Posts Tagged ‘Hacking’

Dan  Riehl

Occupy-Linked Hacker Group Anonymous Releases Survival Guide For Violent Revolution

by Dan Riehl

At the same time hacker group Anonymous was hacking Stratfor Global Intelligence and now a second veterans’ owned website which sells military-inspired merchandise, giving part of their proceeds to charity, they were also circulating what they call “a snapshot of what Anonymous thinks will be useful for your survival in case of a violent revolution in your country.” The 15 page document is available here via Scribd. The excerpt below is the foreword for the document. As website Zerohedge notes, one or two hacks of system critical financial institutions could easily produce widescale chaos, setting the stage for any number of significant events of this nature.

This Guide is for civilians who feel they are about to be caught up in a violent uprising or revolution to overthrow the oppressive government of their country. Although a revolution in favor of the people is a joyful thing when seen from the outside, it can be a bloody mess for those inside it. This guide will give you some basic ideas and tips for how you and your friends/neighbors/family can stay safe in the violent turmoil around you. It is not a ready-made recipe, but it contains general survival tactics and strategies.

Don’t panic, stay cool headed. • Take a break and rest if your body needs to relax, lack of sleep is a major weakening factor. • Avoid consuming mind altering substances like alcohol and drugs. They will cloud yourand act rationally. You are also arming the regime with propaganda that the crowd is made up of a bunch of intoxicated rioters. Don’t allow your movement to be portrayed in an unfavourable light. judgement and ability to think

The document’s index lists the following sections:

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Charles C. Johnson

Will ‘Anonymous’ Hack the Iowa Caucuses?

by Charles C. Johnson

The hacking collective known as Anonymous has allegedly targeted the Iowa caucus’s voting machines.

According to the Associated Press, there are two tools that the “hacktivists” could use to create some chaos. The first is a “denial of service” request, which sends thousands of requests to a website server and makes it useless. The second is a SQL injection, which inserts a code into a website’s software, thereby exploiting its vulnerabilities and forcing it to execute the hacker’s code.

It wouldn’t be the first time that SQL insertions were used to try to rock the vote. In Sweden’s elections in 2010 a voter tried to insert an SQL insertion in the vote by hand-writing. Presumably a hacker could try something similar at the Iowa caucus.

There are other worse examples of SQL insertions being dangerous. In 2010, Washington D.C. conducted a pilot project to allow overseas and military voters to download and return absentee ballots over the website. The city made the system open to the public for only three days, but that was just enough time for J. Alex Halderman, a professor in computer science at the Univesity of Michigan, to expose some of the systems flaws. Within 36 hours of the system going live, our team had found and exploited a vulnerability that gave us almost total control of the server software, including the ability to change votes and reveal voters’ secret ballots,” Halderman wrote.

Alas, were such an attack carried out in the Iowa caucus, it wouldn’t be the first time an SQL inserted caused great harm. The Royal Navy’s website was attacked in that manner by a Romanian hacker.

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Liberty Chick

Judge Clears Way for Sodexo to Present Evidence of Extortion in RICO Suit Against SEIU

by Liberty Chick

You may recall that Sodexo slapped the SEIU with a RICO suit in March, citing the labor union’s “blackmail, vandalism, trespass, harassment, and lobbying law violations designed to steer business away from Sodexo USA and harm the company.”  SEIU had filed a motion to dismiss the suit, but according to a press release just issued,  a United States District Judge has denied the SEIU’s motion and ruled that Sodexo’s case can proceed.

“The court has validated our decision to file this lawsuit using the federal racketeering statute,” said Sodexo General Counsel Robert Stern. “This ruling clears the path to discovery and trial, allowing us to present evidence the SEIU has conspired to extort Sodexo by threatening financial damage unless we cave in to its demands. The SEIU’s campaign was designed to illegally threaten our company. We will continue to challenge the SEIU’s illegal behavior until it ends.”

The food services corporation has accused the SEIU of engaging in nefarious activities intended to harm the company, some of which include:

  • Hacking into a Sodexo education website, in knowing violation of federal computer crime laws, and posting a link to one of the union’s own websites where malicious and disparaging claims were made about Sodexo
  • Infiltrating, under false pretenses, a prestigious medical conference and throwing plastic roaches onto the food being served by Sodexo
  • Falsely claiming that the Company’s food production plants have “rodent problems” and scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold, flies and maggots, and that Sodexo provided linens contaminated with the “remnants of someone else’s hospital waste”
  • Harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing

The complaint also describes, among many other things, activities that are similar to other instances of the SEIU’s exploitation of college students to manufacture outrage against Sodexo and opposition to the company’s food services on campus.

