Free Republic

The group of Internet hackers hopes to reignite last year's protests in Iran.The Internet hackers group Anonymous plans to hack Iran on Sunday, according to a press release published on their website. The group wants to use International Workers' Day, which commemorates the first national general strike in the United States, as an opportunity to reignite last year's protests in Iran. Exactly how they intend to "attack" Iran remains to be seen. The sophistication of their previous attacks ranges from the denial-of-service overloading of web servers (this simply knocks a website out) to the exploitation of code and accessing of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Democratic congressman filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Federal Election Commission, widening efforts to expose anonymous campaign donations as the 2012 U.S. election gets under way. Representative Chris van Hollen, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives' Budget Committee, filed the suit challenging FEC regulations which he said undermined the degree of campaign finance disclosure demanded by U.S. law. "The absence of transparency will enable special interest groups to bankroll campaign initiatives while operating under a veil of anonymity," Van Hollen said in a statement. Democrats claim that attack ads worth millions of dollars...

Technology that provides a platform for Internet users to express their views on a range of topics has proliferated over the past several years. Many of these technologies, such as financial message boards, blogs, social networking websites and e-mail, allow users, or “posters,” to express themselves anonymously by using pseudonyms traceable only through the hosts of the sites or their Internet service providers. As such speech has increased, so to have actions against Internet-based companies—such as Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft—seeking to discover the identity of someone who posted allegedly defamatory material. But courts have adopted a standard that creates...

A group of decentralized hacker activists — or “hacktivists” — known as Anonymous announced a new plan on March 14 to take on the Federal Reserve System, the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements, the World Bank, and the entire “global banking cartel.” In a video posted on YouTube the group said “Operation Empire State Rebellion,” as the effort is being called, would entail “a relentless campaign of nonviolent, peaceful civil disobedience” until the group’s demands are met and “a rule of law is restored.” And it has already announced several demands which U.S. and international authorities will...

Hacker group Anonymous (aka OperationLeaks on Twitter) just released what they say is a trove of damning documents on Bank of America. You can find them here: bankofamericasuck.com

Most of us by now have heard about Anonymous. Anonymous has had its roots in various areas for a while now. Its primary targets tend to be a focused attempt at righting the wrongs of corporate monopolies and injustices that face the average person. Anonymous became a household known entity as it was exposed in its efforts to defend the operations of Wikileaks and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Their newest activities have revolved around shutting down various copyright agencies such as BMI as an attempt to fight back in the ongoing file sharing battle. A member of Anonymous who goes...

Anonymous made its first drop of information they hold regarding fraudulent Bank Of America practices and subsidiaries including Balboa Insurance along with Countrywide who hid information on foreclosures from the federal government Detailed report from Anonymous Balboa Insurance Group, and it’s largest competitor, the market leader Assurant, is in the business of insurance tracking and Force Placed Insurance (aka Lender Placed Insurance, FOH, LPI, etc). What this means is that when you sign your name on the dotted line for your loan, the lienholder has certain insurance requirements that must be met for the life of the lien. Your lender...

The world's most (in)famous hacker group - Anonymous - known for effectively shutting down their hacking nemesis security firm (with clients such as Morgan Stanley and, unfortunately for them, Bank of America)- HBGary, advocating the cause of Wikileaks, and the threat made by one of its members that evidence of fraud by Bank of America will be released on Monday, has just launched communication #1 in its Operation "Empire State Rebellion." The goal - engage in "a relentless campaign of non-violent, peaceful, civil disobedience" until Ben Bernanke steps down and the "Primary Dealers within the Federal Reserve banking system be...

After Julian Assange crashed and burned in his threat to release documents that expose fraud at Bank of America, many thought he had been only bluffing, and that BofA is actually clean. Not so fast. A member of the hacker collective Anonymous, which single handedly destroyed "hacker defense" firm HB Gary, who goes under the handle OperationLeakS "is claiming to be have emails and documents which prove "fraud" was committed by Bank of America employees, and the group says it'll release them on Monday" reports Gawker. As to the contents of the possible disclosure: ""He Just told me he have...

Actions to retaliate for treatment of WikiLeaks, Manning, spokesman for Anonymous says. DALLAS — A leader of the computer hackers group known as Anonymous is threatening new attacks on major U.S. corporations and government officials as part of at an escalating “cyberwar” against the citadels of American power. “It’s a guerilla cyberwar — that’s what I call it,” said Barrett Brown, 29, who calls himself a senior strategist and “propagandist” for Anonymous. He added: “It’s sort of an unconventional, asymmetrical act of warfare that we’ve involved in. And we didn’t necessarily start it. I mean, this fire has been burning.”...

