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Hackers: Uncle Sam Wants You!
scraemondaemon writes: "A new TV public service announcement targets U.S. computer hacktivists with a blunt message: Uncle Sam wants you to help fight the war on terrorism. They demonize you and criminalize you and then ask for your help. What's a hacker to do?"
The largest part of the campaign actually seems to not be so much that they want your help, but that they want to politely ask you to not go an muck stuff up that you shouldn't...
Plus the Marines, Navy and Army have never to my knowledge demonized hackers, I believe that was all the DOJ's doing.
It's not so much that they're asking for help... more like "If you're going to spraypaint stuff, at least come to us, and we'll put you to work on a mural or something."
The write-up made it sound like Uncle Sam was putting together a crack commando unit of hackers.
Didn't they just bring up a bill that would consider hacking as terrorism? Do any of these people talk to each other?
Hackers are 'Terrorists' Under Ashcroft's New Act
-TheStruuus
I hope that screamondaemon is aware that the CEO of WorldCom isn't exactly representative of the US Government. The spot sounds to me like a bunch of network owners (those who have the most to lose from even friendly hacking) utilizing the national situation to further their own anti-hacking ends. "Please mister hacker, secure my system for free -- we all have to unite against terrorists after all."
On the other hand, I don't exaactly think that a bunch of vigilante crackers is going to do more good than harm, so I'm not really against the message of the ad.
The bin Laden family is rich and large - at least 53 members in the business.
Do you have a black sheep to your family? I do, but he drives fast cars, smokes cigars, and lives alone. He isn't a rich raving lunatic with a chip on his shoulder.
Is the rest of the bin Laden family necessarily guilty? Perhaps you've been watching too much of the Sopranos.
- passion
Actually, that tactic is often used to serve warrants. Not sure if it's ever been used to arrest people.
On topic, however, note that they don't appear to ask you to "come forward", they just ask you to not screw up the Net in retalitory attacks.
Oh, and finally, do you know that the bank in question has accounts owned by Osama bin Laden, or merely by the bin Laden family? The bin Laden family disowned Osama nearly a decade ago, froze most of his funds, and have done a great deal of good work, both in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Including a Israeli-Palestinian student exchange program to try and reduce misunderstandings and violence in Israel.
Did you read the linked article?
A new TV public service announcement targets U.S. computer hacktivists with a blunt message: Uncle Sam wants you to help fight the war on terrorism.
But the spot, which organizers hope to begin airing nationwide next week on major networks, will warn that misguided patriotic efforts from software experts can hurt the cause.
"Computer attacks and hate speech do not contribute in any constructive way to dealing with the many problems our global civilization faces," said WorldCom senior vice president Vinton Cerf, who is scheduled to appear in the televised announcement.
In other words, they want hackers to help by not hacking.
'Same speed C but faster'
As in 'crossing the'. It's a river in Italy. Look it up.
When Homer went to college, his 3 roomates changed his grades by hacking into the school computers.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
You've never been in the military I take it? Let me fill you in. It don't mean squat what you know when you go in. Yes you could get lucky and they make use of your computer skills, but I've seen plenty of people with technical skills get plopped right in the infantry. I've even seen people sign up for technical training, receive it, and THEN get sent to infantry school. When you sign the contract, all they gaurantee you is training in a particular MOS (miltary occupational specialty). It does NOT mean that's how you will be assigned. If combat arms needs bodies, that's where you go. Three years to train a soldier? Where'd you get that from? You go from raw recruit to front line soldier in 12 weeks. And this is in the peacetime military, where the need for combat soldiers is not so great. In a draft situation, you're pretty much gauranteed nice comfy accomodations in a foxhole.
-Jeff
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
http://www.shamalbank.com is hosted at http://www.activeisp.com which appears to have the colo in London but the HQ addy on the contact page is in San Jose. Considering that Shamal Bank looks like a static site only, they're prolly on a shared host. I would highly recommend not attempting to take this box out, since you could be facing a number of criminal charges from both US and European companies. Besides activeisp.com is prolly pretty innocent. Shamal Bank's website was done by http://www.sudanshop.co.uk who also hosts at activeisp.com (on a different box -- merkur vs. neptun). If anyone wants to go figure out how many domains are pointing to these boxes, it would be nice to know how many lawsuits the motivated, self starter will be facing.
On the bright side though, this is most definately a W2K box as that is what activeisp seems to be pushing, so breaking in should be really easy.
Again, use your own time and tools to figure this info out for sure.... I can't be bothered right now.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
It may not be much but the FBI is offering up to 138K for qualified IT pros. I sent in my resume. Even willing to leave my operations job with one of Pepsico's major Competitors (not coke). Gotta do my part.
P.S. NSA is also hiring, but the CIA doesn't want IT people. I didn't want to be a spook anyways.
The government has been known to do turnabouts. Just ask Osama Bin Laden.
I rejoice that there are owls.
The CyberAngels are a branch of the ever-popular Guardian Angels vigilante group. When they formed, sometime around 1996-ish, they attracted a lot of attention because they drew a lot of concerns about individual's rights online and free speech. I don't remember exactly what the problem was, but for a long time they had a bad name with free speech supporters. I though they'd fizzled out and disappeared. But I guess not. A search through old EFF newsletters or something similar should turn up some info.
It they were hiring at the NSA or FBI it would be far more attractive. They could use some new blood from what they *say*. Joining a semi-approved vigilante organization is different. The alphabet agencies are somewhat well known for using and discarding people with plausible deniability, like Noreiga for example.
