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Anonymous Members Arrested for Hacking Vatican Site Law enforcement officials in Italy have reportedly arrested four members of Anonymous. The suspects allegedly carried out attacks on a number of prominent Italian websites and online services. The suspects are all aged between 20 and 34 and were placed under arrest in the Italian cities of Turin, Venice, and Bologna. One suspect was arrested in the southern community of Lecce. According to police, the suspects were part of Anonymous Italy, which carried out hacks of prominent commercial and government websites. Some of those sites were owned by the Vatican, Italy's prime minister's...

Hacker group Anonymous has been been pretty tight-lipped about its political beliefs — with operations in the organization’s name conducted against Western democracies, authoritarian countries like China, and Muslim countries like Egypt, Syria, and Iran. And, of course, Israel. But one thing has become clear in the lead-up to its next major hacking attack: Anonymous members are “gold bugs,” people who believe that the yellow metal is the proper method for the exchange of goods and services and advocate the use of precious metals as the proper currency for the sale and purchase of oil. That’s the main reason the...

A story in the Washington Post yesterday about the Internal Revenue ServiceÂ’s Cincinnati office, which does most of the agencyÂ’s nonprofit auditing, clearly contradicted earlier reports that the agencyÂ’s targeting of Tea Party groups was the result of rogue agents. The Post story anonymously quoted a staffer in Cincinnati as saying they only operate on directives from headquarters: As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, donÂ’t necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume theyÂ’re engaged in partisan...

Terror group Hamas was quoted Saturday as saying that members of the hacking group Anonymous broke into a Mossad website and revealed the names of 123 Israeli spies. According to a report in Egyptian newspaper Al Shaab al Masri, the claim was made by an officer for the "internal security intelligence" mechanism in the interior ministry of the Hamas government of Gaza. The officer said that 48 of the spies work in Egypt's and Saudi Arabia's stock exchanges. Another 52 work in the EMPC building, where Egypt's central television studios are located, 15 work on oil rigs in the Persian...

This has not been a very good cyber war for Anonymous hackers against the Jews of Israel. As we reported earlier, their own site was humiliatingly hacked just hours after declaring their cyber war, dubbed #OpIsrael. Now, the apparently not so Anonymous hacktivists have been arrested in Jordan. Weasel Zippers has the story. Jordanian security forces arrested several youths who are suspected of attacking Israeli internet sites as part of the large scale cyber attack on Israel declared by the group called Anonymous. This has really upset the hacker community, who is now threatening to attack Jordan. They’ve also declared...

Hackers launched a coordinated cyberattack on Israel over the weekend in an attempt to “wipe Israel off the map of the Internet,” defacing some 20,000 Israeli Facebook accounts and nearly 2,000 Israeli websites. The anarchist hacking collective known as Anonymous formally launched “Operation Israel” on Sunday, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The stated goal of the attack was to wreak havoc on Israeli servers, government websites, and Internet users. The hackers penetrated and defaced multiple Israeli websites including government, schools, banks, and a website for children with cancer, according to regional media reports. Among the government websites breached were...

Posted by Gateway Guest Blogger on Saturday, April 6, 2013, 10:10 PM Guest Post by Andrew Marcus - Director, Hating Breitbart Just hours after Russia TV announced that Anonymous was launching a massive cyber attack against the Jews of Israel, dubbed #OpIsrael, the hacktivist group was itself reportedly hacked! Via Israel Matzov: If you go here, you will see that Anonymous’ OpIsrael page has been hacked, apparently by Israelis. Visitors to the site are now greeted with a message from Wafa Sultan, an anti-Islamist activist:

Hackers Bust N.Korean Propaganda Site International hacker group Anonymous on Thursday broke into Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean website that spreads propaganda from North Korea's official KCNA news agency. The hacker collective released the personal information of the website's 9,001 subscribers, including their ID and password, name, date of birth and other details. The South Korean National Intelligence Service said, "Many of the leaked details on the website match those of South Koreans." Police are taking a keen interest. A National Police Agency spokesman said, "A considerable number of people who want to access information about North Korea are registered on...

Anonymous continues to target North Korea with its latest round of exploits. Citing the threat posed by the North Korean government, the "hacktivist" group defaced the country's official Twitter and Flickr accounts yesterday. The North Korean Twitter feed now displays a series of tweets with links that poke fun at the country's leader Kim Jong-un. One linked image portrays Kim Jong-un in a less than flattering light and criticizes him for "threatening world peace with ICBMs and nuclear weapons" and "wasting money while his people starve." The country's Flickr account shows the same image as well as a graphic displaying...

