Anonymous attacks (Catch All)

[anonamatic]

It's something more like a water balloon fight. They're costing their targets some money and time, but not really all that much. This may escalate though. There doesn't seem to be anything permanently damaging going on though. This is a dangerous situation in many respect in that an awful lot of people think that they can act with impunity in part because there's been so little response on the part of the US or other countries. I expect this to stick with fairly tame activity for the most part. The attackers intentionally are not trying to do permanent damage for the little that it's worth. This also points out the potential use of cutting off individual countries from the services until attacks diminish from the countries. If other people can't use the service because of what's going on locally, well they won't be happy.

[AdamG]

# Visa, PayPal, Amazon also come under attack through the night
# Hackers bring down Swedish government internet site
# Sarah Palin's personal credit card account and website targeted
# 5,000 'hacktivists' believed to be behind electronic onslaught

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz17cwJndfX

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Anonymous hackers' Wikileaks 'infowar' LATEST ROUNDUP
DDoS bombardment spreads: Op Payback to spare Twitter

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12...nfowar_latest/

[selil]

WWII and the Congo Civil War were different levels of the same mildly amusing thing.

Let me put this into another kind of context.

There are about 5K people in the Anonymous IRC. Of those about 1K are engaged in these DDOS attacks.

I have at my disposal right this second 509 dual core computers connected to an OC48. I can reach out with a few minutes time and pull capacity from another 2500 nodes. I'm a nobody and I'd likely get fired for using that much expensive iron for nefarious purposes.

Perspective.

But, lets say the government turned the National Lab System into a weapon and opened up TerraGrid (NSF) and walloped somebody with aprox 250K nodes (I've lost track). That'd be impressive if stupid.

This stuff ain't hard.

For fun and games my undergrads just cracked 56K M$ Windows (DOD SPEC by the way) passwords in their test program in a little under four days. Their target is 450K passwords in four days with tuning.

We consider three elements in information assurance {confidentiality, integrity and availability}. In order of decreasing difficulty (not nearly linear) they are integrity, confidentiality, and availability. We are currently looking at cracking SSL/TLS mid transmission and changing messages but that work is a ways out. A distributed denial of service (DDOS) is supremely easy to accomplish. Breaking into most corporate systems (confidentiality) requires some targeting knowledge but is middling easy.

So, I reserve the right to consider Anonymous cute. I like the creative way that they do things. I like the way they troubleshoot and get around systems. But, in the end a Verizon or AT&T could shut them down instantly. Ma Bell has the only atomic bomb on the Internet. Everybody else is fighting a guerilla action. In the end they are annoying people but could be charged with crimes. In fact I'm willing to bet a bunch of prosecutors are sharpening their warrants now.

[anonamatic]

They decrease the likelyhood of his release with their behavior. As with many political movements, they're passionately stupid.

I am appalled at the lack of LEO action during this debacle thus far.

[AdamG]

So, I reserve the right to consider Anonymous cute. I like the creative way that they do things. I like the way they troubleshoot and get around systems. But, in the end a Verizon or AT&T could shut them down instantly. Ma Bell has the only atomic bomb on the Internet. Everybody else is fighting a guerilla action. In the end they are annoying people but could be charged with crimes. In fact I'm willing to bet a bunch of prosecutors are sharpening their warrants now.

Let me put this into another kind of context - alot of 'People's Movements' started out with a gaggle of poorly-armed amateurs, who were first viewed as jokes (I'll spare the Peanut Gallery the laundry list). Granted, Anonymous is a bunch of script kiddies & some talented teenagers (see also my first post, wrt their fizzled attempts to irritate Scientology).

When we here look at the varying levels of unconventional warfare, are there meatspace analogies to Anonymous? What's Anonymous' (or a similar groups') potential? The AK-toting 'child warriors' of Africa were/are notorious for their capacity to orchestrate violence, particularly when they're driven by some adults.

[selil]

Let me put this into another kind of context - alot of 'People's Movements' started out with a gaggle of poorly-armed amateurs, who were first viewed as jokes (I'll spare the Peanut Gallery the laundry list). Granted, Anonymous is a bunch of script kiddies & some talented teenagers (see also my first post, wrt their fizzled attempts to irritate Scientology).

