HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr Steps Down

Gunkerty Jeb writes "Embattled CEO Aaron Barr says he is stepping down from his post at HBGary Federal to allow the company to move on after members of the online mischief making group Anonymous hacked into HBGary Federal's computer network and published tens of thousands of company e-mail messages on the Internet. In an interview with Threatpost, Barr said that he is stepping down to allow himself and the company he ran to move on in the wake of the high profile hack."

Comments

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

OWN GOAL?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u88AOoYAOQE

BF Gary

[yoyoq]

oh man , my BFF Gary is stepping down.

owned

[Anonymous Coward]

This will go down in history as an awesome example of the firepower of the fully armed and operational battlestation.

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

A shame they didn't accidentally entire company, though - then the metaphor would fit. This comes across as more of a political assassination.

Re:owned

[spun]

Fully armed and operational, except for the bit that actually aims the weapons. Anonymous might demolish a genuine bad guy, or they might destroy the life of some innocent teenager. Being what it is, Anonymous has only a small chance of evolving into real hacktivism and away from it's "for the lulz" roots. That makes it even more dangerous than most vengeful vigilante groups. I mean, "That teenage girl is a camwhore!" is as much of a motivating battle-cry to Anonymous as "That guy is subverting the law to attack wikileaks." Needless to say, I'm happy this creep got his comeuppance. But I would much rather his downfall were accomplished through the rule of law and not vigilante justice. Still, when real justice is hopelessly corrupt, what else is there?

Re:owned

[ElectricTurtle]

Consequences will never be the same! But no really, even when Anonymous picks on some "innocent nobody" they usually do deserve it in some way. I'd rather a few emo girls and/or fat kids get their feelings hurt if that's the price for having huge shadowy organizations get pwnt.

Re:owned

[spun]

Oh do they now? Classy. Hope you're the next one in the gunsights, dude. You need the perspective.

Re:owned

[guspasho]

This has very little to do with vigilante justice. Anonymous demonstrated how embarrassingly incompetent HBGary is at what it claims to be its area of expertise. The management of any company that is exposed to be so incompetent deserves to be shamed and fired. Not to mention that Aaron Burr was misusing his position to pursue a personal obsession that had nothing to do with the company's goals. That "vigilante justice" has anything to do with it is completely circumstantial and only marginally related to Aaron Burr's incompetence and corruption.

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

But I would much rather his downfall were accomplished through the rule of law and not vigilante justice. Still, when real justice is hopelessly corrupt, what else is there?

.. so Anonymous is Batman? Awsome.

Re:owned

[spun]

How is this not vigilante justice? Anonymous went outside the law to punish someone they see as an evildoer. That is pretty much the definition of vigilante justice.

Re:owned

[gmhowell]

I thought it was the awesome firepower of the LOIC.

Re:owned

[spun]

Last I checked, Batman doesn't beat up fat kids and camwhores.

Re:owned

[nobodylocalhost]

Just put this in perspective here... Let's take track records,

This is what rule of law has accomplished.

This is what rule of law asked these scumbags do

And this is in the plans, not to mention DoJ recommended firms to BoA to do this.

At this point I am wondering where is Thomas Jefferson when we need him now, and you honestly are thinking about the wellbeing of some teenager's personal on-line life? They don't even come close in term of scope! If I have to be a sacrifice for Anon in order to stump out the rampant corruption then so be it! I am Spartacus!

Re:owned

[guspasho]

He wasn't punished, he was shamed, (there's a difference), and he quit of his own volition. That's not vigilante justice.

Re:owned

[definate]

So, to his sweeping comments that they deserve it, you thought "I know, I'll take the high road" and then proceeded to use similar sweeping comments against him.

It was wrong for him to suggest that its okay for the others to get hurt, and you show him hes wrong by hoping that he gets hurt.

Hello Mr. Argument, meet Mr. Self Defeating Proposition, or to put it another way, two wrongs, where the second wrong, is actually just the first wrong repeated, don't make a right.

You just got spun!

Also, in response to the grand parent, you should never sacrifice the individual, in the name of the group or concept, because through this logic, you can rationalize anything. A group or concept is a subjective abstract construction, you may think its objective and tangible, but under rational scrutiny you'll find it isn't. As such, the group/concept could be anything, allowing you a lot of lea way. But this is probably getting a little to philosophical, so I'll end it there.

Re:owned

[newcastlejon]

Quit of his own volition?

Call me cynical, but yeah... right, sure he did.

Re:owned

[miserere nobis]

Well said, but there is another side to be considered, an alternate way to read the remarks. Something like "You should be the first to taste your own medicine," or "Very well, then I hope you have to live by your own rules if you're going to promote them as good for other people to endure" isn't necessarily completely accurately portrayed as "two wrongs make a right". If spun went out and actually brought about such an attack or tried to make one happen, that would be a stronger case for reading it the way you do.

Re:owned

[definate]

Yeah, I got what he meant, but found it was more hypocritical than anything.

Re:owned

[ElectricTurtle]

There was a reason I referenced Jessi Slaughter. Go watch every video you can find of her, then come to me and tell me with a straight face that she didn't deserve it. I mean come on.

Re:owned

[guspasho]

Or forced out by unhappy corporate masters after his corruption and incompetence was exposed to the world. But Anon didn't force him out, and no one is decrying vigilante justice on the part of the corporate masters. AFAIK no one has even suggested he was illegally forced to quit, which is a bare minimum for calling the act vigilante justice. In fact, the standard line when a company owner fires their CEO is that, far from it being illegal punishment, they own the place and it's their God-given right.

To defend Aaron Burr by calling his resignation in disgrace an act of vigilante justice is nothing more than to flak for him. He got what was coming to him, and no one illegally punished him.

Re:owned

[shadowbearer]

Spot. On.

  What I find hilarious about this whole thing is this Media assumption that "Anonymous" is some sort of organized group. What, there aren't a lot of pissed off, unemployed (yet intelligent) people about who have nothing to do but play crusader in front of their computers? (I envy them to the time and resources to do so, I'm busy just working to survive).

  IMO it's the same sort of institutional paranoia that gave the human race wonderful parts of history such as the "cold war" (of which I grew up into) and still seems endemic amongst certain social climber types.

  If that offends any of the corporate fanatical types out there, I'm afraid I have no sympathy for you. Fuck Off.

SB

 

Re:owned

[Runaway1956]

Wait - who "went after" who, first? Didn't Barr start this whole thing? Or, am I just getting senile, and imagining stuff? As I recall, Barr was intent on exposing some of Anonymous' top people - and Anonymous responded by destroying Barr's shoddy-assed network. Punished? No, Barr hasn't even been punished, merely exposed for the fraud that he is. As a Navy man, I would say that Anonymous has Damage Control down pat. Oh - the self appointed vigilante - that might be Barr. After all, he's the guy who was perfectly happy to bend, fold, and mutilate the law in order to go after Julian Assange, and any other high profile targets that might have helped inflate Barr's ego.

Re:owned

[Runaway1956]

Not cynical at all, buddy. If you'll go back, and read the chronology - HBGary Federal was going to be shut down anyway, because they weren't making money or meeting expectations of the parent company. HBG Federal's days were numbered BEFORE this great fiasco. Anonymous may or may not have driven the final nail in the coffin of HBG Federal - but how does that matter? Dead is dead, no matter how many nails are driven into the coffin. And, it all comes back to one thing, really. Barr was trying to sell something that almost no one needed or wanted. Barr is a con man, with nothing of value to sell.

