Hacker Group LulzSec Challenges FBI

Tiek00n writes "Hacker Group 'LulzSec' has gained some attention recently for their hacks of PBS and Sony. Their most recent target: FBI affiliate Infragard. The group claims, 'It has come to our unfortunate attention that NATO and our good friend Barrack Osama-Llama 24th-century Obama have recently upped the stakes with regard to hacking. They now treat hacking as an act of war. So, we just hacked an FBI affiliated website (Infragard, specifically the Atlanta chapter) and leaked its user base. We also took complete control over the site and defaced it...'"

Comments

Thay also defaced Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is Slashdot slashdotted? These 503 errors have been happening for a couple of days now.

Re:Thay also defaced Slashdot

[Qzukk]

Slashdot has so many gurus meditating, the entire damn datacenter had better be levitating a mile off the ground.

Act of war.

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's clear from the emails leaked that the US of A just started a war with Libya.

Just a bully

[Prosthetic_Lips]

LulzSec just showed their hand that they are operating like a schoolyard bully. "Do what we want / act like we want, or we'll hack you."

You might think they are standing up to a bully (USA), but taking down 3 different Sony companies smells of a bully, kicking them while they are down.

Re:Just a bully

[Anonymous Coward]

Well of course. That's what these groups do (LulzSec, Anonymous, etc.). They aren't heroic crusaders against "the man". They are immature idiots who happen to know how to use hacking tools (and I'm sure some of them are experts). It doesn't make them people to admire or emulate. Hopefully these tools will get caught.

Re:Just a bully

[Elbereth]

Worse than that, I'd contend that the intention is not to embarrass Sony, but rather to attack Sony's customers. I hate to use the T word, but this clearly is dictionary-definition terrorism: attacking a soft target in order to bully them into falling in line with your demands. Sony's customers are seen as the enemy, as much as Sony itself is, because they provide positive reinforcement to Sony (in the form of revenue), while breaking any attempts to boycott Sony. By adding a negative consequence to being Sony's customer (privacy invasions), they hope to influence the customers' actions.

Obviously, they're not setting off bombs in crowded cities or crashing planes into skyscrapers. They're just a bunch of stupid kids inconveniencing people. That doesn't change what word the dictionary uses to define such actions, however...

Admittedly, I've spent so many years trolling Slashdot, it's difficult for me to switch out of "troll" mode and make a legitimate point without resorting to any trolling, but this time, I'm honestly just sayin'. And, that, kids is the danger of a lifetime of trolling: eventually you can't even tell when you're trolling or not.

Re:Just a bully

[Dhalka226]

Yaknow, a lot of people can--and did--defend the Sony hacks. Some could probably defend the "FBI" hack, though when I hear words like "FBI-affiliated" I just cringe at what they're hiding behind that term.

But how do you defend hacking PBS? These people are obviously just scumbags with too much time on their hands, and articles like this are exactly what they want. Ignore them. They're not worth the attention.

Re:Just a bully

[Idbar]

For what is worth. As I recall correctly from my youth, in a battle between bullies, kicking them while they are down seems like a right approach. You shouldn't give them the chance to stand back up, because you know they will be really pissed.

Re:Clear acts of War

[Warmlight]

It's not law but the Declaration of Independence says:

...that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence....

Again, it's not law but it is one of the documents on which our country is based.

It's only an act of war if done by a foreign power

[alexam]

I mean, right?

Let's say a citizen, or many citizens, are shot. If it's done by another US citizen, it's murder, a crime, and not an 'act of war.' If it's done by some organization, it's homebrew terrorism. If it's done by another country, it's an act of war. That doesn't seem like a wholly unreasonable stance to hold, although it certainly can be debated, I guess.

I don't know, are these people going for the "That's a ridiculous stance on hacking, what are you gonna do, declare war on US?? How ludicrous! See, hacking is not an act of war" angle to this whole thing?

If so.....lulz.

This is bound to end well...

[Zero1za]

(and by well, I mean with prison sex).

Re:Haha

[pipatron]

You haven't read 1984? The government need the excuse of a permanent war against an unspecified enemy in order to get away with most anything, making it easy to approve tax hikes, keeping operations secret in the name of state security, and keeping the citizens in place. A few decades ago you had the "Communists". Up until recently you had the "Terrorists". In a decade you'll have the "Hackers". Since they do not really exist in any tangible or organized way they can not be beaten and they are no real threat, but they are useful for scaring the population.

Really, no salt?

[definate]

So, they didn't even salt the md5 hashes. How lazy does this "security" firm want to be?

Also, how simple do some of these passwords want to be? LOL "infragard26j" are you kidding me? Come on IBM, lift your game!

Here's a copy of the exposed file on PasteBin

I've noticed that the "cracking" method of choice was just "see if these are known values in public rainbow tables". Which, many of them were. Huzzah!

Also, I thought that all md5's had been cracked before, however it seems not so. So, I decided to calculate how many gb such a table would AT LEAST have to be. Well, I was quite surprised. Unless there's collisions or my math is fucked, that's quite a lot!

Seems Unveilance, the company which had its CEO's private emails leaked, has responded and sort of, also authenticated the hack too. Unveillance Official Statement

Re:Clear acts of War

[TubeSteak]

You, sir, are a coward. Show me an example of someone winding up on a no-fly list as a result of peaceable assembly. Yeah, I didn't think you had anything.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-enemy-of-people.html

"Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the [American Airlines clerk] said. "

That's just the first result off of google.
If you don't think people aren't being put on the no-fly list for asserting their right to free speech and to publicly assemble, you haven't been paying attention.

Re:working

[the_other_chewey]

This rule in Adblock Plus takes care of it:

slashdot.org##.busy.genericspinner.hide

Re:Haha

[jhigh]

I realize that asking people posting on Slashdot to RTFA is asking too much, but if half the people posting on this article understood basic English...well, there would be about half as many posts and LulzSec would look like the morons that they are.

The Pentagon does not classify hacking as an act of war. What they are doing is stating that hacking by a foreign power may constitute an act of war. There is a world of difference, and understanding that difference sheds some light on just how dumb LulzSec really is for their behavior. Here's hoping they get the jail time that they deserve for acting like spoiled teenagers.