Police's e-Crime Unit stopped short of saying whether the man in custody might be connected to LulzSec.

"The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group," the Metropolitan Police said. "The teenager was arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act, and Fraud Act offences."

For its part, LulzSec seemed bemused by the arrest, with a cheeky post to its Twitter account that it's still in operation.

"Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested," the group wrote on its Twitter account. "It all over now. Wait, we're all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?"

Determining a leader at LulzSec could be difficult, if not impossible. Like fellow hacking organization Anonymous, LulzSec appears to be a collective of individuals without a clear chain of command.

In fact, sources have told CNET that LulzSec is a spinoff from Anonymous, minus an overarching political message or moral principle. Anonymous has taken on targets ranging from the Church of Scientology to the governments of Iran and Egypt, as well PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard after those companies sought to impede payments to the controversial WikiLeaks organization.

LulzSec has been quite active in recent weeks, seemingly coming out of nowhere. Last month, the group attacked PBS, posting a fake news story that the late musical artist Tupac Shakur was still alive. It also released PBS passwords on the Web. In addition, the group has claimed responsibility for attacking several Sony Web sites, as well as Nintendo, Bethesda Software, and Infragard, a company that works closely with the FBI.

It has also turned its attention on the U.S. government, attacking the U.S. Senate site and posting information from its servers online. Earlier this month, the organization also claimed responsibility for temporarily taking down the Central Intelligence Agency's site.

LulzSec has become increasingly confident in its abilities to attack sites whenever it wants. The group has even gone so far as to open a hotline through which followers can call and request sites be taken down. In its first day of operation, according to LulzSec, the group had 5,000 missed calls and 2,500 voice mails.

That hotline, in addition to the apparent fun LulzSec is having, make some wonder if the group is doing it for laughs. The organization's name, after all, is derived from "lulz," which in turn arises from the acronym LOL, for "laugh out loud."

In an interview with CNET earlier this month, Marc Maiffret, chief technology officer at eEye Digital Security echoed that sentiment, saying that LulzSec reminds him of a time when hacking was more about fun and games than the serious business it has become.

"We are seeing a revival of the sort of hacking we have not seen in many years," Maiffret said. "The hacking that has been taking place recently against Sony and others is a reminder that the hacker culture prior to our fixation on cybercrime and 'China is scary' is still alive and well."

However, LulzSec turned serious yesterday when it announced that it would partner with Anonymous to take on government agencies, banks, and other prominent organizations in a campaign called "AntiSec."

"Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation," Lulzsec said in a statement. "Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood."

Following last night's arrest, a search of the teenager's home in Wickford yielded "a significant amount of material," the Metropolitan Police said. However, the agency did not say whether that material is related to AntiSec or any other specific operation.

The FBI did not immediately respond to request for comment.

A British teenager suspected of masterminding a global computer hacking plot from his bedroom could face a fight against extradition to the US.
[...]
Cleary was arrested by officers from Scotland Yard's specialist e-crime unit. He was being questioned at a central London station under the Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and distributed denial of service attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group.

"Searches at a residential address in Wickford, Essex, following the arrest last night have led to the examination of a significant amount of material. These forensic examinations remain ongoing."

The Met and Essex Police were working "in co-operation" with the FBI, the spokesman said.
[...]
No US arrests have been announced in relation to LulzSec or Anonymous.

LulzSec has been known for several weeks to have been a subject of concern among US authorities.

Steven Chabinsky, the FBI's deputy assistant director, told the Financial Times last week that LulzSec and Anonymous were avoiding prosecution by using the likes of Twitter to draw supporters under an anonymous guise.

The FBI is placing "a lot of emphasis and focus on Anonymous and other groups that would be like them, through co-ordinated transnational efforts," he added.

Anonymous came to prominence last year when it launched digital assaults against MasterCard, PayPal and other businesses that stopped working with WikiLeaks.

The arrest of a Briton in relation to hacking attempts in the US will prompt comparisons with Gary McKinnon.

McKinnon, 45, who is wanted in the US, faces 60 years behind bars for hacking into Pentagon and Nasa computers between February 2001 and March 2002 while searching for evidence of "little green men".

LulzSec member says group is 'bored'
(By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, The Associated Press, June 26, 2011)

A member of a publicity-seeking hacker group that sabotaged websites over the past two months and has announced it is dissolving itself says his group wasn't disbanding under pressure from the FBI or enemy hackers.

"We're not quitting because we're afraid of law enforcement," the LulzSec member said in a conversation with The Associated Press over the Internet voice program Skype. "The press are getting bored of us, and we're getting bored of us."