Re:owned

[Narcocide]

Its true she did threaten to make everyone a brain slushy. I mean, COME ON I thought "cola" was inappropriate as a slushy flavor - this is just going too far.

Re:owned

[Narcocide]

A couple nights ago Colbert had a rather amusing segment summarizing the chain of events. I believe a phrase similar to "Hey, look at that hornet's nest; I'm gonna stick my dick in it!" was used. Look it up, you'll laugh. :)

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Spartacus!

Re:owned

[Runaway1956]

Funny stuff - and about as accurate as any other account I've read!

Re:owned

[vertinox]

Anonymous might demolish a genuine bad guy, or they might destroy the life of some innocent teenager.

FFS! People need to stop treating Anon as some organized group.

If a flash mob helped a lady across the street in LA and another lynched a man in New York, would you consider them the same group of people?

Serioiusly, its just like old time lynchings they used to have in the old days when a bunch of people got together and doled out random justice... Often picking the wrong person to extract it on (like the time a bunch of laid of car workers in Detroit killed a Korean man because they were pissed off at Japanese carmakers in the 1980's).

Re:owned

[Undead Waffle]

A couple nights ago Colbert had a rather amusing segment summarizing the chain of events. I believe a phrase similar to "Hey, look at that hornet's nest; I'm gonna stick my dick in it!" was used. Look it up, you'll laugh. :)

I decided to look this up because I missed that episode. It is pretty hilarious. Here is the link.

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to tell me a company's private emails contained text that suggested actions that may be illegal but were never actually used?

As opposed to say Anonymous actually attacking a company, stealing email, and then publishing it?

So actual crime is ok if it reveals some one suggesting a crime. Got it.

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, Batman doesn't beat up fat kids and camwhores.

I was under the impression that what we got in the comics was just the highlights of batman's career. Maybe he does beat up fat kids and camwhores when all of Gotham is quiet.

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

A four digit userid is like posting quads

Re:owned

[pitje]

you're absolutly right. The 13 year old child said some things that are unforgivable, and she deserved everything she got. Where is the world going to these days, when normal people can't just use the internet without being constantly bothered by the rants of a 13 year old girl. There isn't a place on the internet where you can go and not be bothered by the inane things children say.

Re:owned

[tehcyder]

Also, in response to the grand parent, you should never sacrifice the individual, in the name of the group or concept, because through this logic, you can rationalize anything. A group or concept is a subjective abstract construction, you may think its objective and tangible, but under rational scrutiny you'll find it isn't. As such, the group/concept could be anything, allowing you a lot of lea way. But this is probably getting a little to philosophical, so I'll end it there.

What utter crap. If you never sacrificed individuals in the name of a group or concept, you couldn't have laws or rules of any kind, and would have pure anarchy.

We punish murderers for the benefit of society, not the individual murderer.

Re:owned

[tehcyder]

Last I checked, Batman doesn't beat up fat kids and camwhores.

I was under the impression that what we got in the comics was just the highlights of batman's career. Maybe he does beat up fat kids and camwhores when all of Gotham is quiet.

Careful, Batman might sue you. It's not like he's a purely fictional character or anything.

Re:owned

[newcastlejon]

Dead is dead, no matter how many nails are driven into the coffin..

Heh heh. I like that. I may have steal, er, quote and attribute it.

Re:owned

[tehcyder]

Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

Re:owned

[andrea.sartori]

We should punish murderers for the benefit of society, not the individual murderer.
FTFY

Re:owned

[AB3A]

Does anyone wonder why Jefferson was one of the staunch supporters of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution? This is the answer. And no, I'm not speaking of guns in this case, I'm speaking of self defense against evil governance. We have laws against domestic surveillance without a court approved cause. The kind of information gathering that HBG perpetrated against Glenn Greenwald is exactly the reason why such laws exist.

This is actually a very nice example of defensive action by people against a very nasty abuse of power by government.

Re:owned

[spun]

She didn't deserve it. Yes, she's a tool, and a camwhore, but this part is VERY IMPORTANT: she was a thirteen year old girl. You have just exposed yourself as the kind of person who would viciously attack a thirteen year old girl for being, well, a thirteen year old girl. Here's hoping any future employers read these comments, and get a good idea of what kind of person they won't be hiring.

Re:owned

[spun]

Shaming is not illegal, if that were all it were, I would be slightly more sympathetic, but Anonymous broke the law and caused actual monetary damage to this company. The fact that they deserved it is entirely beside the point, unless it can be shown that our legal system is so hopelessly corrupt that we can not achieve justice any other way. Even so, the correct response to that situation is to reform the legal system, not take up vigilantism.

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are saying random people choose random targets... and someone outside these actions put a name to it (when enough numbers are reached)? I have to say, you must not understand "organized".

There are videos on how to "join" Anonymous. There are websites telling how to "join" Anonymous. This "group" is in the news daily now. If there wasn't some type of organization (ie structure), exactly how/what do you join? Perhaps you are confusing a revolving membership with non-organization. Folks that partake in this may come and go, but there is certainly an organization to it.

Re:owned

[ElectricTurtle]

I have a daughter, and if I caught her doing shit like that I wouldn't make a video about how Anonymous 'dun goofed', I'd have her off the internet for quite a while and doing hard labor in the yard.

People need to learn there are consequences, and before you blather about 'where's teh consequences for anonymoose?!?!1!one!' That's not how cause and effect in ethics works. If Dude 1 shoots some innocent person and Dude 2 sees it happen (and believes Dude 1 is still an imminent threat to others etc. etc.) and shoots Dude 1, Dude 2 is not going to be up on murder charges. Dude 2, in fact, will be hailed as a hero. Yeah, Anonymous "visciously attacked" a thirteen year old girl (not, I might add, 'for being a thirteen year old girl' because most girls that age *don't* go around making threat videos, or do you have no context for normal behavior that you think Jessi Slaughter's is typical?), but only after she proved herself to be neurotic imbalanced moron who needed to be taken down a peg. Her parents obviously weren't doing it, that's how she ended up that way. Let me tell you something as a parent: if you don't control your kids behavior, the world will do it for you, and it won't be kind about how it does it.

I'm pretty hard on my daughter, I've said as much to her face, but the thing is my harshness still has a foundation of love. It doesn't begin and end with intent to harm, and bears no malice, but the experience will temper her against the real harms and malices of the larger world. My parents were hard on me in the same way, and it is directly responsible for my success, such as that is.

(And I would wager that if prospective employers read everything you said over a decade on /., you wouldn't get hired either. Luckily the sheer tedium of such a scenario saves both of us, indeed, all of us. For the record, however, fuck that shit.)

Re:owned

[spun]

You are saying that this girls actions were criminal? Her actions are the equivalent of shooting someone? That she deserved the punishment she got? Honestly, you think that this kind of attack will somehow help neurotic, imbalanced people? Anonymous was just acting out of love for her, like a parent? No, you don't really care if Jessi gets better, you want her to suffer.

