Slashdot Mirror
Could the KGB Infiltrate LulzSec?
Barence writes "Foreign powers could try to infiltrate hacktivist networks in order to manipulate their actions, according to a security expert who advises governments and businesses on internet issues. Likening the emergence of the hacktivist movement to the arrival of militant groups such as the Red Brigade during the 1970s, government advisor and chair of the International E-crime Congress, Simon Moores, said that hacker groups could eventually be swayed by outside influences. 'If you have a LulzSec or an Anonymous that is perhaps being manipulated by a foreign actor, it takes us back to the days of the Stasi and the KGB, which were manipulating [anti-nuclear campaign group] CND quite easily from Moscow,' he said."
Seriously!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Could the KGB Infiltrate LulzSec?
No, because it was dissolved in 1991. Could the SVR, FSB or GRU infiltrate LulzSec? Sure, why not? I'm sure anyone could infiltrate the group as long as you're willing to play their game.
My work here is dung.
no one can figure out who anyone is in real life, it can never be killed, and never influenced. it is above and beyond the rules that govern any other group of people, because it has internets. right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Do these hacktivist organizations really command enough respect and hold enough power for such actions to be necessary? All I could think when I read this news post was "Why?"
Meanwhile Russia can shutdown the US power grid, successfully leached Nuclear secrets in the 50's and owns most of US Steel manufacturing. Yet some shitty hacker outfit called Lulzsec is "easily manipulated. Har! Is it Pirate Day already?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
So could the CIA, NSA, FBI or any of the 20 or 30 Intelligence/enforcement agencies in the US government.
What is to say that this hasn't already happened and everything we have seen has been... "just as planned."
Oh look at me! I can speculate too!
You mad
Law enforcement just can't grasp the concept of Anonymous' lack of a solid hierarchy. Sure they could infiltrate Anonymous, and they'd have as much influence as any other one participant, which is very little. Now if they can flood Anonymous with enough sockpuppets to make up, say, more than 50% of the participants, then they'd have some meaningful influence.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
One, the KGB doesn't exist anymore, 2) neither does LulzSec (technically), but even if it doesn't work like that, every single member (I use this loosely as anonymous doesn't really have members) can decide whether to take part in a particular action or not.
Lulzsec is a vandalism group, with 4 or 5 teenagers ( or 40years old with teenager mentality ). How can the CCCP infiltrate that?, Is beyond me.
It's good for these little conspirators to have to face reality at some point in time. They make great entertainment fodder for the rest of us, but they also represent unsustainability and social insulation. They're just as prone to injection as any of their targets, and due to human traits (including our major hallmark, error) there's no patching that vulnerability. Everything has its infancy; in the future the major cyberattacks will be undertaken and executed without grandstanding, seemingly developmentally arrested childishness, or motivations outside the accumulation of political and financial power. Given a few more years of this high-intensity cyber bullying and cowboying, large corporations will get the clue that it's no longer a futuristic dream or a super-expensive option and will have undocumented cyber attack teams by rote. Governments will fail to prosecute because the methods will be too slick and professional. So, if you enjoy a good take-down or some shit, might as well keep your eyes glued because years down the line you won't even hear about the attacks as it won't pay to mention them when repecussions can't be brought to bear.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I'm currently reading The Net Delusion, which pretty much postulates that a lot of the noise in government and the media about the power of the internet for change is pretty much driven by a very outdated set of assumptions that date back to the end of the Cold War.
I imagine that this fits the kind of thinking going on here, although it does seem interesting that most of the targets of these attacks are American or corporate allies.
sig not found
why is anyone concerned about *only* the KGB "infiltrating" lulzsec? and as other people have pointed out - it's anonymous - even to each other! so you could actually end up with the hilarious situation that the only significant contributors to anonymous and lulzsec could actually be 95% foreign intelligence agents from different countries across the world, and nobody but those people who can reliably trace 100% of the world's internet traffic would know...
If a country can't figure out how to (or hire someone to) run LOIC to perform DDOS's and do simple SQL injections on their own, then they've got much bigger problems than working out how to infiltrate a group of teenagers.
Working...
Have you ever considered how stupid it is to assume that something like the KGB would cease to exist just because it's no longer officially sanctioned? As agents of espionage and assassination, if anything, they're potentially more powerful, more capable, and more of a threat for not being "really there". It never bores me what a great idea it is to claim your intelligencia don't actually exist, or how easily duped the average, opinionated, modern person really is.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Is misleading, because the KGB no longer exists!