The group's hacking has included attacks on law enforcement and releases of private data. It said unexpectedly on Saturday it was dissolving itself.

In the Sunday interview, the hacker acknowledged that some of the material being circulated by rivals online — which purports to reveal the hackers' online nicknames, past histories, and chat logs — was genuine, something he said had proved to be "a distraction."

He added that three or four of Lulz Security's members were taking what he called "a breather" and said he was considering giving up cyberattacks altogether.

"Maybe I'll stop this hacking thing entirely. I haven't decided," he said. He said he couldn't speak for the others' long-term plans, but said it was possible some of the members would continue to be involved with Anonymous, the much larger and more amorphous hacking group which has targeted the Church of Scientology, Middle Eastern dictatorships, and the music industry, among others.

He said the six-member group was still sitting on a considerable amount of stolen law enforcement files.

"It's safe to say at this point that they are sitting on a lot of data."

Although the hacker declined to identify himself publicly, he has verified his membership with Lulz Security by posting a pre-arranged message to the group's popular Twitter feed.

Lulz Security made its Saturday announcement about disbanding through its Twitter account. That statement gave no reason for the disbandment.

One of the group's members was interviewed by The Associated Press on Friday, and gave no indication that its work was ending. LulzSec claimed hacks on major entertainment companies, FBI partner organizations, the CIA, the U.S. Senate and a pornography website.

Kevin Mitnick, a security consultant and former hacker, said the group had probably concluded that the more they kept up their activities, the greater the chance that one of them would make some mistake that would enable authorities to catch them. They've inspired copycat groups around the globe, he noted, which means similar attacks are likely to continue even without LulzSec.

"They can sit back and watch the mayhem and not risk being captured," Mitnick said.

As a parting shot, LulzSec released a grab-bag of documents and login information apparently gleaned from gaming websites and corporate servers. The largest group of documents — 338 files — appears to be internal documents from AT&T Inc., detailing its buildout of a new wireless broadband network in the U.S. The network is set to go live this summer. A spokesman for the phone company could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the documents.

In the Friday interview, the LulzSec member said the group was sitting on at least 5 gigabytes of government and law enforcement data from across the world, which it planned to release in the next three weeks. Saturday's release was less than a tenth of that size.

In an unusual strategy for a hacker group, LulzSec has sought publicity and conducted a conversation with the public through its Twitter account. LulzSec attacked anyone it could for "the lulz," which is Internet jargon for "laughs."

LulzSec 'hit by FBI raid'
(By Robert McMillan | IDG News Service | June 30, 2011)

The FBI has reportedly raided a US property linked to hacking group LulzSec.

On Monday, it executed a search warrant at a Hamilton, Ohio, residence -- a raid that local media has linked to the ongoing investigation of LulzSec. The raid comes two days after LulzSec ended a 50-day hacking rampage by posting internal documents belonging to AT&T and data stolen from gaming forums and a NATO website.

Reached by telephone Wednesday, Michael Brooks, a spokesman with the FBI's Cincinnati office, said a raid had occurred Monday at an address on Jackson Road, Hamilton, but he would neither confirm nor deny that the arrest is linked to LulzSec. The warrant in the case is under seal and the name of the person questioned by the FBI has not been released.

Last week, police in the UK arrested Ryan Cleary of Wickford, Essex, thought to be the operator of the group's IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server, and they have also reportedly questioned another person, Laurelai Bailey, in connection with the group.

On Monday, one of LulzSec's leaders, known as Topiary, deleted his Twitter messages and said he was "sailing off."

Groups calling themselves the A Team and LulzSec Exposed have popped up in recent days and started posting information on the group's members -- all of which is being vetted by the FBI, according to a source familiar with the matter.

In fact, LulzSec itself may have been the impetus for Monday's raid. Last week the group turned against two of its former members and published personal information about them, saying they were responsible for computer crimes and encouraging the FBI to investigate. LulzSec was angry because it believed the two had published chat logs exposing some of its inner workings.

One of those two, who uses the hacker names [redacted] and m_nerva, was a resident of Hamilton, Ohio -- the town where Monday's search warrant was executed.

LulzSec has been the target of an international law enforcement search after the group hacked websites belonging to Serious Organised Crime Agency, the US Public Broadcasting Service, Sony, the CIA and several FBI-affiliated groups.

It was this mounting pressure from law enforcement that finally caused LulzSec to disband, said EJ Hilbert, president of Online Intelligence and a former FBI agent who has been following the group closely. "LulzSec was a group of punk kids out to have some fun that just kept pushing and pushing and they took it too far," he said.

