Tweet
From the Guardian, Saturday 26 January 2013 11.48 EST:
By late Saturday morning, the USSC website was offline, but cached versions could be found where the message appeared.
Anonymous, which has been the target of numerous arrests and FBI probes, has taken a relatively high profile in several cases recently. In the small Ohio town of Steubenville, which has been rocked by rape allegations against several high school football players, the group has organised protests and posted evidence it says shows evidence of a cover-up of the alleged crimes.
Anonymous is a loosely defined collective of so-called hacktivists who oppose attempts to limit internet freedoms. It has suffered from some high-profile arrests after attempts in recent years to attack major corporate government websites.
Swartz and Anonymous have been firm advocates of open access to information and open-source programming. At a memorial service for Swartz last weekend, several of his supporters called for those who were attempting to prosecute him to be held accountable for their actions.
Swartz had faced a possible jail sentence of 30 years, though it has since emerged he was also offered a plea deal of six months. Officials involved in prosecuting the case have insisted they did not over-reach in their aggressive pursuit of Swartz but have faced a storm of criticism for their behaviour.
The text from the youtube video page:
Published on Jan 26, 2013
USSC.GOV HACKED!!! — This time there will be Change or there will be Chaos.
#WarHead1 — Download Encrypted Files
pastebin.com/d2nvt263 — READ THIS!!!
Create a Video Response — Tell the US Government how you feel.
Http://goo.gl/PUDDZ — Spread this Video to anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow
http://www.youtu.be/_bAMgFt9z4Q — Reason
pastebin.com/d2nvt263 — READ THIS!!!
http://goo.gl/tv55L — Join #OpLastResort-TwitterStorm and Help Finish Aarons Work
(Also, Report spam about “Real Warheads” to IRC for removal)
pastebin.com/d2nvt263 — Download & Mirror some encrypted #WarHead1 files.
Knowledge is Free.
The Corrupt Fear us.
The Honest Support us.
The Heroic Join us.
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not Forgive.
We do not Forget.
Expect us.
A comment under the video reads:
Gabrielregalado2 27 minutes ago
“He didnt commit suicide you noob, according to wikileaks, he was one of their informants, thats why he got killed.
Dont eat all the shit the government puts on your plate”
?????
Also at the Guardian:
Anonymous hackers jailed for cyber attacks
Two men jailed for carrying out cyber attacks, including one online assault that cost payments giant PayPal at least £3.5m.
I confess ignorance about any and all of this; if you have questions, it’s a guarantee I won’t have answers. You may, so help us out if you can.
36 Comments
Interesting and somewhat related:
AJE (Al Jazeera English) aired a show yesterday about cyber vulnerability:
Mainly about how the current Password system allows hacking that the US considers acts of war, but that the system could be easily fixed, removing the possibility that a cyber attack could be considered an act of war.
Stealth rec’d because I am on my way out the door. But this is very intriguing and I want to know more, I shall return. Expect me.
? Perhaps an enigma wrapped in a conundrum inside a ‘Gotcha!’?
Odd-bodkins, normanb, if I’m reading you (them) right.
‘Expect me‘; LOL! We will, Miz Firecracker!
“Don’t eat all the shit the government puts on your plate.”
Why the question marks, Wendy? I thought that was pretty clear, as in “Don’t believe all of the rulers’ propaganda.”
The commenter flat out said that Swartz was an informant, as in: for the Feds, I assume, and was killed because of it. Doesn’t that fly in the face of all we know?
I admit I don’t get it, Barbarian. Explain?
Did Wikileaks say he was an informant? I don’t get it.
I guess I was trying to say that the US views hacking as war, but could easily switch to a system that couldn’t be hacked, at least not through the same methods; and if that were the case, prosecutors could not spend so much time and money seeking hackers.
So, events like this could force a switch to the new system, or else intentionally leave the computers vulnerable.
RT says Wikileaks acknowledged that Swartz “may have contributed to the organization.” So the commenter is apparently talking about that, not saying that Swartz was a government informant. That makes a lot more sense.
It does, and thank you. ‘Informant’ usually means ‘rat’, no?
But still: ‘…WikiLeaks representative Kristinn Hrafnsson confirmed that the tweets were authentic’, and yet, as is/was apparent Wikileaks protocol:
The disclosure of Swartz’s potential involvement might have been the first time that the organization revealed one of its sources.
A head-scratcher in any event, no? I’d always assumed that was pastebin’s strength: anonymity.
Thanks a lot for the link; I reckon I’ll read it again, and wonder who the hell Kristinn Hrafnsson is, and how/why he knows/assumes the tweets were ‘authentic’. Hmmm.
I took your meaning correctly then, normanb, saying that the Feds may want ‘gotcha’s', but that’s a pretty dangerous game. The G seems way behind on tech/hacking, which is why they agree to not prosecute if busted hacktivists come to work for them.
Those forced blackmail gigs must make ya want to stay home from work, eh?
I thought he meant that Swartz was an informant for Wikileaks, not the government. That would certainly fit in with what I know about him than the other way round. Maybe I misunderstood.
Howling mad justice of the supreme department of reset!
Agree with you, wendy, the use of the word informant is what is confusing here. The term informant, historically, means “working for the Man.”
It’ll be interesting to see what develops further.
rec’d!
LOL! The comment I quoted was in answer to the *first* comment under the video, and he seemed to mean ‘rat’ to me; hence my ???’s. At that point there were two whole comments.
So….I just went back to grab the first comment, and…oh, my goodness, it is crazytown over there. Flame wars, ignorance of Swartz’s history, hatred for Anon everything, misinterpretation of the ‘bombs’. Whoosh; I need a shower; that’s one half hour of my life I’ll never get back.