Michael
http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
"If you have a LulzSec or an Anonymous that is perhaps being manipulated by a foreign actor, it takes us back to the days of the Stasi and the KGB, which were manipulating [anti-nulear campaign group] CND quite easily from Moscow,"
Not true in the slightest. CND and other anti-nuclear proliferation groups were not manipulated by the Soviet Union. In fact, they were just as opposed to Soviet nuclear weapons as Western ones. Though the allegation that they were controlled by Moscow were frequently thrown out by their opponents to avoid debating the insanity of stockpiling more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world ten times over. The only ones infiltrating them were the MI5, because apparently the security services had nothing better to do than monitor harmless hippies.
Football Odds
What I'm thinking is this: It's not of much significance that a group can be infiltrated. It is much more significant that it happens from the government side, and especially for organisations that strive for peace. I know of a dutch peace/thinking group in the 1960s (perhaps until early 1970s) that was infiltrated. The group was suspicious of thatone guy immediately btw. and it was later confirmed. What I think is this: Why the hell are these a-holes from teh Dutch secret service bothering to infiltrate peace groups. Are these people insane? Yes, right, they must be bad because they want peace. Absolute morons. Oh they might be infiltrated by KGB or whatever. Who the hell cares! If it's about peace, if they want to change Dutch public opinion against having a hostile opinion towards the then USSR, oh, how awful!
I also want to tell you that military and secret service types are completely bonkers the higher in rank they are. Paranoid and delusional into thinking the USSR did all the wrong in the world, the USA never did anything wrong. Not an opinion of mine, experience of mine...
WTF? This was (in the 1980s!!!) hardly a new or interesting idea.
Colour me unsurprised when anyone talks about outdated set of assumptions. But this is not from a cold war, era, this is from people who are simply stupid and/or paranoid.
Sorry, but this assessment shows huge ignorance. Not only does he misunderstand how LuzSec and Anon' operate, he also entirely fails to explain either how a foreign government would benefit from infiltrating them or how they would go about doing so in such a spread out group.
I think a lot of military people are stuck in the past. They don't understand the internet age. They call things "cyber wars" with "cyber armies" and imagine these big well organised forces likely well financed via the normal means.
Fact is both LuzSec and Anon' are a threat. But that threat doesn't require another government or organised group to exist. It doesn't require millions in military aid. In fact it is just a rag-tag group of people who want to do what they want to do. It is very similar to terrorism, and the military are just as incapable dealing with online threats as they are terrorism threats.
To be honest I think people like Mr. Moores are part of the problem. Part of the reason the military cannot understand these threats. Fire his and the old guys, hire in some experts who know shit about the 21st century.
Either the us don't care about lulzsec or they can't infiltrate the group themselves. I just don't see why any foreign power should be more likely to succeed
Repost because of inconsistency between review and posting...
What I'm thinking is this: It's not of much significance that a group can be infiltrated. It is much more significant that it happens from the government side, and especially for organisations that strive for peace. I know of a dutch peace/thinking group in the 1960s (perhaps until early 1970s) that was infiltrated. The group was suspicious of thatone guy immediately btw. and it was later confirmed. What I think is this: Why the hell are these a-holes from teh Dutch secret service bothering to infiltrate peace groups. Are these people insane? Yes, right, they must be bad because they want peace. Absolute morons. Oh they might be infiltrated by KGB or whatever. Who the hell cares! If it's about peace, if they want to change Dutch public opinion against having a hostile opinion towards the then USSR, oh, how awful!
I also want to tell you that military and secret service types are completely bonkers the higher in rank they are. Paranoid and delusional into thinking the USSR did all the wrong in the world, the USA never did anything wrong. Not an opinion of mine, experience of mine...
And finally about outdated opinions: My dad used to work in a department of the ministry of economics in NL, and he was quite annoyed about the stupidity of some things. For example they had as 'secret' discussions about various ways to respond in a war such as in particular this example: The policy of scorched earth.
WTF? This was (in the 1980s!!!) hardly a new or interesting idea.
Colour me unsurprised when anyone talks about outdated set of assumptions. But this is not from a cold war, era, this is from people who are simply stupid and/or paranoid.
Could anyone infiltrate a group such as this? Absolutely; there's few criteria for membership, no real review of members, no centralized leadership to weed out trolls from governments or other sources, and basically no defenses.
The catch is, because there's no central leadership, there's not too much to gain from 'infiltrating' them. lulzsec does not operate secretly; they operate openly and blatantly. They're a rampaging elephant. And because leadership is decentralized, your careful 'people management' system that you would advertise to use in your 'infiltration' to 'control lulzsec' will be totally derailed the moment they all decide attacking X is cool and run off to do it.
They organization is too anarchic and open to really be 'infiltrated' by the sense implied here; it's like trying to 'infiltrate' your average recess in grade school. What the hell are you going to gain from it? Maybe assign an intern you pay minimum wage to hang out in an Anon IRC and get a bit more heads-up warning, but it's not gonna be worth more then that.
In Soviet Russia, the government hacks LulzSec!