How To Protect Your Computers, Networks From Anonymous Israel Cyber AttackBy Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel --- April 2, 2013 … Threats have been made against the people of Israel for thousands of years. The latest threat now comes from a less macho, publicity seeking Internet group called Anonymous. Anonymous says that on April 7, 2013 it will "erase Israel from the Internet." It ain't gonna happen. Not today, not April 7 and not next year. “OpIsrael,” which is being organized by anti-Zionist hackers, are said to be targeting the 100 largest Websites in Israel, including banks, credit card...

The hacker, who is being hunted by law enforcement, reportedly forwarded the sensitive information on to a website The website, exposed.su, reveals the hacked information about Jay-Z, Beyonce, Hillary Clinton and 12 other big name entertainers and political figures. Fifteen bigs in entertainment and politics — including Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder — were hacked and had their financial details or sensitive material published online.

According to a threat posted on Anonymous information website Anon Relations.net, the loosely banded hacker collective will attempt to disrupt the State of the Union address Tuesday by preventing it from being broadcast online. **SNIP** The AnonRelations.net post cites a litany of offenses as motive for the threatened attack, from "tyrannical" legislation to the treatment of Internet heroes like Aaron Swartz and Bradley Manning. It goes on to state that hackers will "form a virtual blockade between Capitol Hill and the Internet," although onlookers may be skeptical of the group's ability to do this. A recent campaign against Israel during...

The hacker group Anonymous claims to have taken down the LAPD's website, apparently in retaliation for its treatment of alleged cop killer Christopher Dorner and for its subsequent shootings of two innocents in the hunt for the former L.A. policeman. The group has been particularly unhappy with the department's shootings early Thursday of two people in a truck somewhat like Dorner's (but which was a different make and color). A separate shooting involved Torrance police and another pickup. And now the group indicates ... ... that Dorner should reach out to the group so it can leak any documents that...

Hackers claiming to represent the group Anonymous have threatened to release sensitive information about the US Department of Justice over the death of an internet activist. The group appeared to have hacked the website of the US Sentencing Commission and replaced the front page with a statement calling for reform of US prosecution law. The attack appears to be a retaliation for the treatment of internet activist Aaron Swartz, who killed himself on January 11. **SNIP** "We did not restrict ourselves like the FBI to one high-profile compromise. We are far more ambitious, and far more capable. "We have enough...

Anonymous, a band of online vigilante activists, has turned its ire on the U.S. Department of Justice, threatening to release secret, internal documents the group hacked in memory of Aaron Swartz, the Internet prodigy who committed suicide before his federal trial. “With Aaron’s death we can wait no longer. The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration. The time has come to give this system a taste of its own medicine,” read part of the message and video posted on the U.S. Sentencing Commission website, which the activist...

Hacktivist group Anonymous took control of the U.S. Sentencing Commission website Friday, January 25 in a new campaign called "Operation Last Resort." The first attack on the website was early Friday morning. The second - successful - attack came around 9pm PST that evening. anonymous By 3am PST ussc.gov was down (it has since been dropped from the DNS), yet as of this writing the IP address (66.153.19.162) still returns the defaced site's contents. It appears that via the U.S. government website, Anonymous had distributed encrypted government files and left a statement on the website that de-encryption keys would be...

Summary: Late evening Friday, January 25, U.S. Sentencing Commission website was hacked and government files distributed by Anonymous in what the group calls "Operation Last Resort."Hacktivist group Anonymous took control of the U.S. Sentencing Commission website Friday, January 25 in a new campaign called "Operation Last Resort."The first attack on the website was early Friday morning. The second - successful - attack came around 9pm PST that evening. By 3am PST ussc.gov was down (it has since been dropped from the DNS), yet as of this writing the IP address (66.153.19.162) still returns the defaced site's contents.It appears that via the U.S. government...

Anonymous has hacked the US Sentencing Commission’s website in retaliation for the suicide of internet activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, and as of now, the site is still displaying in its compromised state.More on this breaking story as it develops. Statement below from Anonymous on the decision to hack USSC.gov. [Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that Anonymous' attack affected the Supreme Court's website, when in actuality, it is the US Sentencing Commission's website as stated above.]In addition to the defacing of the site with a video, a statement on Swartz’s death and the government’s alleged harassment of the activist...

A French judge will decide this week if Twitter must hand over the identities of users sending anti-Semitic tweets. The case, brought against Twitter by a Jewish student organization, pits America's free speech guarantees against Europe's laws banning hate speech.The controversy began in October, when the French Union of Jewish Students threatened to sue Twitter to get the names of people posting anti-Semitic tweets with the hashtag #unbonjuif, or "a good Jew.""If I type 'un bon Juif' ... I can see it was full of tweets against Jews," says Eli Petit, vice president of the Jewish student organization. "It was...