The thing is, yeah, she should suffer a little, she was an idiot online and she deserves to be called an idiot and made to feel embarrassment. A little. But anonymous doesn't come with an off switch, or a little dial that lets everyone involved know how much pain and suffering the group has meted out. Therefore, everyone thinks they are doing just a little bit, punishing just enough, but the overall effect is far out of proportion to whatever wrongs this thirteen year old may have done.

And THAT is the problem with vigilante justice, it is never proportional to the crime.

Re:owned

[ElectricTurtle]

Do I really have to explain to you what an analogy is? Come on. This isn't your first rodeo, you're grasping at straws.

Anonymous was just acting out of love for her, like a parent?

No, you dunce, since you obviously didn't get it the first time, let me repeat myself: if you don't control your kids behavior, the world will do it for you, and it won't be kind about how it does it.

Parents are supposed to get their kids in line in a loving way before the world does it in an unloving way. Never did I say that Anonymous (of all things!) was acting out of love, and if you're so dense that's what you're taking away just so you can set up some ridiculous strawman, I'm wasting my time writing anything.

yeah and more time with his family

[inkscapee]

and rehab, and the blahblahlblah usual excuses that mean "I don't know the first thing about security, but I have insider connections and can con almost anyone, especially other ignorant stupid CEOs. It's been a wonderful, lucrative experience! God bless, see you all in my new venture, securitized subprime mortgage loans!"

Re:yeah and more time with his family

[Anonymous Coward]

You were modded "Funny" and rightfully so. But the sickening thing is, he WILL get another CEO job because he has experience. Of course, if any of us peons fucked up as bad as he did, we would have been canned, walked out by security, and be struggling to find another job.

Corporate America is so fucking retarded!

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the middle class gets fucked.

Remember kids: go to an Ivy league school, join the best frat, make friends at parties, use those connections to get executive jobs and profit! Oh, and make sure to keep up the old BS American Dream story how "work hard and you too can be rich!"

Look at Facebook jackoff! DO you honestly think he would be where he is if he started FB at Indiana State?!? Fuck no! At Harvard he got noticed by the big shots!

Fck'n A ... Bullshit!

Re:yeah and more time with his family

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, isn't he getting divorced?

Re:yeah and more time with his family

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember kids: go to an Ivy league school, join the best frat, make friends at parties, use those connections to get executive jobs and profit! Oh, and make sure to keep up the old BS American Dream story how "work hard and you too can be rich!"

Hear! Hear!

Gospel, if you don't have connections, your best hope is middle
income and then you'll struggle to keep it.

Speaking of keeping it, keep opinions to yourself, don't disagree
with the corp BS and drink much kool aid.

-@|

Need to focus

[starfishsystems]

“I need to focus on [...] rebuilding my reputation."

Hey, it's never too late to start.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

And nothing of value was lost...

Majorus Cokhup

[tiptone]

Excuse him folks, it's going to be a while before he can get that foot out of his mouth.

Re:Majorus Cokhup

[AndroidCat]

Considering where his head is located, I'm amazed that he could get his foot in there too.

Anon wins.

[Anonymous Coward]

FLAWLESS VICTORY

Re:Anon wins.

[gatkinso]

Not really.

woohoo!

[untitled90]

see subject

He wasn't fired?

[Anonymous Coward]

How was this man allowed to keep his job after his shenanigans were made public?

Re:He wasn't fired?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You must be thinking of little people rules...

Re:He wasn't fired?

[geminidomino]

"Stepping down" is basically the corporate-speak equivalent of seppuku. They get rid of his disgraced ass and in return, he gets to pretend he still has some dignity.

Re:He wasn't fired?

[peragrin]

He partially owned the company. you can't fire someone like that. you have to buy them out.

Which means he got a nice golden parachute too. Hopefully it was real gold and they kick him out of a large building with it.

Re:He wasn't fired?

[newcastlejon]

He partially owned the company. you can't fire someone like that. you have to buy them out.

That depends on how much a portion he owned. If, say, he owned 15% of the shares and the other 85% of the shareholders say GTFO then that's just what he has to do. He'll still own shares but he won't be CEO or what have you.

Re:He wasn't fired?

[locallyunscene]

More likely, he doesn't get the same benefits for "quitting" that he would get for being "fired".

Re:He wasn't fired?

[sjames]

And the money. They always shower them in big piles of money.

Re:He wasn't fired?

[fishexe]

How was this man allowed to keep his job after his shenanigans were made public?

They couldn't fire him without getting the whole board together and that was cumbersome. Didn't you read the chat logs?

Re:He wasn't fired?

[drsmithy]

More likely, he doesn't get the same benefits for "quitting" that he would get for being "fired".

You have that backwards. Most likely, he gets all the benefits from "quitting", and would get none for being "fired" (though these days CxOs are so brazen in their greed that their employment contracts probably give them benefits even if they were fired for raping children in the company boardroom).

Re:He wasn't fired?

[dkleinsc]

though these days CxOs are so brazen in their greed that their employment contracts probably give them benefits even if they were fired for raping children in the company boardroom

When did that become a firing-worthy offense for these guys?

Re:He wasn't fired?

[Anonymous Coward]

HBGary and HBGary Federal aren't particularly big companies, and HBGary Federal was doing very poorly. As such, his ownership isn't worth much, and it's unlikely he got a great payout from quitting. They'll probably close HBGary Federal after this (they probably were going to anyway). I think he's lucky that the other owners of Federal don't try to hold him liable for the damages his project caused them.

Re:He wasn't fired?

[coolgeek]

Not so sure about that. If they didn't already have protective clauses against negligence built-in to their partnership agreement, they might be able to wrest the shares away from him with the threat of litigation for his negligence.

Re:He wasn't fired?

[TheCarp]

Not before the video shows up on the internet.

Let me be the first to say...

[SanityLapse]

Ha. HaHa. HaHaHaHa. Sure, some nasty Anon broke the law here. But if anybody ever had it coming, it was this guy.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

When your business is security and you get owned by hackers, I don't care if it was illegal, it's justified.

If someone broke into a brinks truck and stole everything inside after the Brinks CEO said something ridiculously stupid, I would not shed a single tear.

(Unless it was my shit that was just stolen. If it was valuable enough to be transported by Brinks though, it's probably insured anyway.)

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't guarantee it can't be stolen while in their possession, though, they just take extreme measures to make it less likely. Which is really the best you can do. After looking through the Ars Technica report about what this guy did before he pissed off Anon, I think at first what he was trying to convince people about had merit, but desperation got the best of him and he went the low road to succeed, which didn't work anyway (obviously).

People think they have a lot more privacy than they actually do, and many of the measures we have in place simply don't work (secret questions, etc). At least not if you don't know how to protect yourself, and since most people haven't a clue... But if you want to be White Hat, you have to be very careful, and this guy either wasn't, or just didn't care about anything but the $$$.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it even illegal? I thought someone actually gave them a password at one point.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

That's exactly my point though.