A group of hacktivists acting under the banner, "Anonymous," has warned a church with a controversial history that unspoken retribution will follow it continues its practice of inflammatory protests. In an open letter to the Westboro Baptist Church, Anonymous has put the anti-gay, fundamentalist church on notice that "the damage incurred will be irreversible," and that "neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover." The Westboro Baptist Church is led by Rev. Fred Phelps. It has drawn particular attention for carrying out anti-gay protests at funerals of military servicemen with signs celebrating the deaths of...

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues. The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.Click here to view the government contract (PDF)According to the contract, the software would "protect the identity of government agencies" by employing a number...

Rarely in the history of the cybersecurity industry has a company become so toxic so quickly as HBGary Federal. Over the last week, many of the firm’s closest partners and largest clients have cut ties with the Sacramento startup. And now it’s cancelled all public appearances by its executives at the industry’s biggest conference in the hopes of ducking a scandal that seems to grow daily as more of its questionable practices come to light. Last week, the hacker group Anonymous released more than 40,000 of HBGary Federal’s emails, followed by another 27,000 from its sister company, HBGary, over the...

Sober at Last! How John J* Went From Gunslinger to God-lover It was a January midnight, and I was driving down Woodward Avenue, looking for a place to continue my evening of fun. Over there! I pulled up in front of a noisy bar. Leaving my new Pontiac running at the curb, I walked inside and fired a shot into the ceiling. In the sudden hush, a hundred startled faces turned my way. I must have looked pretty funny, swallowed up in my father’s felt hat and oversized trench coat, with a red cowboy bandana over my nose and...

The loose hacker collective Anonymous says it has taken revenge on a US security company whose principal claimed to have penetrated the group and identified some of its key people. They hacked the Twitter account of Aaron Barr, the chief executive of HBGary, and sent out a series of angry tweets while many Americans were watching the Super Bowl match on Sunday night, allegedly including Barr's social security number and address, and his mobile phone number.

It is, at minimum, an intriguing coincidence that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced his resignation a mere three weeks before Simon & Schuster is publishing its much-buzzed-about January 25th release, O: A Presidential Novel by the celebrated author “Anonymous.” The book, described in news accounts as a 368-page roman à clef inspired by President Obama and his inner circle, has yet to leak, nor has Campbell Scott’s audio version been heard. The rumors suggest that the mysterious unnamed author has “vast personal experience” of the president and is privy to Obama’s 2012 reelection strategy.

Computerworld - This morning's planned distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against Amazon.com by Anonymous, a hacker group that has launched similar attacks against organizations it sees attempting to censor WikiLeaks, appears to have failed. Vanity: The attacks by cyber terrorist groupitself "Anonymous" have backfired. As soon as I heard they had attacked Amazon and visa I did all my Christmas shopping at Amazon.com . . .and paid for it with my visa. Thanks to Anonymous Amazon.com is $350 richer. Cyberterrorism: the illegal use of computers and the internet to achieve a poltical goal especialy an attempt to intimedate or coerce others for...

September 2008: Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account is compromised by a member of Anonymous, an online group of hackers, in the final months of the presidential campaign. Personal emails are posted to WikiLeaks, and questions are raised about whether Palin used the personal account to flout public records laws. April 2010: A video of a U.S. Apache helicopter killing Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists is posted to WikiLeaks. While the U.S. had never denied that the civilians and journalists were killed, the graphic footage of the horrors of war quickly goes viral online. July 2010: WikiLeaks...

I barely knew Christine when she turned up at my door at around eight o'clock on the night of Halloween. We'd met for the first and only time three months earlier when my two roommates and I signed the lease on our apartment: Christine's aunt owned the place we were moving into, and she happened to be up from Delaware visiting at the time. But we'd only spent about five minutes together that day and we hadn't spoken much, and I hadn't thought of her since. Yet here she was standing outside my door with a friend. And both of...

My husband wants to legally donate to candidates before the election but wishes to stay off mailing lists. (We have managed to get on about 100 by donating during previous election cycles.) He was wondering about sending cash in amounts less than $200 in an envelope with no return address. I apologize for this vanity, but my husband really wanted input from others on this topic.