When we here look at the varying levels of unconventional warfare, are there meatspace analogies to Anonymous? What's Anonymous' (or a similar groups') potential? The AK-toting 'child warriors' of Africa were/are notorious for their capacity to orchestrate violence, particularly when they're driven by some adults.

you assume you're dealing with a peoples movement when looking at assange and wikileaks. that is likely an error. I do not see a large population being mobilized I see a few with tools. that though is not necessarily bad or even relevant as technology has a tendency to enhance the power projection of smaller groups. large scale protests in cyber space have little effect in meat space so far. until people are mobilized into the street the effect on society beyond the connected few just doesn't scale. we could talk about zapatista movements, and iranian revolutionaries but most people have no clue there was even digerati involved.

anonymous may not have a kinetic conflict analog. simply they may exist in some new aspect as previously undiscovered. new domains have new elements. there were no submarine analogs taken from the land army. the submarine was something entirely new. i would suggest that the anonymous group is more like a bunch of skateboard punks having fun at the expense of others and just about as dangerous. can they break into your store, ruin your furniture and cause major chaos? absolutely but they aren't going to be taking over third world countries.

the level of cohesion and thought behind wikileaks and anonymous simply does not suggest large scale capability or strategic thinking. that could change. there could be a fagin training the orphans to steal but i'm more inclined to believe they simply steal.

[anonamatic]

The activity of Anonymous is mainly one meant to be protest. Keep in mind, for all the various attention that they get from their activities, no one is referring to them as any sort of `defacement group' or using language that would characterize a pattern of permanently destructive activity. This stuff is online protest, there's a real difference in context of the activity. The 2600 groups press release discouraging these attacks speaks volumes about how politically witless they are, and about how much they are not attacks in a context of warfare.

Context of negative online actions is fairly important, because of timing and application. In this case, using these tools on these targets (Visa etc.) is having very limited effects, but in other contexts the outcomes can be different. The best example of that thus far is Georgia, where similar efforts had a far more consequential effect.

There is a huge difference where there are any sorts of effect on anything kinetic. The difference between taking out a system designed to allow the porn industry to do online commerce, and one designed to route ambulances during a disaster is obvious, but the methods used could be the exact same ones.

These contextual questions, in combination with technical aspects of the types of activity are one of the things that make this a difficult subject. It's made even more difficult when the context switches from one involving some sort of organizational operations by an entity, and a context involving information operations. My impression is also that things can go from bad to worse quickly based on misperceptions and misinformation, & Wikileaks has proved to be no end of that quite purposefully. So much so that it has caused the group & supporters to splinter pretty seriously.

Timing seems to matter an awful lot. Action biases matter a lot too.

I'm going to be far more interested in some respects in the involvement of technology in the attack on Prince Charles's car in the UK. Imagine for a moment if those attacks were part of a riot over Wikileaks material rather than school tuition, and the Prince had been injured fatally. Given the sustained quasi-idiotic protests in Australia , given they're running around protesting over rights they don't have in a country that's not their own, in a different context and this is not too far fetched a scenario. Had that occurred in a less civilized location it might have been an RPG someone shoved through the window rather than a stick...

Avoiding the cables themselves was slightly easier before there were piles of mirrors all over. In this case the original source material isn't so useful as the information itself, so not its fairly simple not to look at it directly. On the other hand, all the global yammering doesn't make it easy. I was entirely able to avoid seeing any of the Iraq & Afghan material with no trouble. Not so the cables. My untroubled conscience is more than enough reward for avoiding material that is fairly useless to me to begin with. It's ironic that about the only thing needed to quash most of the mirroring that's occurred would have been some assertion of copyright internationally, yet no one in the US has chosen to do that. The bright side is I doubt any of this will get any worse.

Solil: I read your blog entry and liked it a great deal. I'd take some issue with your characterization of Metasploit as lowering the bar too far. I'd reserve that characterization for the whole crimeware market personally.

[selil]

Solil: I read your blog entry and liked it a great deal. I'd take some issue with your characterization of Metasploit as lowering the bar too far. I'd reserve that characterization for the whole crimeware market personally.

I'd have to agree with you. Thinking about it, the entire BackTrak and other penetration testing tools suites really are part of an ecosystem. Not one I'd really like to see go away as they truly are dual use. No, I think your critique about the crimeware market is valid.

[AdamG]

RUMINT was that some trolls on the Anonymous site told a bunch of the users of LOIC that the IP for the anon website/IRC was in fact the IP for the Paypal site, so those users ended up blasting the anon site off the net instead.

Doh.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Anonymous Hackers Target Alleged WikiLeaker Bradley Manning's Jailers

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenber...nings-jailers/

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?

[SteveMetz]

I don't have a position on Manning's treatment since I don't know anything beyond what I read in the papers. 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. History is full of individuals and organizations convinced they were smarter than "the system" who eventually found otherwise.

[anonamatic]

This type of activity clearly crosses the line from being protest to a direct attack. While the groups volunteers in the hive might want to characterize this sort of activity as being 'direct action' in a context of protest, it stands in contrast to other groups who engage in acts of civil disobedience. I don't think I've read about any instances where people have sought out to personally attack a press secretary. This is a person whose role is to be a messenger after all.