Several members have already been in contact with law enforcement, Hilbert said. "Their members will be picked off one by one if they haven't already been, and I know some of them already have been," he said.

Misery lit: unhappy Julian Assange changes mind on memoirs

WikiLeaks founder thought to have told publishers book could give ammunition to US prosecutors

The million-pound book deal signed by Julian Assange to write his memoirs has collapsed, the Guardian has learned, after the WikiLeaks founder became unhappy with the process.

Assange signed a high profile deal for his memoirs in December with the Edinburgh-based publishers Canongate and US firm Alfred A Knopf, for a reported sum of £930,000. The rights have subsequently been sold in 35 countries.

At the time, Assange said he hoped the book "would become one of the unifying documents of our generation". But he also indicated that the deal was critical in helping to fund his legal fight against extradition to Sweden to face accusations of rape and sexual assault.

According to publishing sources, however, the contract has fallen through, at least in its original form, after Assange indicated he no longer wished to write the kind of book that was initially envisaged.

Opinion
Bradley Manning: American hero

Bradley Manning faces many years in prison and a court martial for exposing the truth about US foreign policy [EPA]

We still don't know if he did it or not, but if Bradley Manning, the 24-year-old Army private from Oklahoma, actually supplied WikiLeaks with its choicest material - the Iraq War logs, the Afghan War logs, and the State Department cables - which startled and riveted the world, then he deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom instead of a jail cell at Fort Leavenworth.

President Obama recently gave one of those medals to retiring Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who managed the two bloody, disastrous wars about which the WikiLeaks-released documents revealed so much. Is he really more deserving than the young private who, after almost ten years of mayhem and catastrophe, gave Americans - and the world - a far fuller sense of what the US government is actually doing abroad?

Bradley Manning, awaiting a court martial in December, faces the prospect of long years in prison. He is charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He has put his sanity and his freedom on the line so that Americans might know what their government has done - and is still doing - globally. He has blown the whistle on criminal violations of US military law. He has exposed the secretive government's pathological over-classification of important public documents.

Here are four compelling reasons why, if he did what the government accuses him of doing, he deserves that medal, not jail time. ... <cont>

Julian Assange's lawyer tells extradition appeal arrest warrant is invalid:
WikiLeaks founder's counsel claims in high court that Swedish judges were misled about sexual assault and rape allegations

JULY 9, 2011

Vultures on a Carcass...
The carcass is Iraq, the vultures are you.

I will NEVER swallow what you have done to Iraq. NEVER. And it has nothing to do with patriotism, nationalism or any of the concepts you keep regurgitating like idiotic parrots.

What has happened to Iraq, through your contributions; your efforts, your silence, your apathy, your indifference, your political correctness, your...your...your filth...this can never be swallowed. NEVER.

For I know...I know and I have seen, I have witnessed...what was before and what is now. You can't take that away from me. You can't take that truth away from me. And I shall post it, plaster it on every wall...because I will not let go. I will not let go of you and your crimes. I will pursue you, by whatever means available...and I will keep hammering it, as long as it takes...

I will never ever forget that first premonitory dream I had about Iraq and what was going to happen to us, to our children. It was a message from God. A message showing me in full colors what and who you are.

I will go back in time, back to 2003. I dreamt of two American soldiers lifting up a young Iraqi boy to be crucified on a cross, in the middle of the desert. The sun was setting, there was dust everywhere, everything looked blur, covered with sand, they left that crucified Iraqi boy in the middle of that desert and walked away...

You crucified our children and covered up the truth with dust...

There will be no escape for you. None whatsoever. As Bob Marley said it ' you can run but you can't hide.

I am here to make sure that nothing remains hidden...I make it my mission, my vocation, my calling...I am not in a hurry, I have all the time in the world...but demised you shall be...no one crucifies a child and gets away with it...no one.

My ink shall be like drops of water, drops of blood, eating away at the rock lodged between your breasts...

No matter - the insults, the threats, the mockery...no matter. I will not let go.

I was one of the first to write about the rape, trafficking of Iraqi Children. I was one of the first to say - Iraqi children are being sold, I wrote about the trading of organs, I wrote about the sex slavery of Iraqi children, I wrote about pedophile rings, I wrote about marrying off 5 years old girls, by exporting them first into brothels for "training". I wrote about the daily abduction and kidnappings of Iraqi children, I gave you numbers, figures...precise ones. I said there are over 5 Million Orphans in Iraq, 500'000 totally orphaned with no father and mother living in the streets of Baghdad.

I said this is something WE HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE your liberation. I said and I repeat and I repeat and I repeat....