The international hacktivist group Anonymous today warned of “insurrection in America” as the government controls and twists the narrative on gun-related incidents. Known for the Guy Fawkes masks worn at protests, Anonymous has styled itself as an anti-authority crusader against government corruption and lack of transparency, and supported the Occupy protests. And now the hackers are stepping into the gun control debate, warning in a lengthy message today that “throughout history authoritarian governments have used gun violence as an excuse to take peoples firearms and control there population.” “Obama has been working hard to try and ban semi-automatic weapons and...

The international hacktivist group Anonymous today warned of “insurrection in America” as the government controls and twists the narrative on gun-related incidents.

Hacktivist group Anonymous has now spoken out against President Barack Obama’s intentions to enact wider gun control in the U.S. In a 15-minute YouTube video, which first appeared on the social network two weeks ago, Anonymous criticized the Obama administration’s leveraging of violent gun crime to achieve its goal to control guns. “Throughout history, authoritarian governments have used gun violence as an excuse to take people’s firearms and control their population,” said Anonymous. “This is exactly what Adolf Hitler did to disarm the German people and look at the atrocities his administration did. Obama has been working hard to try...

Last week Anderson Cooper took on some of the more ridiculous conspiracy theories about the tragic Sandy Hook shooting, one in particular claiming that the shooting simply never happened. But tonight, Cooper took on perhaps one of the most shocking theories of all: the whole shooting was a gigantic conspiracy to take away people’s guns. Cooper reminded viewers of the Florida professor who has been pushing the conspiracy theories, and revealed that said professor reacted to his initial report with a blog post attacking Cooper for “wanting to cause him harm.” Cooper said that the professor has his rights to...

In a video uploaded to YouTube yesterday, Anonymous warned of an "insurrection" in the United States and said that the federal government is using the Sandy Hook school shooting as an excuse to confiscate weapons from law-abiding citizens. It appears that the original video was uploaded on Dec. 24, 2012 and has received about 1,000 views, but within the past two days, renewed interest in its message caused over a dozen copies to appear online and receive tens of thousands of views. According to CNN, Vice President Joe Biden's gun task force will have their recommendations ready on Tuesday. "Many...

A gunman who witnesses say was wearing camouflage and a white plastic mask opened fire in a shopping mall near Portland, Ore., in a rampage that left three dead, including the shooter, and multiple wounded, police said. Authorities say police "neutralized" the gunman but have yet to elaborate on how he died. Witnesses described a harrowing scene, as the gunman appeared to be dressed in body armor while firing off an estimated 60 shots from a semi-automatic rifle. One witness told KPTV that the gunman ran past her and her boyfriend and "had the look of death in his eyes."

A computer hacker connected to the group Anonymous could face life in prison for stealing credit card, email, and other personal information from a private intelligence company, and posting it on the Internet. The compromised information already has cost the company, Strategic Forecasters, several million dollars in a class-action lawsuit with its customers, one of which is the judge overseeing the criminal case against alleged hacker Jeremy Hammond’s, reported RT.com. Hammond, a member of LulzSec, an offshoot of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, is accused of breaking into Strategic Forecasters’ servers and collecting thousands of emails, credit card numbers and pieces...

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Strategy site to Obama: End alliance with Israel WASHINGTON — A newsletter-publisher said to have ties with the Obama administration has called on Washington to end its strategic alliance with Israel. George Friedman, publisher of Stratfor, has published a book that called on the Obama administration to reorder U.S. foreign policy. Friedman has argued that the key element of the proposal required the end of U.S. strategic ties with Israel and bolstering of cooperation with the Islamic world, particularly Iran and Pakistan. "The United States must quietly distance itself from Israel," Friedman says in...

Hacktivist group Anonymous has done some good things and some bad things. It all depends on your point of view. Now the group has come forward and said they are the reason that Karl Rove nearly went apoplectic on Fox News on Nov. 6, Election Night 2012. Thom Hartmann reported the claim on his radio show on Friday, which is simulcast on Current TV (video of the Current TV broadcast is embedded). Of course, Anonymous has claimed things in the past which later turned out to be false, but as Hartmann said: "it makes sense." Republican strategist Karl Rove seemed...

A hacker known as “The Jester” claims to have revealed the identity of a LulzSec member who may be the group’s leader. Thirty-year-old Xavier Kaotico, also known as Xavier de Leon or “sabu,” has been outed as the hacker prankster group’s leader, though his role and involvement with LulzSec has not been confirmed. The man allegedly lives or has recently lived in New York City, and is an independant IT consultant specializing in Python programming, Linux development, network security and exploit development. LulzSec, a small group of hackers that has become the focus of the international technology media over...

