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Anonymous Now Attacking Corporate Fax Machines
An anonymous reader writes "Anonymous has claimed responsibility for distributed denial of service attacks against several anti-WikiLeaks websites this month. In a novel twist to the campaign, Mission Leakflood has started a new DDoS attack against fax numbers belonging to Amazon, MasterCard, Moneybookers, PayPal, Visa and Tableau Software. Some numbers have already stopped responding, and Twitter and PostFinance have since been added to the target list."
I love how all these "Anonymous" noobs are basically reporting themselves to the authorities by running Denial of Service attacks from their home computer.
"Sorry, the FBI took all our computers dad. I was doing some 1337 hacking for 'Anonymous'"
It looks like the "hacktivist" (better known to me as "vandals") are going backwards in time. Maybe they finally recruited someone older than 12?
I get this feeling that this is mostly a prank to weed out the kids, if even to amuse (or protect) the ones that know what they're doing.
First, DDoS app used by masses of kids that don't know how to obscure who they are. Now wardialing fax machines? Not only are they more easily traced, but there are very specific laws about it (at least in the US) that have been around forever. No grey area here... people are going to find themselves in trouble. :(
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and FCC rules generally prohibit most unsolicited fax advertisements. In addition, the Junk Fax Prevention Act, passed by Congress in 2005, directs the FCC to amend its rules adopted pursuant to the TCPA regarding fax advertising.
I wouldn't assume this is simple wardialing. There are a great many sip servers on the internet now with PSTN access. It could just as easily be someone's list of compromised sip boxen doing this.
Bonus points due to the fact that UDP is stateless and with the right timing, its possible (but less accurate) to wardial bad faxes spoofed perfectly anonymously assuming you know the credentials are valid.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
That defense may actually work if your computer is actually part of a botnet. Otherwise, you will likely find yourself learning more about computer forensics and perjury laws. No, your not going to just be able to lie to the FBI about your computer and get away with it.
The police / FBI may have a little trouble with 'the botnet defense' when they discover that your computer is not actually controlled by a botnet. Or is your computer under botnet control?
For those naive enough to take 'the botnet defense' seriously:
If the police are talking to you, you have already lost
The kind of lawyers that can actually get you off cost alot of money
Lying to the police is easier in theory than in practice
Your best defense against the police is silence. Just shut your mouth and get a lawyer.
"They can't arrest us all"
No, but they can log all of our IP addresses and arrest whoever they want. They can't arrest every drug user, but that doesn't stop them from filling the prisons with them. If you want to stay out of trouble, you should do your best to make yourself a small target.
These large companies probably don't even have real fax machines. All a black-page fax would do is put a black-page PDF in some inbox or file share somewhere.
Assuming myfax is "the bad guys", then yes.
Otherwise, you've managed to destroy an innocent company.
Go team!
This is a million geeks saying I AM ANONYMOUS just like the guys saying I AM SPARTACUS in that old movie.
You do know how that ended, right?