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Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL)

Weiner Incident Calls Attention to Cyber Security

by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL)

The claim by Rep. Anthony Weiner that his Twitter account was “hacked” raises serious concerns on the security of the computer systems and smart phones used by members of Congress. If elected officials are subject to hacking, then how secure are systems in the federal government, especially in the security agencies?

There is an obligation for Rep. Weiner to enable the delineation of what happened and how it happened so that we can enhance our cyber security. At the very least, he should have informed the House Information Resources division of this breach for investigation.

We need to recognize the seriousness of online crimes. Identity theft is the fastest growing type of fraud in our nation, and the Federal Trade Commission estimates that identity theft costs consumers $50 billion a year. Yet, this goes far beyond a crime against consumers.

Our nation is reliant upon a digital infrastructure that supports our economy, national security, and public safety. It is clear that this digital infrastructure is not completely secure.

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Publius

Weinergate: Private Investigation Will Not Do

by Publius

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s comments today and yesterday raise new questions, and emphasize the urgent need for a full, official, and independent investigation of the allegation that one or more of his account(s) were “hacked.”

A new theory suggests that it would have been possible for someone with Weiner’s private yfrog email address to send a picture to that address which would then appear on his Twitter feed as if Weiner himself had sent it.

That means someone other than Weiner, who had “hacked” or otherwise obtained his yfrog email address, could have “pranked” him.

Yet the same result would have occurred if Weiner had emailed an image to his own yfrog account, and only would have occurred once he had authorized yfrog to use his Twitter account. Weiner appears to have had no knowledge or understanding of the yfrog feature.

The yfrog feature, in other words, proves nothing–it only suggests that Weiner could have been both “hacked” and “pranked.” And again, he could simply have sent the link to the offending yfrog image himself, from his mobile device or another source. The conflicting theories cry out for investigation.

Weiner said today that he did not send the photograph, and that a reference to Seattle in one of his tweets was a “terrible coincidence.” We are prepared to take him at his word. Yet he repeated his initial claim that his account had been “hacked”–an allegation that calls for an official, not a private, investigation.

And even if we assume everything Weiner has said is true, he still has not given a clear or credible answer about whether the image is of him; he has not explained why other images were deleted from his yfrog account; and he insists on an internal investigation that will report to him alone.

Hacking into private accounts, impersonating a federal elected official, and deleting evidence that may be subject to federal investigation are each criminal offenses. Failure to report suspected cybercrime is also a breach of House of Representatives rules.

The American people deserve to know whether these violations, having been alleged or described, actually occurred.

Mike Flynn

End this Now: Rep. Weiner Should Demand an Investigation this Afternoon

by Mike Flynn

MSNBC is reporting that, this afternoon, Rep. Weiner will offer interviews to two TV Networks. Presumably, he doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday’s disastrous press conference. Also, presumably, he’s realized that he can’t simply “choose” to not talk about this incident. So, maybe, having exhausted all other options, he has simply decided to answer the questions directly.

There really aren’t that many that need answering. In the interest of being helpful, I’ve put together my own list of nagging questions:

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Andrew Breitbart

Security Expert: The FBI Needs to Investigate WeinerGate

by Andrew Breitbart

In conducting our investigation, we reached out to many legal, computer and security experts. One of these experts was Hemanshu Niagm, a former US DOJ prosecutor against computer crimes and online crimes against children and, from 2006-2010, Chief Security Office for MySpace and NewsCorp. When asked about WeinerGate, Mr. Niagm responded:

I was looking at the articles related to Congressman Weiner’s Twitter issue and found a few things that seem ‘off.

If this were an unauthorized access to Congressman Weiner’s Twitter account, more likely it was someone who had ‘phished’ Congressman Weiner’s account rather than hacked into it. In other words, someone had convinced Weiner to give up his username and password to Twitter. If true, the good thing is that Twitter keeps a running log of every account access made to a particular account and what time and date it was made and from where it was made – the IP address. This information can be obtained in a very simple police/FBI investigation and provide the answer to who did this ‘phishing’. Hack means someone actually broke Twitter’s many layered security defenses and got into this particular Congressman’s account – a very unlikely scenario. Either way, the perpetrator would have committed a few federal crimes that are relatively easy to investigate even if this was done via phishing.