CNN) -- They've breached or busted the websites of the CIA, PBS and the U.S. Senate, and launched at least part of an extended attack on Sony, whose PlayStation Network was brought to a grinding halt for the better part of a month. And, to hear them tell it, it's all for a laugh. Meet Lulz Security, or LulzSec, the gleeful and secretive band of hackers who appear to be responsible for a string of high-profile and sometimes embarrassing Internet attacks. Their most recent strike, and arguably the most ambitious, was a distributed denial-of-service attack Wednesday that shut down the...

Six members of the suspected computer hacking groups affiliated with Anonymous were charged—including the suspected ring leader, who directed the entire operation from a Manhattan apartment complex—after it was revealed one of the group's most high profile members has been working with federal authorities for months. Hector Monsegur, a 28-year-old American believed to use the name "Sabu" on the internet, was arrested by federal agents last year and has been cooperating with law enforcement ever since, officials said. He pleaded guilty last August, a plea unsealed in federal court in Lower Manhattan today. At least four of the five other...

Internet leftist terrorists Anonymous have begun posting personal information on top-ranking Israeli officials online. Using Anonpaste.me to send a message to the Israeli government, Anonymous wrote, “It has come to our attention that the Israeli government has ignored repeated warnings about the abuse of human rights, shutting down the internet in Israel and mistreating its own citizens andt hose of its neighboring countries.” This newest assault follows hot on the heels of Anonymous’ attack on over 700 Israeli websites...

Mitt Romney's Republican Get Out the Vote system (ORCA) had a meltdown on Election Day leaving some campaign workers wandering around with nothing to do. Now Anonymous has released a video claiming responsibility for jamming ORCA...

In what is becoming an increasingly more confusing conflict - is it truly an ideological war, or merely an extended attempt to generate empathy via social networking, together with a full-blown conflict on twitter - Israel continued its pinpoint strikes in Gaza overnight, taking out the house of a high-ranking Hamas operative, together with the release of commemorative video showing the explosion moments after the event. The clip is below. What is more curious is that the global hacker group Anonymous has already picked its side, and yesterday launched a massive attack named #OpIsrael, which has so far hacked 700...

The hacktivist group Anonymous “celebrated” the fifth of November (Guy Fawkes Day) through protest marches, defacing websites, and releasing the credit card information of law enforcement officers. The British holiday Guy Fawkes Day was popularized in the 2005 film "V for Vendetta", where a mask-wearing outcast overthrows a future totalitarian society. The holiday commemorates an actual historical event, where Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the British House of Lords in 1605.

SNIPPET: "New York City is the center of a public uproar as Internet blogger Pamela Gellar rises with an “anti-jihad” ad campaign." SNIPPET: "Gellar and her group are protesting the Jihad, which in definition is the religious duty of Muslims. According to the Dictionary of Islam, jihad is defined as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad . . . enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.” The literal meaning of jihad, according to the British Broadcasting Network, “is struggle or effort, and it means much more than...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has lost another high-profile supporter as Anonymous, the hacking collective, said the whistleblowing site had been “ruined by egos”. Anonymous, a loose group of internet “hacktivists”, has been one of WikiLeaks’ closest allies during the past two years, launching cyber attacks against the site’s opponents and, some claim, becoming a source of its material. ...But leading Anonymous accounts on Twitter, which rallied behind WikiLeaks and Mr Assange despite his legal and financial woes, have now withdrawn their support, decrying the freedom-of-information project as a “One Man Julian Assange show”. Calling the split “the end of an...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania recently caught the attention of the hacktivist collective Anonymous when the city government targeted a businessman’s attempt to clean up downtown trash. The city owns a vacant lot overrun with weeds and debris, adjacent to Ori Feibush’s coffeeshop. After years of battling with the city over the eyesore, Feibush took it upon himself to clean it up. He spent at least $20,000 of his own money to remove 40 tons of trash and renovate the property — a project Anonymous claims would have cost Philadelphia taxpayers $1.5 million. The city is threatening Feibush with legal action for trespassing...

According to many customers, sites hosted by major web host and domain registrar GoDaddy are down. According to the official GoDaddy Twitter account the company is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it. Update: customers are complaining that GoDaddy hosted e-mail accounts are down as well, along with GoDaddy phone service and all sites using GoDaddy’s DNS service. Update 2: Anonymous is claiming responsibility. A member of Anonymous known as AnonymousOwn3r is claiming responsibility, and makes it clear this is not an Anonymous collective action. The service Down For Everyone Or Just Me says the GoDaddy company...