Er…I gave up finding it as it’s been posted for a couple hours now.
One critique was that the voiceover was more whole cloth than usual, not the constructed-a-few-words-at-a-time we’re used to.
A friend who knows from whereof he speaks says that Anon is literally anyone who can convince us that he/she is…anon. But: the Guardian saw the frozen screens, so… someone at least knew how to hack that far.
I reckon that Wikileaks mirror sites might download the files? I just don’t know how all this works. But the list of demands…can’t see it, but the apparent rage is major.
Nice wordplay, TomThumb. ;o)
Hallo, pasta. I just went and looked at a couple Mirror sites, but they don’t have the video. Dunno if it means anything or not.
Guess we’ll see..or not, lol. I just cruised around the hits on google to see who has it, and at the Washington Times a sign being held by someone in a Guy Fawkes mask says:
The People should not be afraid of the government; the government should be afraid of The People.
Since Occupy was dismantled and the anti-war and enviornmental movements have been neutralized Amonymous is the only agressive radical group that strikes fear and loathing in the Beast. They chose well by targeting intellectual property and secrecy.
The Pirate Party is the wave of the future:
Free access to information is a right.
Yes. Adbusters had one up in which Anon warned Stephen Harper about breaking treaties with the First Nations people with C-45 (on behalf of the Idle No More movement. I went to grab the link, but it’s too many pages back.
The MIT articles, iirc, were being sold, but the authors didn’t even get the money. Greed.
Thanks, wayoutwest.
I am woefully ignorant when it comes to Anonymous but even I noticed that the voiceover was different, much more elaborate and longer than other videos I have watched. And I, too, looked at the comments at Youtube – I wasn’t surprised because Youtube comments often are all over the place, not to mention scary/crazy. Metaphor is not the strong suit of the commenters.
I don’t know is many people realize that a number of Anonymous members are facing long prison terms for their brave actions. They seem to be learning from thir loses to infiltration by the FBI and are becoming stronger and more secure.
These are devoted Radicals who understand that there is no compromise with the Beast and that it must be destroyed or it will consume us all.
The GF masks are a nice touch of theater which has been missing from activism lately.
‘Metaphor is not the strong suit of the commenters’, lol! Whoosh; got that right! Idiots on Parade Loaded for Bear!
Welllll…I found the video up at sites that *may* be more used to Anon videos, but as an utter novice I don’t really know. Some of the commenters announced *they* sure weren’t gonna go to Pastebin to grab the files. Hard to blame anyone, given…everything.
Yes, it was different, but now I wish I could remember the Harper video; it convinced ME, but then I’m pretty credulous. ;o)
This website seems to have some good info and good guesses as to what files they may have copied.
But yes, they are brave. The text seems to indicate that they really are learning how to leave fewer traces they were even there.
This administration means business on ‘Cyber Warfare’ and to them, it’s a great excuse to control it totally. It’s okay if our nation does it to another nation on the enemies list, but…
Added: Is it reasonable to assume, wayoutwest, that if the whole thing is a ‘honey pot sting’ or whatever the term was someone used in the comments under the video, that anyone experienced to know where to hold the files, etc., would know if it’s legitimate?
Rec
Recommended (FDL)
Tweeted
Recommended (FB)
Thanks Wendy.
Thank you, firebagger and welcome, BooRadley. Not much to it, just posted it by way of a public service announcement.
Well, there’s always samizdat. Might just be more user friendly, after all.
Recommended.
Interesting stuff, wendydavis. Thanks for posting.
It looks like Anonymous has ratcheted things up a bit since something more than a DDoS attack or just defacing a website has occurred.
The question now is how will the government respond. The roundups and brute force intimidation will be escalated, I’ll bet.
… @ wd @ comment # 23 remark in/at 3rd paragraph / sentence
Its OK if American Empire and approved agents does / do it…did it or let it be done … but not OK when done by someone / anyone else…
This indeed appears to be the at middle tenet employed / deployed wd …
Fresh from EPUland, do we even know if this Anonymous is THE Anonymous or a false flagger to allow more PTB monkey ratcheting?
(Oops; I didn’t even know this post was still on the Reader Diaries list.)
Dunno is there even IS an official Anonymous, but these folks at ZDnet whose link I posted above seem to know what they’re talking about, and it seems real enough. Some folks tell you which parts of the code to delete in order not to wipe your own files…or something.
Anyone’s guess on any of this is better than mine, nonquixote.
(Oopsie; you’d asked timesthree, sorry.)
Well, dear; it’s a simple matter of Good Guys v. Bad Guys, isn’t it?/s
Fractured Nixon: “If the USA does it, it’s not illegal/immoral.”
(I admit to being haunted by the results of ‘extreme sanctions’ in Iran, and the many people dying for lack of medicines, etc. The ‘What have we become?’ question is not going away anytime soon.)
Yes; it’s cyberwar now, isn’t it, and the government won’t want to lose it.
Ah, here’s what samizdat was; I had to google. The Master and the Margarita was passed this way? How fascinating, juliania, and thanks for widening my horizons.
Oh yes; this just came in on the LUV newsletter:
We’ll have a pretty good idea if and when the contents of those files are released.
But IMO, if it were a false flag operation, the spooks would have scripted something along the lines of a terrorist or foreign government attack and not something that risked escalating the growing dissent over the persecution of Aaron Swartz.
In other words, Something to draw attention to how “unsafe” we are and to get public and political support for expanding the domestic police state as well as more foreign (mis)adventures.