The other thing that seems off is that the Congressman can easily and should refer that matter to the FBI who has the capability to conduct such an investigation and has the jurisdiction to do it. When crimes against federal officials are committed, this is standard practice and one followed many times by others in similar situations.

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Dan  Riehl

Twitter/Adam Sharp (D): Verified Account Status Bogus Marketing Ploy?

by Dan Riehl

Twitter has been successful in drawing a great number of eyeballs to its application with the use of a so called verified account status. It allows the average person to track, address and even interact with what one might call celebrities in various areas of life. Unfortunately, given Democrat and Twitter official Adam Sharp’s, lack of response to accusations that another prominent Democrat’s verified account was hacked – without a blip in its verified status – one might just as readily conclude that Twitter has no genuine safeguards in place whatsoever to ensure that a verified account is truly representative of the individual it’s claimed to be for every tweet, as has previously been widely presumed.

As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on individual user accounts, for privacy reasons.

I label Twitter representative Adam Sharp a Democrat given his years of work for Senator Mary Landrieu – pointed out in a January 2009 press release.

Allen succeeds Adam Sharp, who joined the Landrieu office in June 2004 as Deputy Communications Director and has led the communications team since being named Communications Director in 2005 and Deputy Chief of Staff in early 2008.

It’s understandable, perhaps, that Sharp might be reluctant to say anything that might damage another high-profile Democrat like Weiner; however, one would think his guiding allegiance today would be his role as an official Twitter spokesperson.

As he seems so unwilling to discuss a now much publicized hacking incident involving a Twitter verified account, what are people to think?

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Publius

WeinerGate: CNN Reports Congressman Not Answering Basic Questions

by Publius

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) spoke to the press today to tell them that he would no longer be speaking to the press about his claim that his Twitter account was hacked.

Jim Hoft

REWARD OFFERED For Arrest and Conviction of Weinergate Hacker

by Jim Hoft

Enough Is Enough.

On Friday night a a photo surfaced on Congressman Weiner’s yfrog account and in his verified Twitter timeline of a man in tight underwear with a bulging erection. The photo was sent to one of the many young attractive coeds who Rep. Weiner “follows” on Twitter for his news and entertainment. The image was immediately deleted. Rep. Weiner claimed his account was hacked but the upstanding Congressman has not contacted the FBI or Capitol Police. However, he did lawyer up.

Help bring the Weinergate hacker to justice.

What you can do to help:
The humble Rep. Weiner may want to play down this criminal action but now you can help. We (Gateway Pundit Truth Alliance) are offering a $200 reward for anyone who offers information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the Weinergate penis hacker.

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Dan  Riehl

Weinergate: Why Would Rep Weiner Care What Time It Was In Seattle?

by Dan Riehl

Given the current mystery surrounding Weinergate, there’s an interesting Tweet that (as of this writing) still remains in Rep. Weiner’s Tweet stream. While we’ve gone to some length to protect the identity of the woman involved, we have confirmed and can document, if need be, that she hails from Seattle, Washington. So the question is, why would Weiner be mindful of the time in Seattle (see the hashtag below) hours before the time he now claims his Facebook account was hacked by someone who then sent an explicit image via Twitter to … a woman in Seattle?

Here’s s a transcript of the Tweet in question:

Heading to 30 Rock to chat with Rachel at 9. #Thats545InSeattleIThink
about 17 hours ago via TweetDeck
Retweeted by 18 people

In fact, the Seattle woman in question who later received the explicit image — and who is now being identified at other sites, actually re-tweeted Rep. Weiner’s tweet: Below is a (redacted) screenshot of her retweet:

Because Twitter timestamps show the actual time in which you’re viewing or screen-grabbing, below is a reconstruction using Weiner’s “Seattle-time Tweet” as our starting point. So, Weiner Tweets that he will be on with Rachel Maddow and uses a hashtag (#Thats545InSeattleIThink) to specifically point out what time his appearance will broadcast in Seattle, where the later recipient of the explicit photo apparently resides. Then, nine minutes after that, Weiner Tweets:

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