President Obama is an Apple user through and through. He answers Reddit questions from a MacBook, got an early iPad from Steve Jobs himself, and Rush Limbaugh even thinks Obama hacked Siri just to mess with him. But just because you’re the leader of the Free World doesn’t mean you’re not susceptible to AntiSec hacks too. The UDID for President Obama’s iPad may or may not have been among the more than 1 million UDIDs the AntiSec leaked this morning from the FBI’s databases.

Federal authorities are urging law enforcement agencies across the country to watch out for signs that extremists might be planning to wreak havoc at the upcoming political conventions -- by blocking roads, shutting down transit systems and even employing what were described as acid-filled eggs. The warning came in a joint FBI-Department of Homeland Security bulletin issued Wednesday. The bulletin specifically warned about a group of anarchists from New York City who could be planning to travel to the convention sites to disrupt the events by blockading bridges. Anarchists "see both parties as the problem," so both conventions are prime...

A Roman Catholic Church employee who gave $600 to a group leading the opposition to a Minnesota constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples does not have to reveal his name. State campaign finance regulators said in a decision Friday, Aug. 17, that the donor could be identified as "John Doe" in contribution reports to protect him from being fired by church officials. It is the first time an individual has been exempted from the state's disclosure requirement, said Gary Goldsmith, executive director of the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. The donor told the board that when he...

Ecuador has granted asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange two months after he took refuge in its London embassy while fighting extradition from the UK. It said his human rights might be violated if he is sent to Sweden to be questioned over sex assault claims. Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK would not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the country and the move was also criticised by Stockholm. Ecuador said it would seek to negotiate arrangements for Mr Assange to leave. "We don't think it is reasonable that, after a sovereign government has made the decision...

PITTSBURGH — Wednesday night the 14th, 15th and 16th bomb threats were reported at different buildings on the University of Pittsburgh campus. School officials sent out the following alert to students and staff just after 5 p.m., "A general bomb threat has been received for the Cathedral of Learning, Posvar Hall and Litchfield Tower C. Please evacuate these buildings. If safe to do so please tell others of this message." Wedneday morning a 13th bomb threat was reported at a building on the University of Pittsburgh's campus. The threat was reported at Thackeray Hall around 10:30 a.m. University officials increased...

I’m reassured—indeed, encouraged—indeed, buoyed!—by this morning's Politico article, "GOP pros fret over Paul Ryan." "GOP pros" are the stupidest part of "the stupid party." For one thing, they're not very professional—why are they using the press to take shots at the Ryan pick in the first place? For another, they're cowardly—“nearly all the Republican professionals interviewed for this story said they would share their unfiltered views only 'on background' rules of attribution." Most of all, they're a terrific contrarian indicator. When "GOP pros" are most full of fear and apprehension about Republican prospects—for example, Reagan in 1980, Gingrich in 1994,...

"I am not a 24-year-old gun-slinging killer from Aurora," James P. Holmes wrote on Facebook Friday morning. Holmes is a Denver man who shares first and last names with the suspect in the deadly shooting that took place at a midnight screening of the latest Batman movie, just hours before, James Eagan Holmes. As the investigation got under way in the shooting at the "The Dark Knight Rises" premiere, in which 70 members of the estimated 300-seat crowd were killed or injured, those looking for clues to make sense of it all went online for a digital footprint for the...

(CBS News) New York state lawmakers have proposed a ban on anonymous online comments. Called the Internet Protection Act (A.8688/S.6779), the legislation would require a web site administrator to pull down anonymous comments from sites, including "social networks, blogs forums, message boards or any other discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages."The bill states: A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or...

The hacking group “Anonymous” appeared to have shut down the Home Office website on Saturday night, in an apparent protest against extraditions of British citizens to the US and so-called “draconian surveillance proposals.” An apparent “denial of service” attack made it impossible to access the Home Office website for at least an hour. Those trying to access the website were instead confronted by a notice that “Due to a high volume of traffic this page is currently unavailable.” The attack appeared to have been partly in protest at extradition proceedings against Gary McKinnon, 46, who is accused of hacking US...

The computer hacking group Anonymous has promised to shut down the Internet in its entirety this Saturday, March 31st, according to a post on "pastebin" which has since gotten 165,000 views. The piece states that Anonymous will be attempting this in order to protest "SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun." The post, which was then uploaded to Reddit, promises an attack on 13 root DNS servers. Anyone trying to access a website, it promises, will get an error message. The group, however,...

A recent threat, purportedly from the hacker group Anonymous, stated boldly that its members would stop the internet on 31 March ...