Today a courageous woman, Ashwak Al-Jaf from Iraq, says it publicly...HERE.

I was mocked, insulted, threatened, with numerous attempts at silencing me...none worked. The message is out, the truth is out.

The truth...I have told you nothing but the tip of the iceberg of the truth...I have all the time in the world...but you don't.

Posted by Layla Anwar

JUNE 20, 2011

A Wound That Will Never Heal...

God works in the strangest of ways....He, She, It expresses itself in the multitude..and in Silence...

God is God...and I am me.

God is never wounded...theoretically so. Since He is omnipresent and omnipotent...

I beg to differ.

God was crucified in 2003, when you forfeited your conscience.

Since, it's been a downhill ride... God's name is called upon 5 times a day and once on a Sunday..God laughs at you.

He's saying - I don't need your rituals today, I need your Truth.

The Truth that no one would utter no more...the truth that was, that is...the truth that remains...hidden under heaps of politically correct covers, under blankets of forgetfulness - the truth of the greatest armada since world war II, as per the acknowledgment of one of your highest Pentagon officials.

What for ? is the question I keep asking myself... No WMD's, no ties to Al-Qaeda...literally an innocent people and an innocent country...What for ?

Oil, your alternative websites cry...drink the ******* oil. Drink it.

Why...is a question that keeps harassing me...that robs away my sleep...why is a question that turned 5 million children into orphans....


Why is the question that harasses me like an unwanted hand that gropes me in the dark...

I can't take your silence, I cant take your deafness..I can't take any of it...8 years on....You cover up the shouts, and in my ears they reverberate. They keep reverberating. They shake my being...until justice is done...until the wound accepts to heal...


Posted by Layla Anwar at 20.6.11

http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/

More Than a Dozen Suspected 'Anonymous' Hackers Arrested in Nationwide Sweep
(By Jana Winter | FoxNews.com | July 19, 2011)

More than a dozen suspected members of "Anonymous" were arrested this morning in states including Florida, New Jersey and California, in what appears to be a nationwide takedown of the notorious hacking group, FoxNews.com has exclusively learned.

The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation into Anonymous, which has claimed responsibility for numerous cyberattacks against a variety of websites including Visa and Mastercard.

Some of the arrests were out of the San Francisco field office, sources said, activity that followed searches earlier in the day in the New York area at residences believed to be associated with members of the hacking collective, FoxNews.com has learned.

“I can confirm that we’re conducting law enforcement actions relating to a criminal investigation,” said Alicia Sensibaugh, a spokeswoman for FBI’s San Francisco office, out of which sources said multiple search warrants were executed Tuesday morning.

Sources said the California searches, which were carried out at 6 a.m. PDT, are connected to allegations that a national network of hackers carried out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against numerous companies and their websites.

Earlier in the day, the FBI executed search warrants at the New York homes -- two in Long Island, N.Y., and one in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- of three suspected members of Anonymous, FoxNews.com reported.

More than 10 FBI agents arrived at the Baldwin, N.Y., home of Giordani Jordan with a search warrant for computers and computer-related accessories, removing at least one laptop from the premises.

The Anonymous group is a loose collection of cybersavvy activists inspired by WikiLeaks and its flamboyant head Julian Assange to fight for "Internet freedom" -- along the way defacing websites, shutting down servers, and scrawling messages across screens web-wide.

The Anonymous vigilante group recently turned its efforts to the Arizona police department, posting personal information of law officers and hacking and defacing websites in response, the group claims, to the state's controversial SB1070 immigration law.

While Anonymous is largely a politically motivated organization, splinter group LulzSec -- which dominated headlines in the spring for a similar streak of cyberattacks -- was largely in it for the thrills.

The metropolitan police in London arrested the first alleged member of the LulzSec group on June 20, a 19-year-old teen named Ryan Cleary. Subsequent sweeps through Italy and Switzerland in early July led to the arrests of 15 more people -- all between the ages of 15 and 28 years old.

The two groups are responsible for a broad spate of digital break-ins targeting governments and large corporations, including Japanese technology giant Sony, the U.S. Senate, telecommunications giant AT&T, Fox.com, and other government and private entities.

'Anonymous' fires back at hacker hunters
(Associated Foreign Press, July 21, 2011)

Notorious hacker group Anonymous on Thursday posted a defiant message to police and boasted of plundering sensitive data from NATO computers.

"We are not scared any more," read an online message that purported to be a response by Anonymous and splinter group Lulz Security.

"Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea... there is nothing - absolutely nothing - you can possibly do to make us stop."

As if to underscore its point, a message posted at Twitter account by "AnonymousIRC" claimed to have looted about a gigabyte of NATO data that even the rebel hacker group deemed too sensitive to release.