While on an emotional level the idea of Mr. Manning enjoying serious and prolonged discomfort is something I find quite satisfying, on a practical level my concerns are different. I firstly am concerned that even given Assange's expressed prior intent to use whoever came his way to attack the US, that his counsel is not examining those matters explicitly & offering advice that reflects the nature of how his client has been ill used. Secondly, I am concerned that the conditions of Mr. Manning's incarceration, while technically justifiable, are doing more harm than good with public relations. Thirdly, there is the question of protecting DoD & government personnel, given that Mr. Manning seems to be enjoying counsel that can only be described as bordering on being irresponsible press whores, I can't see how it will be all that easy to conduct normal legal business.

[Brett Patron]

At what point are kinetics on the table?

Seems to me that both Morrell or Barnes have a right to self defense, and that, by extension the US Gov't has a duty to vigorously find and defeat this threat. And i don't mean better anti-virus protection.

This is a direct threat to the sovereignty of the US. These hackers constitute a clear and present danger and need to be dealt with rather rapidly and rather aggressively. They are terrorists. No different then Al Qaeda.

But instead, we'll try to "understand" them and deal with them as if they are small time hoods.

:facepalm:

[Cannoneer No. 4]

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?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

At what point are kinetics on the table?

No sooner than Inaugaration Day, 2013, and probably not then. Do you want to give them martyrs?

. . . the US Gov't has a duty to vigorously find and defeat this threat.

But does .gov have the talents, resources and permission to successfully engage and defeat Anonymous? NSA probably does, but what should they quit doing to reprioritize Anonymous to the head of line?

This is a direct threat to the sovereignty of the US. These hackers constitute a clear and present danger and need to be dealt with rather rapidly and rather aggressively. They are terrorists. No different then Al Qaeda.

U. S. sovereignty isn't directly threatened. The PERSEC of a senior civil servant and of a serving Marine are directly threatened. Harrassment is not terrorism. Anonymous is very different from Al Qaeda. Anonymous is not a monolithic, organized organization. Some are bad, some are good, some bad Anons are good some days, mosts Anons are low skilled cannon fodder but some have real skills. Not prudent to ignore them, but not a good idea to make more out of them than they really are.

[anonamatic]

State of Virginia might take some interest.

After they get done making plans for ice sculptures in hell, they might find the time to think about it. They compete with Texas over who can do more executions after all. Between the large amounts of hard core conservatives in the south west of the state, and the large amount of military and government workers in the east and north, I can't think of a less sympathetic constituency.

I think that they would probably openly snicker at anyone suggesting that they do as much, not to mention that they have no jurisdiction. Explaining that they have no jurisdiction would be the part where they caved in to expressions of glee I'd bet.

[Brett Patron]

No sooner than Inaugaration Day, 2013, and probably not then. Do you want to give them martyrs?

Yes. Number one qualification for martyrdom is death. That's a good start.

U. S. sovereignty isn't directly threatened. The PERSEC of a senior civil servant and of a serving Marine are directly threatened. Harrassment is not terrorism. Anonymous is very different from Al Qaeda. Anonymous is not a monolithic, organized organization. Some are bad, some are good, some bad Anons are good some days, mosts Anons are low skilled cannon fodder but some have real skills. Not prudent to ignore them, but not a good idea to make more out of them than they really are.

Cannot agree with you here at all. These people are threatened directly because of the work they do at the behest of the Government. The threats and actions against them are in direct response to the exercise of their job. This is classic terroristic action. Cow someone into not doing what they should be doing by direct or indirect threat. Terrorists, however they manifest their evil, should be dealt with harshly and without mercy.

"Anonymous" has to show they are a force for good. I put them in the same category as "moderate Islam". We've heard of it, and people claim they are, but they never seem to have much to say against the bad actors.

If Cyberspace is truly to be treated as a discreet warfighting function, we cannot pussy-foot around with these caveats and differences.

So, Smersh Spionem (Smersh hacker-em?) to folks like this.

[selil]

currently there is no ladder of force that can be applied to cyber space. as a war fighting and law enforcement function you need to identify the threat (specifically) and use only the force necessary to subdue the suspect or adversary (or risk perfidy and prosecutorial issues). as such jumping straight to kinetics (of any type) likely sounds good to pundits but fails the test for actual governance and law enforcement. since there is no ladder of force an incremental policy starting with the least and working up towards a substantial exercise of prejudicial and nation-state power is a more likely course of action. of course there are a lot assumptions as to the group anonymous and their goals and motivations. there is also an under-lying assumption that they are not a state sponsored group. i'm not sure why if you add cyber state-sponsored gets tossed under the bus so quickly.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41972190...ence-security/

“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.”

“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.”

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.

[AdamG]

... on Sunday


Another monkey knife-fight.

(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