I don't hear of stories where corporate officers of brinks or Loomis Fargo intentionally pissing off and looking for trouble either.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me go all Republican for a moment here. This company was in the security business. Their corporate culture evidently stunk at it. I consider Anonymous's actions and effects to be nothing more than the Invisible Hand of the market making a correction. Of course, businesses don't like it when the market proves itself, especially when it does so against one of their own, but I shed no tears when it happens. The CEO needs to be flushed out. He was failing at his job. His decision gives him more time for golf. It's temporary of course; the company is doomed, as it should be.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't just work in security, he attacked the guys first. And gloated about it publicly. And his own site was less secured than my computer.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't hear of stories where corporate officers of brinks or Loomis Fargo intentionally pissing off and looking for trouble either. by RyuuzakiTetsuya (195424) on Monday February 28, @05:45PM (#35342320)

It seems you do though, trolling others here and being completely off topic on your part:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2014606&cid=35340338

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[TheCarp]

ROTFL almost but yah pretty much.

By that point they had SQL Injected, gotten the username/password hashes, used rainbow tables to get the passwords for CEO and that other dude, got the root password and old one from their email..... then used those emails to contact support and used the info in them to effectively pose as the person in question.

At that point, they dropped in a firewall rule to let them in, and reset the user account password. Not exactly an invitation :)

The moral of the story

[Locke2005]

I learned this years ago: Don't get into an online pissing contest. Just don't. Both sides inevitably lose.

Re:The moral of the story

[fishexe]

I learned this years ago: Don't get into an online pissing contest. Just don't. Both sides inevitably lose.

Hard to see how the Anon side lost here. Their prestige is up, their deadly rep is more solid than ever, and still nobody knows who they are IRL. So maybe the lesson should be, "don't get into an online pissing contest, unless you really are the most badass hacker gang in history."

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if Anonymous loses, Anonymous wins.

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

How did 4chan lose again? Did the admin step down out of shame from there too?

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the moral of the story was "Don't stick your penis into the hornet's nest."

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

"anonymous ... the most badass hacker gang in history" -- what the hell?

Re:The moral of the story

[Predius]

Anon provided more ammo for those who want to implement multiple forms of 'internet controls' or harsher punishment for 'cyber' crime. They just fortified the positions of those they're trying to scare off.

Re:The moral of the story

[spyder-implee]

They also exposed the fraudulent plans of a major security firm. Shouldn't it fortify the position that corporations holding those kind of government contracts should come under more scrutiny?

Re:The moral of the story

[biodata]

This is probably anon's gameplan. Who else is the government going to give all the tax dollars to to build all the new locks and backdoors? The clampdown plays right into anon's hands.

Re:The moral of the story

[dave562]

All that will happen is that HBGary's competitors will update their marketing material. "Don't pull an HBGary. Use XYZ Security instead."

Re:The moral of the story

[locallyunscene]

I learned this years ago: Don't get into an online pissing contest. Just don't. Both sides inevitably lose.

Hard to see how the Anon side lost here. Their prestige is up, their deadly rep is more solid than ever, and still nobody knows who they are IRL. So maybe the lesson should be, "don't get into an online pissing contest, unless you really are the most badass hacker gang in history."

And a gov't connected security agency has logs and logs of data that were collected during the attack. This may not have been an intentional honey pot, but that doesn't mean it can't still be used that way unless the attackers were really good.

Re:The moral of the story

[bigjocker]

What impresses me the most in this case is how everyone is mocking this guy. I mean, he screwed up big time, but as some of the articles have pointed out, he managed to identify a couple of members of anonymous (whom had not been identified before in public), and almost identified another, who admitted in public that Barr pointed instead to his girlfriend. I mean, that's pretty close isn't it?

Again, this guy is a dick head and whatnot, and got what was coming to him and all ... but he got really close.

Re:The moral of the story

[DarwinSurvivor]

"...the most badass hacker gang in history."

What? I'm pretty sure the Russian mob (one of the most notorious black-hat hacking gangs in the world) would have half of Anon sobbing into their mothers' skirts within about 10 minutes if they ever got challenged by those hacker wannabes.

Re:The moral of the story

[pyrr]

Yeah! Wouldn't that be CDC or something? No, wait, it would probably be a group we have never even heard of, because hackers are like ninjas, right?

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem for Anonymous is they are now the Internet's equivalent to 1984's "Emmanuel Goldstein". Anyone can use them in a false flag operation now.

Re:The moral of the story

[geminidomino]

Those wastes of flesh at WBC were the first to pull that particular trigger already.

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

He seems to have identified one person.

The person who said his girlfriend was identified is one of the publicly known associates of what could be called an Anonymous cell.

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of faggotry are you trying to spew?

You're an idiot.

Re:The moral of the story

[PraiseBob]

He managed to point the finger at a few bored teenagers, who may, or may not, self identify with a hacker organization, and may or may not be involved with the actual hacking. He has no proof of any sort of wrongdoing, and who knows if the names he gathered are actual people.

On the other hand: He lost his high paying job from the company he founded. He was publicly humiliated. His company is embarrassed. His clients are embarrassed. His company may not recover, they've certainly lost a lot of future business, and been made the laughingstock of their industry, and their only hope is to rename and rebrand.

So... doesn't seem anywhere close to me.

Re:The moral of the story

[gmhowell]

I thought this was kinda the point. Or A point in any event.

Re:The moral of the story

[gmhowell]

A member of Anonymous with a girlfriend? Clearly a red herring.

Re:The moral of the story

[cheesecake23]

I think the moral of the story was "Don't stick your penis into the hornet's nest."

I'm all for citing Colbert, but you should at least give him the credit for the quote and provide a link, especially when the segment is so hilarious.

Re:The moral of the story

[shadowfaxcrx]

That's not how corporations work.

Tech CEO's are going to look at this and say "holy shit! That could happen to me!" And then they're going to call the politicians who have gotten so much money from them and their companies, and say "You gotta make it harder for people to do what Anonymous just did!"

And then the politicians will pass a law that significantly ups the penalties for "hacking," but because the politicians don't so much as know the difference between a Macintosh and a Nintendo, they'll screw up the definition of hacking to the point that people doing totally legitimate things with their computers, like, say, writing a program to automatically check their bank balance, are now breaking the law. And THOSE people will get the book thrown at them so hard their heads will spin, while still no one knows who the hell Anonymous is, and so the original target of all the CEOpolitical angst will just keep doing business as usual.

Trying to apply logic to the workings of corporations is somewhat like trying to teach calculus to a cat. A totally hopeless endeavor.

Re:The moral of the story

[605dave]

absolutely the best metaphor i've heard too.

Re:The moral of the story

[CFTM]

Colbert's conclusion is epic :)

Re:The moral of the story

[CFTM]

He probably is a majority share holder, while the board can force him to step down they cannot take his shares. It's in his own economic best interest, at this point, to step down and allow others to lead the company and for him to be completely out of the picture for the next two years.

That allows the government to continue working with HBGary and provides a return on investment for investors and himself. Anonymous has not struck a great blow against the system, merely forced a douche bag out of the spotlight for the time being. He'll be replaced by someone else who has a better vision for creating a profitable business in the current economic environment. This is what companies do...

Re:The moral of the story

[fishexe]

"...the most badass hacker gang in history."

What? I'm pretty sure the Russian mob (one of the most notorious black-hat hacking gangs in the world) would have half of Anon sobbing into their mothers' skirts within about 10 minutes if they ever got challenged by those hacker wannabes.

You wanna test them? I'd very much like to see this Russian mob--Anonymous showdown. If you have any mob connections, make it happen.

Re:The moral of the story

[fishexe]

I learned this years ago: Don't get into an online pissing contest. Just don't. Both sides inevitably lose.