"Yes, we haz (sic) more of your delicious data," the Twitter post read. "You call it war; we laugh at your battleships."

US authorities Tuesday arrested 16 people for cyber crimes including 14 over an online attack on the PayPal website claimed by Anonymous.

The US indictment against the 14 hackers alleges the denial of service (DDoS) attacks on PayPal were "retribution" because the site terminated a donation account for the whistle-blowing group WikiLeaks.

Scotland Yard: We've arrested LulzSec spokesman
(The Associated Press, July 27, 2011)

LONDON—Scotland Yard's cybercrime unit on Wednesday arrested a teenager it accuses of working as the spokesman for the Lulz Security hacking collective, the force said in a statement.

Scotland Yard said its Central e-Crime Unit arrested a 19-year-old at an address in Scotland's remote Shetland Islands. His name wasn't released, but the force said he used the online nickname "Topiary."

LulzSec, an offshoot of the amorphous hacking collective known as Anonymous, has claimed responsibility for a series of hacking attacks on both sides of the Atlantic. In interviews with media organizations including The Associated Press, Topiary described himself as one of LulzSec's six members.

Topiary's once-plentiful Twitter feed was practically wiped clean Wednesday. The only remaining post, from nearly a week ago, read: "You cannot arrest an idea."

Scotland Yard also said it was searching a residential address in Lincolnshire, in central England, and interviewing a 17-year-old under caution in connection with the investigation. The second teen has not been arrested.

Alleged LulzSec Spokesman: New Details As Bail Set
(By Mathew J. Schwartz, InformationWeek, August 01, 2011)

On Monday, accused LulzSec spokesman Jake Davis, aka "Topiary," faced multiple hacking-related charges in British court. He was granted bail until August 30, when he is due to return to court.

Prosecutors told the court that between Davis's computer and an external hard disk, they found login passwords for 750,000 people, as well as a copy of the fake story that LulzSec had placed on The Sun newspaper's website, claiming that owner Rupert Murdoch had died.

The judge granted Davis bail, citing his youth and lack of previous convictions. Conditions of 18-year-old Davis's release include his wearing an electronic monitoring tag, to ensure he complies with a 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew. He must also forego direct or indirect Internet access via computer or mobile phone.

On Sunday, British police had charged Davis on five counts: unauthorized access to a computer system, encouraging or assisting offenses, conspiracy to carry out distributed denial of service attacks against the U.K.'s Serious and Organized Crime Agency (which investigates cyber crime), as well as conspiracy to commit computer misuse offenses. Prosecutors alleged that Davis participated in multiple LulzSec and Anonymous attacks, including exploits of the U.K.'s National Health Service, News International websites, and Sony.

More details also emerged about Davis's arrest on Wednesday. Authorities found him on Yell, an island with a permanent population of only about 1,000 people, that's one of the northern Shetland Islands, which are off the northeast to the north of Scotland. "Frankly, it's hard to imagine a more remote place in the British Isles to be," said U.K.-based Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a blog post.

Several days before Davis was arrested, the LulzSec Twitter feed had been wiped, except for this message: "You cannot arrest an idea." That referred to the FBI's recent arrest of multiple people on charges that they'd participated in the Anonymous attacks against multiple websites. In the wake of the arrests, Anonymous had released a statement urging people to boycott PayPal.

On Sunday, also in response to those arrests, a statement was posted on Pastebin under the Anonymous and AntiSec banner claiming that the group had compromised more than 70 law enforcement websites, including alabamasheriffs.com, mostwantedwebsites.net, and stfranciscountyar.org, in response to "bogus trumped-up charges against the Anonymous paypal ... attacks."

As of press time, the cited websites, which had previously been active, resolved to a page that read "site coming soon." Many if not all of the websites appear to be hosted by Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing. The company was not available for immediate comment, but according to news reports, the company began to see suspicious activity on multiple websites last Monday, took them offline, and contacted the FBI.

Beyond exploiting those sites, according AntiSec's statement, the group also stole 10 GB of law enforcement data, including "mail spools of police officers" across dozens of different police departments, 7,000 officers' personal details (username, password, home address, social security numbers, phone numbers), a list of several hundred people who shared Anonymous-related tips with police, as well as police academy training files. The group said it had also obtained lists of active warrants and jail inmates, but planned to redact that information before releasing it.

But the group offered to not release the information, in exchange for law enforcement agencies stopping their investigations. "We demand prosecuters [sic] immediately drop all charges and investigations against all 'Anonymous' defendants," according to the statement.