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US cyber-security on the offensive


dieseltaylor

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The activities of Anonymous have embarrassed and frightened those with things to hide, and those who attacked Wikileaks. So:

Cyberactivists warned of arrest

By Joseph Menn in San Francisco

Published: February 4 2011 23:23 | Last updated: February 5 2011 00:40

An international investigation into cyberactivists who attacked businesses hostile to WikiLeaks is likely to yield arrests of senior members of the group after they left clues to their real identities on Facebook and in other electronic communications, it is claimed. Supporters of the internet group – known as Anonymous, which gained wide attention after it co-ordinated attacks that crashed the websites of some businesses that had broken ties with WikiLeaks – have continued to ambush high-profile targets, recently forcing government sites in Egypt and Tunisia to close.

LEADING to

‘Hacktivists’ retaliate against security expert

By Joseph Menn in San Francisco

Published: February 7 2011 22:53 | Last updated: February 7 2011 22:53

The cyber-activist group Anonymous reacted quickly over the weekend to infiltration by a US security analyst, hacking into his personal online accounts and computers and distributing thousands of e-mails and other documents. The attack embarrassed researcher Aaron Barr, head of HBGary Federal, a contractor for US intelligence and other government agencies, while demonstrating that Anonymous has considerable technical abilities.

However the full version is much more interesting, and even amusing. It is worth reading the full article about what this companies are into - gathering information against perceived opponents of their clients.

Shortly after the overreaching CEO of Sacramento's so-called cybersecurity outfit, HBGary Federal, assembled an online attack plan against pro-Wikileaks supporters like Salon journalist Glenn Greenwald and prematurely bragged about "pwning" the upstart hacker collective Anonymous privately to his employees and publicly to the Financial Times, Anonymous quickly retaliated by raiding his drives, releasing 40,000 HBGary Federal emails, remotely wiping his iPad and engendering a scathing public disconnection from those who have known and employed him. Evidently, if you **** with the Internet bull, you still get the real-time horns.

http://www.alternet.org/story/149943/%27anonymous%27_hacker_group_teaches_shady_cyber-security_companies_a_lesson_they%27ll_never_forget_?page=entire

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Right - so he didn't steal anything, didn't actually break any laws anyone can clearly identify, didn't release anything actually particularly sensitive, and you think he should be executed?

I guess that makes you another unthinking nutjob along with all the other unthinking nutjobs -some call them zealots, some call them fundamentalists, but I reckon unthinking nutjob is more descriptive.

They come in all colours - islamists, zionists, christians, fascists, communists, republicans, democrats, socialists, greens, anti-whale, pro-whale....

the only thing they have in common is they have given up using their higher mental functions and just parrot what someone else has told them is "the truth".

I wonder if you like being in that company?

I suspect you don't actualy think about it! :rolleyes:

However if any injustice system does actually execute Assange that would meet my definition of a cyber-war.......

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Well I am quite thinking. The way I see it is this:

1. Information released by him is being used to help our enemy...this is the definition of treason, however, I grant that he is not an American, so he would not be a traitor.

2. Myself, as well as men under my command, are usually the people who pay the price when the REAL nut jobs(ie. Assange, and like thinking people) decide that information security is not needed, that all government secrets are meant to be published to the world, etc. The fact that a person not legally able to possess state secrets ( I guarantee he has no security clearance) is in possession of said state secrets, is itself an act of espionage. The fact he publishes and allows others to publish said state secrets, shows a hostile intent on his part to the security of the US. The soldier who provided most of the latest cache, hopefully already will be severely punished. The person he provided the documents to, also should be.

That said however, while I would personally love to see him fry, the espionage charge unfortunately does not normally provide for that, although there was a time when western cultures were not so meek in that regard, and eastern culture still uses it as punishment.

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As some examples..

http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/cbs-news-lies-about-bush/ CBS news admitting they lied..

http://www.search-engine.com/archives/08-20-2009-guns-msnbc-lies-about-racists-with-guns.php MSNBC lying to pad a story about white racists..