Hard to see how the Anon side lost here. Their prestige is up, their deadly rep is more solid than ever, and still nobody knows who they are IRL. So maybe the lesson should be, "don't get into an online pissing contest, unless you really are the most badass hacker gang in history."

And a gov't connected security agency has logs and logs of data that were collected during the attack. This may not have been an intentional honey pot, but that doesn't mean it can't still be used that way unless the attackers were really good.

How is this any different from any of the previous Anon attacks? There are always logs, and nobody ever gets caught, except maybe a few sheeple who downloaded and ran LOIC without even realizing it would expose them. I'll believe the core of Anonymous getting de-anonymized when I see it.

Re:The moral of the story

[fishexe]

Anon provided more ammo for those who want to implement multiple forms of 'internet controls' or harsher punishment for 'cyber' crime. They just fortified the positions of those they're trying to scare off.

Not really. Everybody even casually familiar with the situation, even people who know nothing about hacking or security, comes away from this story feeling like Aaron Barr is a colossal douche who had it coming to him. I think that fortifies our position, that further controls are unnecessary, by demonstrating that further 'internet controls' would only protect people who stick their penises into hornets' nests.

Re:The moral of the story

[Jane Q. Public]

"Trying to apply logic to the workings of corporations is somewhat like trying to teach calculus to a cat. A totally hopeless endeavor."

Is that why the finance industry's derivatives didn't work out?

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

That's calculus to a fat cat.

That's a joke damn it! Laugh!!

Re:The moral of the story

[miserere nobis]

Actually, if he is truly a majority share holder, then I don't think the board can force him to do anything, because he is the one who appoints them.

Re:The moral of the story

[udoschuermann]

Those who feel that HBGary et al. deserved what they got may feel that there was a moral lesson to be learned. The rest will simply feel that HBGary was attacked by a vigilante group, that HBGary's defenses were lacking, and that better security and larger guns (laws) will be needed to counter similar threats in the future.

As is so often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between, getting banged by the ones who make the rules.

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Why isn't HBGary under federal investigation? They just got their fraudulent behavior exposed. What else have they done?

Re:The moral of the story

[silentcoder]

>"Trying to apply logic to the workings of corporations is somewhat like trying to teach calculus to a cat. A totally hopeless endeavor."

Bad analogy dude... if you can find a way to communicate the concepts within the cat's frame of reference - the cat actually has a (very small) chance of learning calculus. Where-as getting a corporation to act logically is pretty much an NP-Complete problem !

Re:The moral of the story

[shadowfaxcrx]

Point taken ;)

Re:The moral of the story

[cOldhandle]

From what I remember, Anon ordered (via IRC) an owner of the company to fire Barr in return for calling off the continued attack on HBGary Federal. So this is a clear victory for Anon, who are basically dictating to this "security" company how to run their business.

Re:The moral of the story

[Raenex]

You're over-thinking it. This isn't Hollywood. Security contractor pokes Anon, Anon pokes back. Pretty simple.

BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll just start another dirty business. There will always be people willing to pay for propaganda and astroturf.

Revisionist history anyone?

[Chas]

From the argh-tickle.

"By combining a SQL injection attack on HBGary's Web site with sophisticated social engineering attacks"

Uhm. WHAT?

Sophisticated? I wouldn't call a couple of e-mails from a hijacked account asking to back-door a server "sophisticated".

What the HBGary hack was:

Basic SQL Injection
Weak passwords
Password Re-use
SIMPLE social engineering

Your basic molotov cocktail of fail.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[peragrin]

It is sophisticated because the emails could have come from the person sending them. Proper grammar,similar writing styles, with enough background information to sound like it was legitimate.

basically unless you were a close personal friend you couldn't easily tell the difference, unlike the $38.6 million that some guy who just emailed me has stashed in Libyan and is having a hard time getting it out safely.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[oamasood]

To elaborate 'Weak passwords': Their passwords were hashed using the MD5 algorithm, and no salt. These passwords can be easily decrypted using online tools like http://www.md5decrypter.com/

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Weaselmancer]

Of course they're going to say it was some sophisticated uber attack that only ninja net gods could have done. Their stock and their reputation has taken enough of a beating. The truth would be FAR worse. "No, we were pwnt by really simple stuff like crappy passwords and ignoring basic safeguards. In the light of that though, may we work out a service contract with you to make you business secure?"

Nope, not happening. The truth wouldn't do anything but tank them harder. Lies would be pretty much your only choice.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, just because you and I know how to do this, doesn't mean it isn't sophisticated. Your average computer user can barely tie their shoes, so when it comes to really gaming the system, I think this falls under that umbrella.

If you'd like to speak of the specific SQL injection they used, vs' newer vulnerabilities, and the lack of pgp encryption used in emails between members with root access throwing the pass around in plain text, let's throw stones.

Sophisticated? In reality to you and me and the targeted community here? No. To everyone else? Absolutely!

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[PraiseBob]

Their attack was vastly more complex than anything Kevin Mitnick ever did, and he is arguably the most famous hacker in history.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[nobodylocalhost]

You, sir, are greatly underestimating the average computer user. Mind you, this is the same mistake Barr made when he went after anon. He thought his company was only going to get DDoS-ed. Well, he thought wrong. It actually takes quite a bit technical know-how and general savvy to survive /b/ and not being trolled into oblivion. My point is, don't make assumptions on the average user, especially those who are not being forced to use computers.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[blueg3]

A single round of unsalted MD5. Bad idea.

The first three major steps are in increasing order of stupidity.

SQL injection on a CMS, especially a homebrew one, is a common enough problem. You should probably assume your CMS has an SQL injection vulnerability in it and plan accordingly.

Having unsalted, single-MD5 passwords is just bad. It's far too easy to instead use MD5 with a large salt, which really make the problem much better. Unless you have a high volume of logins, though, you might as well go overboard and use SHA1-based PBKDF2 with, say, 20 bytes of salt. Why not? It's trivial to code.

Using the same password for your CMS (remember, you should assume it has vulnerabilities) and for your corporate e-mail is critical mistake.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Chas]

Not talking about the technical portions of the break in.

Talking about the social engineering.

They used a known-trusted e-mail address to essentially tell the admin of a server

* Give me my username
* Give that user password "12345"
* Open up this port and accept traffic from this block of IP addresses.

They already had access to the guy's e-mail. So they had copious quantities of samples to construct a legitimate sounding e-mail from.

This is hardly rocket science.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Raenex]

Oh for fuck's sake, give them some credit. Your random script kiddie never would have managed what they pulled off.

What's cool about their hack is they strung together a series of weaknesses in a short amount of time, including writing some very convincing and urgent emails from "the boss" asking for an obscure and temporary hole.

I'm willing to bet a lot of admins would have accommodated this kind of request. Is it easy to crucify the admin after the fact? Yeah. In the real world, do people break security rules all the time for expediency? You bet, especially if the risk seems low.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Chas]

Please understand the finite point I was trying to make, instead of blowing it up into some blanket denigration of the overall crack (which I did not do).

My sole beef is with the description of the social engineering portion of the attack as "sophisticated", when it was anything BUT.

Feel free to agree or disagree at your own leisure.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Raenex]

My sole beef is with the description of the social engineering portion of the attack as "sophisticated", when it was anything BUT.