I highly recommend "Comrade J" by Pete Earley. http://www.amazon.com/Comrade-J-Pete-Earley/dp/B002BWQ5PY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311602623&sr=8-1
This book talks about the genesis of the SVR from the KGB. It also talks about how the whole concept of "nuclear winter" was invented by those agencies and fed to gullible westerners including Carl Sagan who steadfastly refused to believe it when NASA scientists debunked the whole thing. It also talks about what a colossal disaster the UN Oil for Food program was, who was duped, who profited from it, and more importantly who was pulling the strings. Bottom line is that foreign intelligence services don't need to do anything directly. There are plenty of idealists willing to do their dirty work.
Seems like Pete Earley has a book to sell!
Blar.
infiltrate a well documented, structred and purposed organization comprised of heirarchially ordered members, a mission statement and a
sem-closed forum in which ideas are traded back and forth? sure.
can they infiltrate a global syndicate of decentralized professional hackers and free thinkers bent on protecting freedom and exposing the truth? no, probably not seeing as theyre one of the targets anyhow.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Richard Feynman showed the ignorance of military blockheads towards security.
But they have heavily recruited and may get some ideas from those newby-geek-militarists
until they are fed-up and realize in what a fucking insititution they have landed.
Well, FPSRussia was able to infiltrate a recent episode of Epic Meal Time, so.. maybe?
http://youtu.be/kMyPD1VKk60
"They're evil hackers!" didn't seem to stick. The public laughed off "they're terrorists!" Now the powers that be are hoping "they're communists!" will sway public sentiment? That's so... cold war. Who's afraid of the KGB these days?
I'm surprised they didn't go straight for "they sell kiddie porn". That would achieve the desired bloodlust a lot more quickly.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Rather than infiltrating it, surely the american way is to try and buy it? Just offer enough members enough money and just like any good band of guns-for-hire they'll be persuaded to do your bidding. And if the carrot doesn't work, the other good old american tradition of the "big stick" in the shape of a photo of a Predator UAV posted to some members home addresses, can be even more effective.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
LulzSec infiltrate KGB!
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Ok, I'll try to get some order into it, starting with the most obvious one.
1. The KGB (or rather, its successor, or whatever organization you'd think) isn't interested in such petty things. They have their own guys, and they can more easily steer them in the "right" direction. Why? Because that guy is sitting right there and you can cap him if he doesn't.
2. They also have the money to simply buy such people. And then put them under the gun for a "hack that or else".
3. They also have no need to "hide" anything so they'd profit from people doing it who are not in Russia. Russia is one of the biggest perpetrators in the world when it comes to cybercrime, do you want to blame all of that on the KGB or the Russian government? Unless you assume that the organized crime actually is the government in Russia, you're probably wrong. Think they'd bother to "hide" that there's yet another Russian hacking something on the planet for fun an profit?
4. But even assuming they'd have any interest in Anonymous: Anonymous is the equivalent of an internet mob. They are not an organized system with a hierarchy and whatnot. Steering a mob is possible to some degree, you can convince them to trash something belonging to company A instead of something belonging to company B, provided they hate both companies at similar levels, but turning them around and making them a neighborhood watch or at least convincing them to trash a place they'd actually like is something you will not accomplish. You can essentially only steer a mob into attacking something they already hate. If you're that thing they hate, it's kinda hard to steer them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... is not your personal army, KGBfag
by various governments. Many of them will fail due to excessive lameness and other obvious tell-tale signs. A few will succeed. Some will be double-agents and information will flow both ways. Some will be discovered by hacks. All of this this is pretty darned obvious.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Yeah, they'll fit right in.
"Let us hack together this NSA for lulz, comrade."
The nature of the "group" is such that any time an idea gets out there that a lot of people like, there will be a certain set of people who will join in. "Infiltrating" them is no different than "infiltrating" a public forum and suggesting some ideas.
So if I read your post then I'd know that the western agencies (CIA, FBI or maybe the John Birch society, hmm?) invented the whole idea of the KGB inventing the whole idea of nuclear winter that was fed to Carl Sagan because everybody knows that famous physicists with PHDs are likely dupes of communist agencies?
lulzsec can't be infiltrated.
they have th3j35st3r on their asses and he couldn't do anything too...
not mentioning FBI, CIA and all that crap trying to stop them. As they said, "you can't arrest an idea".
There, fixed that for you. /s/XYZ/yourfavoritespookagency
They were subverted manipulated, alright.
By US and NATO operatives. Not godless commies.
The kidnap and murder of the Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, was an orchestrated event, calculated to drive Socialist-leaning Italy to the right. This was done through direct and indirect instruction by CIA managed "terrorists", according to a design by Henry Kissinger - among others.
