Aaron Barr Talks About DEFCON, Anonymous Attacks

Trailrunner7 writes "Finding Aaron Barr at this year's DEFCON hacker conference in Las Vegas was like a giant game of 'Where's Waldo.' Given the events of the past year, you can hardly blame him for keeping a low profile. First there was the attack on him and his then-employer, HBGary Federal, his decision to part ways with HBGary, his work to rehabilitate his image and turn his personal misfortunes into a 'teaching moment' for the industry, and then the legal wrangling in recent weeks that threw cold water on his plans to take part in a panel discussion about Anonymous at DEFCON. Barr was courted by numerous news outlets at the show, including the mainstream media. But he preferred, for the most part, to keep his own counsel. But he offered his thoughts to Threatpost on the experience of being at the conference, what the attack by Anonymous has done to him and whether it's possible for the group to turn its attentions to more constructive pursuits."

Comments

Re:Fuck Aaron Barr

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's worse than that, honestly. If he were just a chest-thumping internet blowhard, that would just put him among the untold millions of gratingly defective personalities infesting the internet. No big deal.

However, for all his pleasant protests to the contrary "Oh, look at me, I'm against Wal-mart and the Iraq war!", he is basically the smiley face standing in front of a bunch of unsavory characters(HB Gary's work on rootkits, for instance, was not exactly "defensive" in nature...)

Choice little bits like "Good threat intelligence requires comprehensive real-time collection and analysis on all threats, and in a constantly connected, social media-dominated world, this appears to some as an encroachment by governments or companies on privacy in the name of security. In my opinion, well-intentioned efforts run afoul of some civil libertarians and privacy advocates because of the perception of encroachment. But with mediums like social networking Web sites, which enable easy manipulation of identity, it is getting difficult to separate the actual threats from the bystanders." certainly do sound all nice and 'nuanced'; but are basically a polite re-statement of the justification for the too-creepy-even-for-congress Total Information Awareness stuff.

In a slightly different vein, his "The need for anonymity for in the latter case is critical to protect whistleblowers or dissidents. In the case of the former - online protests - I believe anonymity and the lack of personal accountability is absolutely corrupting what I think are some of the key tenets of lawful protest. These include personal sacrifice and a willingness for individuals to stand up and be associated with a cause or idea with boots on the ground, as it were." sure does sound nice, except for its implied premise that there are "whistleblowers or dissidents", the good guys, who can be clearly separated from mere "protesters" who had better be ready to wear nametags and stand neatly in the free speech zone. Fantastic... Earth to Aaron Barr... Entities being attacked always classify their attackers, whatever their means, as the most dangerous/evil category available. Nobody says "Well, gosh, I guess that the guy who just leaked our secret plans is just a good, honest, whistleblower. Good on him!".

For all his 'shades of grey' droning, assertions of 'liberalism', and whatnot, this guy is a dirty little cog doing his bit for surveillance society(but not to fear, he says he is a "white hat"). At best, he maintains the oh-so-not-at-all-daring position that other people's dissidents are good guys who are worthy of protection; but the(apparently not "dissident") actions of 'attacking' "Law Enforcement" and "Sony" are just evil criminal stuff. Apparently they are in the way of "Western Information Dominance"...

Re:Barr had it coming, but...

[BitZtream]

Now? As if at some point in the past they were different? Are you really that stupid?

There is a reason why mob justice isn't legal, because its never about the fucking justice and always about one group making another group or individual suffer for various reasons of personal gain.

The Internet is not DIFFERENT than anything else, people there are EXACTLY THE SAME as everywhere else.

Just because at one point in the past they were picking on people that you didn't like, doesn't mean they were trying to do something good. You just happen to share a common foe for the moment, nothing more. Stop trying to make some random group of losers on the Internet a romantic fairy tale.