Yet you listed all the steps in the attack, concluding with "Your basic molotov cocktail of fail." So you can hardly claim you didn't go beyond just the social engineering aspect.

Also, it's unfair to look at the social engineering step in isolation. What made it sophisticated was the series of hacks surrounding it, lending it legitimacy and potency. An unsophisticated and routine attack would be calling up and posing as some random 3rd party. Hacking into a high-value target's email account and mining it to make an extremely convincing impersonation is sophisticated social engineering.

I think this is just typical geek "yeah, that's easy, anybody could have done that" mentality.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Chas]

Yup. Feel free to keep thinking this.

Re:Revisionist history anyone?

[Raenex]

And feel free to keep making empty responses.

I miss greatly

[kubitus]

the Anonymous mask as the icon to this story!

-

same bullshit goes on in my company: big manager boasting security - justifying any expenses - but are not able to remember more than one password at a time and reuse it everywhere!

Re:I miss greatly

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet...

serious business!

Re:I miss greatly

[Anonymous Coward]

god damnit, it's not an "Anonymous" mask it's a Guy Fawkes mask. the historical connection is important as it's apt as all hell.

There should be no reason etc, see you next bonfire.

Re:I miss greatly

[ElectricTurtle]

Informative AC is informative.

Re:I miss greatly

[newcastlejon]

Informative AC is informative.

Tired meme is getting annoying.

Re:I miss greatly

[ElectricTurtle]

Cry me a river. Oh noes! My poast does not meet your exacting standards! All my hopes and dreams have been crushed by your stunning pseudo-cultural critique! Get bent.

Re:I miss greatly

[VortexCortex]

god damnit, it's not an "Anonymous" mask it's a Guy Fawkes mask.

Yeah, but the only reason Anonymous uses the mask is because they loved the movie V for Vendetta.

the historical connection is important as it's apt as all hell.

That's arguable. I'd say the connection to the motives in the Vendetta movie are more apt to Anonymous' use of the Guy Fawkes mask... The historical significance was important to the V movie, but I don't think making a direct link to Guy Fawkes (and all that he stood for) is really that "apt".

For instance. I'm positive that Anons care not of Guy Fawkes' support of Catholicism (many a flame-topic has burned under this banner). I'd also say that this historic fact adds irony to the Guy Fawkes masks used in the Vendetta movie (since the protagonist fought against an oppressive Catholic like state/church).

Additionally:

Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters secured the lease to an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled there. Prompted by the receipt of an ANONYMOUS letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives.

Heh, I'd posit that, given that Guy Fawkes was foiled by an Anon, you could argue the use of Guy Fawkes visage by Anonymous is doubly ironic (that, or the historic link is not quite as "apt" as you believe).

To be fair, Fawkes is best known for the Gunpowder Plot wherein he "became involved with a small group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate the Protestant King James and replace him with his daughter, third in the line of succession, Princess Elizabeth."

This was made the Guy Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta apt, but the imagery and plot of the V for Vendetta movie (wherein thousands of citizens don the Guy Fawkes mask to become anonymous and rise up against their oppressive government), was much more influential in the choice to use the masks by Anonymous.

Never attribute to insight that which can be adequately explained by pop culture references.

Re:I miss greatly

[megalol]

Cry me a river. Oh noes! My poast does not meet your exacting standards! All my hopes and dreams have been crushed by your stunning pseudo-cultural critique! Get bent.

Whiney post is whiney.

and...

[woboyle]

This butthead should be in rehab, not running a "serious" security company...

Re:and...

[Anonymous Coward]

This butthead should be in rehab, not running a "serious" security company...

Right. Hey, I hear Charlie Sheen's looking for work. He couldn't do any worse than this tool.

I'll bet...

[masterwit]

I'll bet he is going back to school. Learn some basics.

Re:I'll bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

He certainly got schooled.

Re:I'll bet...

[masterwit]

(...and needs more schooling)

Disturbance in the Dark Side?

[mfh]

Emperor Palpatine: "I felt a great disturbance in the dark side, my apprentice, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly heard by those in power. I fear something terrible has happened."

From TFA

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Leavy said that the company's partners had been supportive following the hack. The proposals for Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were simply responses to requests for services that HBGary had received. "HBGary Federal is a services company and they were asked to develop proposals," she told Threatpost.

I see. That fact that the "services" are illegal, immoral, and unethical really doesn't enter in, because they're a service company and this is a service. Sort of like a hit man is just an HR professional specializing in staff reduction services.

Re:From TFA

[calmofthestorm]

> Sort of like a hit man is just an HR professional specializing in staff reduction services.

I smell a sequel to "Up in the Air"

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already there. It's called The American and it even features Mr. Clooney

Next Headline:

[robnator]

Barr hired by Republican Party (or Fox)...

Re:Next Headline:

[thestudio_bob]

Barr hired by Republican Party (or Fox)...

I would think that his antics would be more suited for one of the **AA's, which of course is more in line with the DEM's. But whatever.

Re:Next Headline:

[Ukab the Great]

A definite shoe-in for the Cyber Security Czar position.

A sign of the times?

[Fallout2man]

You know in many ways I'm starting to wonder if the rise of Anonymous could be considered a legitimate political/social phenomena linked to the recession and how people feel increasingly left out of the political process/system because of big money buying our congress' collective ears? Widespread piracy is widely considered by many to be an economic indicator that the market has become too one-sided, maybe this is the political equivalent?

I saw a post suggesting they may be targeting the Koch Brothers for their involvement in the current Wisconsin/multi-state effort to completely bust Unions. Is this finally the people striking back? Not to say I'm not thankful someone's taking the time to respond, but oh what a sad thing it says about humanity that we have to resort to these types of solutions to keep from getting completely steamrolled by the almighty dollar?

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very insightful. I wonder why the Anonymous vs Koch thing hasn't been on slashdot yet? Is it for real? Saw it 24 hours ago already...

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Activism of this nature along with "political unrest" regardless of whether its illegal or not is typically the last step before firearms are introduced into the equation by the side of the people in control of the military and people on the other side die, we're seeing this played out now in the middle east.

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think going up against the Koch brothers or the WI governor is something that'll catch the attention of anonymous. It's too partisan. After all, a good portion of anonymous would like to go up against the unions. Anonymous will go after 'no-brainer' evil... which is basically, in their wordview, censorship. Maybe religion. Maybe fraud.

Re:A sign of the times?

[Fallout2man]

It could possibly be a fake, that's one thing I'm curious about too. The Westboro Baptist Church recently tried to bait them so this could be more bait, or slashdot being a bit cautious after front-paging the fake WBC anon story previously.

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very insightful. I wonder why the Anonymous vs Koch thing hasn't been on slashdot yet? Is it for real? Saw it 24 hours ago already...

Who knows?

http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=621

There have been several news articles recently suggesting that Anonymous is taking a very specific political stance regarding the events in Wisconsin. While some Anons are undoubtedly passionate about this issue, it would be a mistake to report that Anonymous is targeting the Koch brothers, or are even uniform in their opinion of collective bargaining rights of public employees at the state level.

Perhaps it might make more sense to you if you simply add a press release here at AnonNews, and see how easy it is to make a pronouncement on behalf of Anonymous?