There are thousands of examples, take some time to look them up before you blame only one of the media outlets.

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Right - yuo want him shot for treason even though yuo know well and full that he cannot possibly be guilty of it, and you want him shot for espionage even tho the max penalty is 10 years.

Here's your US statute on espionage.

Apparently supreme Court case law on 1st amendment rights makes it complicated to get a conviction on that too. and there's also the case of the Israeli spies who had their charges dropped in 2009.

Like I said - you have laid aside your cognitive resources.

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Well, it was myself who said that he was not a traitor, since he is not a US citizen.

During war, espionage takes a much more serious form as lives really are lost due to it. In war, countries have every right to punish accordingly.

There have also been espionage agents executed in US history, though none since the cold war.

My feeling(emotion) due to the fact that I know lives, even including mine, are risked due to his desire to open up secrets, does probably cloud my better judgment though, I will give you that.

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We haven't "always been at war with Eastasia" seems my first war was actually defending one Eastasian nation that had been invaded by another...so, Ok, technically we were at war with "Eastasia" but we were also in the same war, defending "Eastasia" from aggression, so to be intellectually honest, you should include that part.

As for your replies about war on poverty, war on abstract ideas...those are discussions you as a civilian are welcome to argue over the nuance of Utopic ideas. My career doesn't forgive the person living in an alternate world however, so the war I am talking about is WAR, not "oh lets 'fight terrorism' " or "we declare war on poverty'' spoken from sage desks thousands of miles from threat of harm. MY war has been on the streets, defending people who want to just live, from people who want to deny them that right.

Most of the people who want to deny them that right, are found on the side Assange, and others seem to claim for themselves. That is my problem with him. When al Qaeda trumpets him as a good person, I look at that, and see them, and realize anyone they think is a good person, is someone I prefer not to be near me.

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As for your replies about war on poverty, war on abstract ideas...those are discussions you as a civilian are welcome to argue over the nuance of Utopic ideas.

My my, how wrong can you possibly be?

I am talking about is WAR

Nah, you're talking about conflict. In the context of this thread, 'war' has a very specific meaning, which I'm astonished you're ignorant of.

Most of the people who want to deny them that right, are found on the side Assange

Clearly you have no freaking clue of the purpose of wikileaks.

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Again, a civilian, which I would bet my life, you are, trying to make a difference between conflict and war, is laughable. The difference is for those people sitting in those desks I mentioned, with no clue how it works in the field.

As for wikifreaks, I know it's stated purpose. However, I can build a bomb, invite some terrorists over to see it, tell them they can borrow it, state to the world that my purpose is only to have "better relations" with said terrorist scumbags, but I am still responsible if they blow it up.

For the record, regardless of legal definition, "WAR" is when you are being shot at. Try it some time, it changes your world view and gives you a much more enlightened one.

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Well, it was myself who said that he was not a traitor, since he is not a US citizen.

and it was me who noted it.

During war, espionage takes a much more serious form as lives really are lost due to it. In war, countries have every right to punish accordingly.

the US legislation I linked to was passed in 1917, during WW1, it had a 10 year penalty then, it had a 10 year penaltythrough WW2, and it has a 10 year penalty now.

There have also been espionage agents executed in US history, though none since the cold war.

That would under Ch 794, which you can read here - which only applies in very limited circumstances.

The powers that be have decided that he cannot be charged under that, and have indicated that 793 is the one they are looking at, which carries a maximum of 10 years.

other forms of espionage carry maximum sentences of as little as 1 year (check almost every oteh chapter)

My feeling(emotion) due to the fact that I know lives, even including mine, are risked due to his desire to open up secrets, does probably cloud my better judgment though, I will give you that.

Your lives were put at risk by this guy a decade or more ago!

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Oh...trust me, I hope there is a special place in hell for that guy also.But that guy is not risking our lives now, while ASSange is trying to do everything he can to whip into a frenzy the Radical Islamic groups, which puts our lives in danger NOW, we already passed through the Iraq danger, so nothing to worry about over it now.

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