Scientology versus Anonymous
Percolating to the surface is what may be the first inter-faith online insurgency. Spurred by a rather perfunctory take down notice of a video the Scientology religion has been hammered by an online group called Anonymous. Attacks against servers, a fairly complex information/propaganda campaign, and use of para-legal (copyright, freedom of speech, parody, etc.) are being used.
I have no dog in the hunt of the validity of Scientology but this may be a good case study for scholars of small wars to learn the effectiveness and issues of stateless entity warfare and the resultant issues for society. Following on the heels of the Estonian conflict which was originally blamed on Russia and turned out to be a highly effective band of college students, and with a similar feeling, this conflict is a religion versus a non-state actor. The group "Anonymous" has in an interesting turn attacked all of the elements of information security (confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, and non-repudiation) paradigm very rapidly.
The group Anonymous is posting "secret" materials, changing data in the Scientology systems, disrupting the operations of the Scientologists with distributed denial of service attacks, that would suggest information warfare in the other realms too. As scholars of small wars, with interests in insurgency, and with an understanding that this same attack vector may occur against as a highly coordinated attack against a state (e.g. Estonia) we should pay attention to this evolving form of attack and consider the ramifications for future conflicts.
LINK
Is the corporate world's response really surprising?
Seems to me like they'd react on the "I don't want this to happen to me" rationale.
Sort of my (distant, very distant) cousin against my enemy...
And would not the guvmint weigh in -- on the same basis?
No familiarity with the corporate IT -- or anybody's IT -- realm so I'm just asking.
Thanks, however, I fully understand all that
and understood it when I asked my questions. Which were:
Why is the corporate response a surprise to you (due to those very factors you cite in your tutorial)? It would seem to me the corporate sector wants to deter such actions lest they be aimed at them?
Could the government not be expected to take a biased view of the what the law says to assist in hacker deterrence on the same basis? I understand that nominally they don't act unless a law is broken but you and I both know there's some, uh -- elasticity is a good word -- in making that determination. I also would include 'unofficially' and not only in the law enforcement sense... :wry:
Anonymous Hackers Target Alleged WikiLeaker Bradley Manning's Jailers
Anonymous Hackers Target Alleged WikiLeaker Bradley Manning's Jailers
http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenber...nings-jailers/
Quote:
Anonymous hackers name Department of Defense Press Secretary Geoff Morell and chief warrant officer Denise Barnes as targets and call on members to dig up personal information on both, including phone numbers, personal histories and home addresses. The goal of the operation, for now, is to “dox” the two officials, the typical Anonymous method of publishing personal information of victims and using it for mass harassment.
. . . doxing will likely include “ruin life tactics” such as “ordering them pizza, sending them thousands of boxes, reporting them to police for drug abuse, sex offenders list, tricking their ISPs into canceling the Internet, messing with their social security numbers, false flag, fax harassment, phone harassment, email bombing, subscriptions to magazines, diapers, tampons.”
Can DOD Information Assurance and Computer Network Defenders protect Morrell and Barnes, or will they be pwned?
If Anonymous is considered a virtual militia, is this a Paramilitary Information Opposition Operation?
Which Law Enforcement Agencies and What Actions?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
But if this group does attack people as a result of their performance of official duties, it would seem that law enforcement would have a grounds to take a range of actions against them.
NCIS could sic McGee on 'em. The real NCIS will probably have some involvement. State of Virginia might take some interest. But most of this probably won't rise to the level of felonies so what actions might law enforcement bother to take?
Hacker group vows 'cyberwar' on US government, business
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41972190...ence-security/
Quote:
“It’s a guerrilla 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.”
Quote:
“Our people break laws, just like all people break laws,” he added. “When we break laws, we do it in the service of civil disobedience. We do so ethically. We do it against targets that have asked for it.”
Quote:
Asked about the group’s capabilities, he said, “Well, they keep increasing, but I can tell you that our capabilities are such that, we can, for instance, go into the servers of a federal contracting company … take those servers down, delete backups, take all internal emails, take documents, shut down the websites of the owners of those companies, take everything from those websites, ruin the lives of people who have done it wrong … harass them, make sure they’ll never work again in this particular industry.
“We can expose people. We can go to the media with things, we can give them scoops. We can give them information about companies and their wrongdoing. We can organize protests —anywhere across the globe. We can get the attention of the national conversation if we need to.”
Brown is employing PSYOP and Morale Operations while claiming to be a propagandist and strategist of a group of Irregular Computer Network Attackers, seemingly confident that lawfare will protect him from any .gov attempts to prosecute him.
Hackers group says it will target Iran...
... on Sunday
Another monkey knife-fight.
Quote:
(CNN) -- 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 private data (more like the hacking seen in the movies).
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/...ex.html?hpt=T2
NATO report threatens to 'persecute' Anonymous
Quote:
NATO leaders have been warned that Wikileaks-loving 'hacktivist' collective Anonymous could pose a threat to member states' security, following recent attacks on the US Chamber of Commerce and defence contractor HBGary - and promise to 'persecute' its members.
Read more: http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/6/1/nato...#ixzz1O5b4p0e5
NATO report threatens to 'persecute' Anonymous ?
The title intrigued me and I looked at the original source - IMHO a very low profile component of NATO:
Quote:
The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is the inter-parliamentary organisation of legislators from the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance as well as 14 associate members. The Assembly provides a critical forum for international parliamentary dialogue on an array of security, political and economic matters. Its principal objective is to foster mutual understanding among Alliance parliamentarians of the key security challenges facing the transatlantic partnership. Assembly discussions and debates make an important contribution to the development of the consensus that must underpin Alliance policies.
Or shorter:
Quote:
The Assembly is directly funded by member parliaments and governments, and is financially and administratively (my emphasis) separate from NATO itself.
Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Pa...ntary_Assembly
Sounds like a 'quango' to me, or simply a "jolly" for low profile MPs. Take for example the Vice President from the UK, Hugh Bayley; his own website makes no mention of his NATO PA role and he has only once been a very junior minister for state benefits.
The report itself opens with:
Quote:
Until this document has been approved by the Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security, it represents only the views of the Rapporteur.
The author, Lord Jopling, was a Chief Whip and junior farming minister in the 1980's. Hardly a political "heavyweight".
This is not a NATO report and would be rather different if titled 'Draft report by unknown body using prefix NATO to boost itself'.
ANONYMOUS vs Booz Allen Hamilton
Quote:
Hacker group Anonymous continued an assault on government contractors Monday as it released 90,0000 military email addresses, passwords and some other data from military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
The group released a 190MB torrent, which eWEEK said includes "login information of personnel from US CENTCOM, SOCOM, the Marine Corps, Air Force facilities, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State and other private sector contractors."
Anonymous, which got a little clever with its seafaring references, said it was shocked at the lack of security on one of the company's servers.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/23545...ntractors.html