Please recognize that as Anonymous' brand has aquired legitimacy, opportunists have and will continue to try to tie their personal political agendas to the movement.[My emphasis]

A handy bullet list guide for visiting journalists

        * Anonymous has no official position on abortion
        * Anonymous has no official position on tax policy
        * Anonymous has no official position on health care
        * Anonymous has no official position on collective bargaining agreements
        * Anonymous has no official position on campaign finance reform
        * Anonymous has no official position on the Tea Party
        * Anonymous has no official position on the Democratic Party
        * Anonymous has no official position on the Republican Party
        * Anonymous has no official position on the Green Party
        * Anonymous has no official position on global warming
        * Anonymous has no official position on off-shore drilling
        * Anonymous has no official position on budget deficits
        * Anonymous has no official position on George Soros
        * Anonymous has no official position on the Koch brothers
        * Anonymous has no official position on Fox News
        * Anonymous has no official position on MSNBC
        * Anonymous has no official position on CNN
        * Anonymous has no official position on NAFTA
        * Anonymous has no official position on the IMF or World Bank
        * Anonymous has no official position on Wall Street
        * Anonymous has no official position on entitlement programs
        * Anonymous has no official position on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
        * Anonymous has a very fucking official position on LULZ

Re:A sign of the times?

[ron_ivi]

"the Anonymous vs Koch ... Is it for real?"

You already know the answer to that.

Even if you don't realize that you know it.

But in case you really need it spelled out to you --- yes, indeed someone anonymously ranted something about Koch on teh internet.

That makes him part of Anonymous just as much as Ben Franklin lobbying European governments under pseudonyms like Benevolous to support the colonies. And as much as Thomas Paine when he Anonymously published his pamphlet Common Sense. Just as you were Anonymous when you asked (and therefore answered) that very question. Just as Spartacus was when all his fans clouded him with anonymity by co-claiming his given name.

So to answer your question most directly:

Yes, you too are anonymous, and yes, you did indeed put that Koch thing on slashdot.

Re:A sign of the times?

[Fallout2man]

I think that given the level of transparent cartoonish villainy that's starting to pop up in politics that while yes, a lot of the same people that make up Anonymous are the same people who voted for Ron Paul. Maybe it's just me, but coming as someone who used to share that mindset I would think enough exposure to the current political climate would make them be more likely to side with the Unions than against them.

I know when I was attracted to that whole Ron Paul, limited government movement my concerns were 100% social justice and social issues and I really didn't concern myself hardly at all with the economic platform. You can imagine my dismay when I found out well over half of the most vocal supporters didn't care at all about social issues and many were in fact advancing horribly regressive social policy (as bad and in some cases worse than the current GOP) and dressing it up as "m0ar fr33d0mz!!!" and were really in it for the economics side because they just wanted to never pay taxes and didn't want Big Mean Ol' Gubbmint' from stopping them from hating on minorities and the poor.

All it took for me to see that, ironically enough, was for me to stop looking at politics from an ivory tower as a game of theories and to look at real-world data on what policies actually produced results, and were likely to ever be passed in this lifetime in our government. Good politics and good policy are inseparable, because even the best plan in the world is useless if you can't convince anyone to follow it.

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a resident of Wisconsin who has been closely following all of the developments regarding the Koch Brother's alleged connections to our governor, as well as participating in the 2-week-long demonstration at our state capitol that is still on-going, this isn't exactly a case of we the people striking back. We didn't ask for Anonymous to get involved: that is something they seemingly have chosen to do of their own accord. I don't believe that the majority of the people effected either directly or indirectly are unappreciative (unless you happen to be the Koch brothers, of course) as it's becoming more and more clear that no matter how many bodies either figuratively or literally echo the concerns the vast majority of Wisconsinites have over the proposals, it's falling on deaf ears. It's certainly a sad state of affairs for humanity that this is the case, but compared to the available alternatives I'll happily accept Anonymous shenanigans to make people listen.

Re:A sign of the times?

[misexistentialist]

Sounds more like public "union" employees are spending too much time during the workday on 4chan.

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

We didn't ask for Anonymous to get involved: that is something they seemingly have chosen to do of their own accord.

Some Anonymous have, some Anonymous haven't, some might be people who just decided to cloak themselves as Anonymous. (And that's o-kay by me.)

Protest pizzas were originally an Anonymous idea for Egypt, but with the dangerous chaos at the time, and the lack of credit card support, it never happened. Someone either dusted it off, or it parallel evolved. Either way, Anonymous Delivers!

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with the recession, that's just an illusion caused by the flow of virtual dollars between banks. The rest of your comment is valid.

Re:A sign of the times?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in that thread.

The sentiment was almost entirely pro-Koch Brothers & anti-union. Most capable hackers are as uber conservative as they are uber l337. For that matter, most capable people in general are anti-union, and considering the quality public education experiences of most 4chan users, I would imagine they are anti-teacher's union in particular.

TLDR: a bunch of no talent liberal newfags tried to personal army request the Koch Brothers and they were greeted with almost universal contempt.

Too late...

[oamasood]

A little background info: Aaron Barr was the CEO of HBGary Federal, a smaller company made by HBGary to do government contracts. HBGary only owned about 15% of HBGary Federal. However, both companies shared username/password information for Aaron Barr, which is why Anonymous easily hacked into HBGary after hacking into HBGary Federal. Anonymous released the HBGary Federal e-mails immediately, and then later on released HBGary's e-mails. My comment: Before Anonymous released HBGary's emails, Penny (the president of HBGary) actually made a deal with Anonymous: If Aaron Barr was fired and his salary given to the Bradley Manning defense fund, then Anonymous would not release the HBGary e-mails. If only Barr had stepped down a bit earlier, HBGary could've possibly saved millions of dollars.

Also read as:

[Khyber]

"I'm getting the hell out of here because I got exposed as a fraud that really knows nothing."

May I recommend:

[mosb1000]

May I recommend also shuttering the company and all the companies like it, and the US government? How is it okay to use intimidation to try to prevent the release of incriminating documents? Moving on from that should mean reversing course. Does anybody care that the US government operates with fewer scruples than the mafia? This is insane.

Re:May I recommend:

[betterunixthanunix]

Actually, most people do not care, and if you bring it up, they will shrug it off as if it is something to be expected. For all the high ideals on which our country was founded, most people just do not care, as long as they can get their entertainment and celebrity gossip and whatnot.

Re:May I recommend:

[Asic Eng]

Yeah, quite frequently people argue that this is just the way the game is played. Might be a valid excuse for a country the size of Belgium. However the US - one of the biggest economies of the world, controlling of half the world's military - has a big say in how the game is played.

Re:May I recommend:

[TheCarp]

Except that, having one of the largest economies, and half the worlds military, means being pretty invested in this game.

Ever heard Bill Hick's old rant about how "life is a ride"?

The World is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round, and it has thrills and chills and is very brightly colored, and it's very loud. And it's fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they've begun to question, 'Is this real, or is this just a ride?', and other people have remembered, and they've come back to us and they say 'Hey, don't worry. Don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.' and we KILL THOSE PEOPLE.

"Shut him up! We have alot invested in this ride! SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real."

It's just a ride.