"In 1949, the CIA helped set up the Italian secret armed forces intelligence unit, named SIFAR, staffed in part with former members of Mussolini's secret police. It later changed its name to SID. At the end of World War 2, a former Nazi collaborator, Licio Gelli, was facing execution for his activities during the war, but managed to escape by joining the US Army Counter-Intelligence Corps. In the 1950s, Gelli was recruited by SIFAR. Gelli was also head of the P2 Masonic Lodge in Italy, and in 1969, he developed close ties with General Alexander Haig, who was then Assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Through this network, Gelli became chief intermediary between the CIA and General De Lorenzo, Chief of the SID."
"The Red Brigades were a leftist Italian terrorist organization that was formed in 1970. In 1974, Red Brigade founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini were arrested. Alberto Franceschini later accused a top member of the Red Brigades, Mario Moretti, of turning them in, and that both Moretti and another leading Red Brigade member, Giovanni Senzani, were spies for the Italian and US secret services. Moretti rose up through the ranks of the Red Brigades as a result of the arrest of the two founders."
"The Red Brigades worked closely with the Hyperion Language School in Paris, which was founded by Corrado Simioni, Duccio Berio and Mario Moretti. Corrado Simoni had worked for the CIA at Radio Free Europe, Duccio Berio had been supplying the Italian SID with information of leftist groups and Mario Moretti, apart from being accused by the Red Brigades founders as being an intelligence asset, also happened to be the mastermind and murderer of former Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro. An Italian police report referred to the Hyperion Language School as âoethe most important CIA office in Europe." "
I guarantee you, behind Anders Breitvik is a NATO clandestine operation. The use of Freemasons is a good tipoff. It introduces incredulity when introduced to investigations - while actually providing a secret organisational structure and ritual omerta to enforce obedience.
You've seen this picture, right?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
KGB has not existed for about 20 years now.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The only reason for a sovereign power to infiltrate an organisation made mostly of script-kiddy types that is mostly shaming private companies is to stop them.
Russians (and Chinese) almost certainly have their own info-espionage groups which are bound to be just as good as the best LulzSec types only much better funded and with access to things such as Windows source code, info on government mandated backdoors on software and hardware, custom hardware (think USB sticks with custom firmware or even PLAs for brute force hacking into WiFi networks), inside information obtained by good old field-work (think everything from physical violence & blackmail to pillow-talk) and even physical delivery of anything anywhere in the world (think dropping custom USB flash disks in the parking lot of a company you want to hack into).
The only reason this people might have to infiltrate the likes of LulzSec is to stop them from showing to the world some low-hanging-fruit-security-hole or other they might be exploiting to get access to some basic info.
Its all ok while cia does it and shits around then ....
Read radical news here
Bullshit! Damn "security" experts trying to justify their salaries with bogus fears about foreign governments. Especially this crap about the Soviet Union manipulating social movements.
They were camped outside of RAF Upper Heyford for years. We used to read their chalkboard sign that they would post the Slogan Of The Week on. Usually it was good for a laugh or two. The camp slowly dwindled down to one old guy in a ramshackle camper. The only serious incident happened when the CNDers got enough people to have a protest that would be covered by the Press (I think it was their annual march). They approached the fence surrounding the base, cut enough links to shove a baby through, and then screamed at the top of their lungs, trying to fool the MOD police into cutting the rest of the fence so the mother could reclaim her baby. The idea was to rush the fence at that point, overwhelm the MOD police, and then run about the base, causing mayhem and havoc (and getting good press). They were foiled when the MOD police picked up the baby (the screams really ratcheted up then), and took it around to the nearest gate to hand back to the mom.
Impetuous! Homeric!
Seriously, try reading the book. The Soviets were engaging in a FUD campaign in an attempt to keep NATO from placing nukes in western Europe. Some people were willing to believe it because of their inherent fear of a nuclear war. Others were willing to scrutinize the theory and saw gaping holes in it. As smart as some people are doesn't mean they know everything. Having a PhD only means that other PhDs thought your thesis was well-presented.
Good luck with that KGB!
Notice the wording of the article. Replace spies/KGB with terrorists, Hamas, AQ...but of course it would be politically incorrect for them to say it outright, so they said KGB. Anyone noticed Sabu's icon on the Tweeters lately? And why else would that Jester guy be so opposed to them? He generally only targets terrorists and their affiliates. You people are smart or you would not be reading /. Always remember to look beyond the obvious meaning of things.
-Jigs
Have you considered the (not unlikely) possibility LulzSec was Russian intelligence to start with?
Was most assuredly a leftist plot
KGB always had what is called useful idiots - those communist, leftist, activist movements those destroy their own countries. It is not necessary to have them on the leash. Sophisticated cultural indoctrination is enough - and useful idiots will do everything you dreamed about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
Yes.
So could the La Leche League of Breast-feeding Mothers
So could the Church of Scientology
So could the Mid-South Ugandan Underwater Tiddlywinks Association
Sheesh!