It's all whether they are really looking for people to protect the Internet, or to help them with the Big Brother program. Some of the provisions of the ATA are nonsensical -- they help the terrorists more than us. They are all very nifty domestic surveillance measures however. So I'm not following any leaders until this measure is finalized. If you want to protect the Internet what could be better, for now, than protecting your own systems?
The ATA makes it life in prison without chance for parole for defacing a web site. While I agree that action is illegal, I am not in favor of paying taxes to support the script-kiddies for life.
If you'd like to help them decide here's a petitition getting broad bipartisan support.
In Defense Of Freedom
At least, I hope it was a joke. There is nothing to attack in Afghanistan.. The Taliban banned the internet a while back because it permitted access to "immoral content". Afghanistan doesn't have an information infrastructure, much less one that connects to the big wide world.
Check out the .af domain sometime. Totally barren. That's what makes this whole thing so ridiculous.
This
They ask hackers to help them.
But they don't say how.
For all we know maybe they just want to test biological weapons on us.
From the article:
"Cyberangels hopes to enlist politically motivated hackers instead to help with online intelligence gathering, such as tracking down computer criminals who attempt to attack the Internet infrastructure, said Aftab.
The organization is also seeking information on any terrorist groups that may have attempted to commission computer security experts to aid them, she said."
Seems pretty clear to me. Contact the cyberangels and offer your services if you believe you can help gather intelligence, or give them ayn info you may have on terrorists attemptimg to commission security experts.
It looks to me like they have contact info on their website
Stupid like a fox!
Exclusive: Crackers Prepare Retaliation for Tues. Terrorist Attacksl ?d ocid=3030000000002974
www.govtech.net/news/features/news_feature.phtm
(take out the extra space between d and o)
Crackers Prepare Retaliation for Tues. Terrorist Attacks
www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170117.html
These stories from last week are probably what brought about this PSA.
As others have pointed out, the U.S. government is not advocating cracker attacks; it's "Cyberangels."
How come when the "major media" get stuff wrong, it's due to pro-corporate bias and part of an evil conspiracy, but when michael or someone else on Slashdot publishes falsehoods, it's an honest mistake?
Which is it?
And you just got laid (heh heh) off from a .com or whatever you call it (www.rulespace.com) and just graduated from college you sign up :).
Hmmm...you've got a few statements wrong.
America isn't currrently producing nuclear and (if we believe our government, at least) toxic weapons.
America hasn't produced landmines in years.
Now, as for the part about working out *why* the events happened, I think our responses to date have shown an effort to figure out *why* the events happened. We're not going to carpet bomb Afghanistan (I think and hope...again, if we are to believe our leaders). We're going to do something that is more effective against the terrorists in a manner that will minimize the likelyhood of future terrorist attacks. That likely means toppling the Taliban, and supporting a secular government in its place, following up with tons of humanitarian aid. This sounds to me like the US is beginning to understand the threat, and what drives this threat.
I, quite frankly, am totally surprised. I have been pretty strongly anti-Bush until this conflict. Even now, I'd say I'm more pro-Powell than anything. But I have been thoroughly impressed with our government's handling of this situation.
As an American in the UK, let me say how amazed I have been at the compassion and solidarity shown by the Brits in this crisis. There are a few people that have been rather offensive. And a few more that criticized our certain heavy hand in the early days, only to turn around and criticize our lack of response now. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, I guess.
Oh well. I'm just sitting here hoping this isn't the beginning of WWIII. Cheers, and peace!
--Be human.
Actually I was wondering where all the euro's had gone lately. I think silly ass chest pounding in uninteresting. I'm a long, long, long, way from a pacifist. As a matter of fact I'm a fairly brutal asshole when it comes to people who go after me and mine.
This does not mean I can just turn off my brain and quit thinking. Israeli's are crazy, they've been driven crazy by terrorism and do crazy things. The difference between them and us is that at least they know what they have done. They understand the causes and the issues. If you really believe we've only used military force against civilians once (I don't even know what you could be referring to) then you obviously don't keep in touch with reality.
I've got a friend in the 101st airborne who just got back from tours in Columbia and Korea. He was showing me his souvenier pics which included him standing over all kinds of different bodies with handwritten signs that said "11th confirmed kill" or whatever the number that it happened to be and the date. He knows damn well that there is no way to draw a line and come up with "that is a rebel" and "that is a civilian". He and I might disagree about foreign policy but we both understood the reality.
That's just one example that I can come up with where the U.S. military is killing civilians as we speak. That doesn't count the regimes that we give military aid to and tacit support.
Just want to correct the false statement. Soviet Union did not "invade" Afganistan. They went there to stop the civil war and restore the communist government. And where did you get the information that Soviet Union wanted to invade Saudi Arabia?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Hah! That's true only insofar as the bases in Saudi Arabia were built for the purpose of attacking Iraq in the Gulf War, which chronologically was after Soviet Union had moved into Afganistan. It was also after Soviet Union had moved out :-) By no means was it a result of the war in Afganistan.
This is exactly what pissed off Osama bin Laden, BTW -- the presence of US troops in the holy land and their continued attacks on Iraq.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
The rest of the bin Laden family wants absolutely nothing to do with Osama. They disowned him years ago and took away what they could of his money. Osama bin Laden:Islam::David Koresh:Christianity. The bin Laden family is actually a respectible family who have done a lot of good, they just have one wacko cousin who gives them all a bad name.
They have actually returned to Saudi Arabia in fear of vigilantism against them. Probably a smart idea, even though they have and want nothing to do with Osama.