(More of it is here: http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2008/10/bill-hicks-life-is-but-ride.html )

hes actually going to start an MMO

[decora]

go to the archive of their emails and do a keyword search for MMO

its been trademarked by anonymous they will ....

[decora]

just kidding

anonymous chooses targets that target it.

[decora]

the only reason it went against scientology is because scientology was attacking random people all over the internet with lawsuits. that is why anonymous fought back.

anonymous is never going to go after drug lords or human traffickers or etc. they go after people who @#$$ with them. The HBGary guy was going after them directly, trying to 'out' them by scraping facebook etc. that is why they went at him.

Re:anonymous chooses targets that target it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Drug lords?

The war on drugs is a great social injustice and much more likely to be a target.

The real reason he is leaving:

[hey!]

He shot Alexander Humilton.

Re:The real reason he is leaving:

[Anonymous Coward]

FTW!!!

Ah, nice logic

[SmallFurryCreature]

So basically, I shouldn't use any freedoms because that might give fuel to someone wishing to limit them?

So gay people, don't be gay or people might forbid it.

A spine, you need one. Or afraid if you get one, people will forbid it?

Re:Ah, nice logic

[DurendalMac]

And if the antics of Anonymous were 100% legal, you'd have a point. As many of their antics are clearly illegal (like hacking into a security firm), you really have no damned point and just look like an idiot. You are not free to break the law.

Re:Ah, nice logic

[fishexe]

And if the antics of Anonymous were 100% legal, you'd have a point. As many of their antics are clearly illegal (like hacking into a security firm), you really have no damned point and just look like an idiot. You are not free to break the law.

Laws are nothing more and nothing less than devices for controlling people.

Re:Ah, nice logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Setting aside the question of legality, the most fruitful part of the attack seems not to be hacking but social engineering. A sysadmin divulged a username and password at the same time, over email FFS.

Re:Ah, nice logic

[Locke2005]

Most laws are created by those with money and power in an attempt to maintain the status quo, e.g. keep the money and power in the hands of those that currently have the money and power. "Controlling people" is not necessarily a bad thing; as a society we agree that certain acts such as murder, assault, theft are harmful, and laws simply codify punishment for these antisocial acts. Other laws seem designed primarily to protect corporations' existing business models; these laws appear to themselves be antisocial. Laws are just tools; like any other type of tool, they can be used to achieve societal good or harm.

Re:Ah, nice logic

[DurendalMac]

Under false pretenses as the person on the other end had hijacked an employee email account. Not to say the sysadmin wasn't an idiot, but the hacker still did some very, VERY illegal things.

Re:Ah, nice logic

[fishexe]

I agree with everything you just said.

Re:Ah, nice logic

[drinkypoo]

You are not free to break the law.

Yes, yes you are. There may be consequences.

Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly I lost all respect for the guy back when the sonuvabitch shot Alexander Humilton.

Re:Good riddance.

[darjen]

Hmm, I didn't mind that so much. That Humilton guy was kind of a douche, imho.

No.

[Rix]

Please have an orderly shut down of your company. The internets haz spoken. Disobey at your peril.

Irrelevant

[Rix]

They could find and prosecute every single person even tertiarily involved and the hive would simply get stronger.

We are all Anonymous.

Re:Irrelevant

[newcastlejon]

We are all Anonymous.

No, you have to tick that box up there ^

Re:Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Anonymous is two mostly-disparate groups: a small, stable group of actual hackers, and a large group of random people from 4chan. The latter makes it less obvious that the former exists and makes things like LOIC more effective.

Video summary of the story LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/375428/february-24-2011/corporate-hacker-tries-to-take-down-wikileaks

the zen of arrogance

[slick7]

It just goes to show that those who know do not speak and those that speak, do not know. Actions always prove stronger than words.

I think a duel...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is in order

Um, wait

[toby]

You just posted THIS on SLASHDOT???

Re:Um, wait

[Locke2005]

Uh... good point. In my defense, I certainly hope that this slashdot account is in no way traceable to my actual identity, even though one acquaintance has been able to deduce my actual identity from my posts.

Way to go Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

Aaron Barr is going to be a millionaire after book and movie rights are sold.

Spewing a bunch of inane crap - inaccuracies being touted as his "point of view."

Still doesn't get it

[macraig]

Barr still doesn't grasp the obvious fact that he did Bad Things, meaning things that aren't ethical and damage rather than serve the Common Good. Good riddance, psychopath. Yet another corporate criminal who got off easy when he should have got the guillotine.

Aaron Barr wins, actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Aaron Barr will be a millionaire before the ball drops on 2011 because of the book and movies deals. Maybe a round of the morning talk show circuit. Some paid interviews with Wired and Playboy perhaps. A made for TV movie about his divorce on Lifetime and the anguish it brought on him by being made public... by HACKERS (cue the scary music).

Nice going Anonymous.

You do realize that Aaron Barr is the real winner

[gatkinso]

Book and movies deals. Made for tv movies about his now public divorce. Paid interviews. Perversely a paid consultant about what NOT to do.... The dude is going to be a millionaire.

I posted this as anon coward a few times, nobody seemed to notice.

This whole shabby experience will set up this sleaze bag for life.

Re:The moral offixed that for you the story

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, thats "don't stick your e-peen..."

Re:You do realize that Aaron Barr is the real winn

[udoschuermann]

Unless Anonymous grabs him by the ankles and drags him straight to hell.

Summary, please.

[fotoguzzi]

Useful summary information might include answers to, what's an HBGary Federal? Maybe something about what was in the emails that caused embarrassment. Those kinds of things.

Re:Summary, please.

[fishexe]

Hand in your geek card.

If this were not Slashdot, I would agree with you, but...this is Slashdot. Everyone's supposed to know what HBGary Federal is by now.

Not Good Enough ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Death of Aaron Barr is required.

I got a 308 at a thousand meters for his skull: checking wind and drift at 5 second increments through the sight with my spotter.

-308

drug lords as in the guys in mexico beheading kids

[decora]

thats the type of drug lords im referring to.

Level the playing field

[DanielRavenNest]

The way to level the playing field against large corporations is for citizens to form their own corporations. For example a "Buyer's Cooperative" which would use the buying power of it's members to negotiate better deals.

Who cares what you think

[Anonymous Coward]

You're too stupid to even think anyway you dimwitted troll.

RyuuzakiTetsuya the moron trying to play expert

[Anonymous Coward]

RyuuzakiTetsuya listen: Quit trying to play expert in computing. You're not one, so take your meds and get over your delusions of grandeur already, moron.

Re:You do realize that Aaron Barr is the real winn

[gatkinso]

Uh huh.

I would suggest that Anonymous stay behind the keyboard. In the real world messing with a bunch of Iraq war veterans might not go as well as their online exploits.
 

Re:drug lords as in the guys in mexico beheading k

[TheCarp]

What came first, the powerful drug lord, or the drug laws?

Before the drug laws, the biggest "threat" from drugs was some snake oil salesman selling you an addictive "cure all" based on ridiculous claims.

Now we have huge professional companies who specialize in that legally.... and whole classes of illegal drugs with their violent drug lords, who behead kids. Take away their drugs and prostitution and what have you got? A few violent thugs who would be a minor nuissance going around shaking down stores for protection money, and other more risky, less profitable crime.

Certainly they are bad guys but... they are worst for the power they are given, for the huge market that was left for them to rule.