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Anonymous Posts Audio of Intercepted FBI Conference Call
DrDevil writes "A member of the computer hacking group Anonymous has hacked into a telephone conference between the FBI and Scotland Yard (London Police) and posted it on the internet. The Daily Telegraph has a comprehensive article on the hack. The audio of the call can be heard here." Reader eldavojohn snips as well from the AP's story as carried by Google: "Those on the call talk about what legal strategy to pursue in the cases of Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis — two British suspects linked to Anonymous — and discuss details of the evidence gathered against other suspects."
If Anonymous can listen to FBI calls then they'll certainly know when the FBI will be coming to kick down their door.
This will really piss off the FBI and it will be the political motivation for the FBI to pull out all the stops to find members of Anonymous.
If the government can listen to our calls (without a warrant) then why can't we listen to theirs?
After all, if what amounts to a few script-kiddies can get this deep into confidential material, how much more material can a determined, knowledgeable, and well-funded adversary get?
And that's why I always insist that we use the cone of silence.
Based on the vague discussion details and how the FBI sent out an email with the conference call number and password, it sounds more likely to be a setup by the FBI to lure Anon into the call so they could glean more location data off of them.
Nah. Never expect cleverness where carelessness would as easily explain how it was achieved.
Some agent has been found and his mailbox is regularly visited for content of interest. Use some better security, send out a honeypot once in a while and see who connects, etc. This is a lesson for FBI and Scotland Yard not to take their security for granted. Could have been worse.
I'm certain anyone else who was privy to these conference calls is highly annoyed at the exposure, which will result in some changes.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Anonymous is a dangerous threat to national security. They can even listen in on phone calls on secure lines. We must have mandatory validated identification of all users of the Internet and an end to anonymity to protect our secret operations."
They're the worst type of vigilantes, who in their own minds are drunk with power. They're the internet equivalent of a mob of Molotov-cocktail tossing anarchists who burn things down because it's fun to do. They rationalize their behavior any way they can
The problem is this same statement pretty well applies to the FBI and CIA and insert Gov agency here since 9/11.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I don't know....I have a Model M.
I mean this question in all seriousness: In this new information age in which we find ourselves, who ARE the heroes and who are the villains among these?
1. Wikileaks / Bradley Manning / Julian Assange
2. The justice department in conjunction with the overzealous copyright lobby and their partner brain slugs attached to the heads of the US executive branch
3. "Illegal" immigrants
4. The 1% that siphons wealth out of the country so they can get a generous cut along the way
5. The proletariat who are mostly content with the way things are, but would be fully content if there was just more of it.
6. Television news media
7. The US congress
8. The US military
9. Anonymous / Lulzsec / 2600
Here's my OPINION (for what it's worth, don't feel obligated to buy it)
Heroes: 1,3,8,9
Villains: 2,4,6,7
Undecided / Neutral: 5
What destruction has Anonymous caused that compares to suppression of the 1st amendment? They're effectively just calling shenanigans loud enough for everyone to hear, and I find it hilarious how much offense their opponents take in response.
Well, if the FBI and the Yard does not have anything to hide, then why are they so upset about being listened in on? They LOVE to live in a surveillance society so much that they're the primary force in bringing it to be!
You should ALWAYS listen to what the police say.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Believe it or not, there are shades of grey between "I don't want 4chan dabbling in national security" and "I am a genocidal totalitarian".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
It's sure as hell not mightier than the public, though.
As long as double cheeseburgers are 99 cents, I don't think most of the public can be motivated to do much of anything.
I guess you sort of don't get the point of anonymous. They don't two [insert fecal reference here] because they are anyone and everyone, they blend right into the crowd. It could be anyone you know or don't know and people don't even have to join anonymous to be anonymous. These are basically random acts of terror. They don't really "decide" to do things as a group. Some random guy out there just suddenly decides, hey I'm going to go and do this and this and announces it to everyone. For example, the "public" opinion in "anonymous," which just so happens to match the general public opinion at large at the time, was that the Sony attacks and other related video game hacks were going to far and undermined public opinion of the "group" as a whole. Also, a lot of them are gamers too, so they weren't too happy with the idea of attacking gamers, in general. But, one or two "members" just decided gamers needed to be trolled, and did so. And, the fact that other anonymous members were annoyed by it, just made their trolling sweeter. Also, there were other members who simply get off on following the rest of the sheep in any attack they decide to do, so even though they might not have been in favor of it they just went along with it because that's where the action was.
They're the epitomy of a pure anarchy. They coordinate by accident, and when they don't they act as lone wolves and do things of their own accord and agendas. And, the FBI and powers that be catch a few here and there, but it's like trying to stop whistle blowing for example there's always going to be more out there "joining" every day. Except that they're not really "joining" per se, all you need to do to be a supposed member is commit a random attack, brag about it, and stay anonymous. The moment your identity is known, e.g. you got doxxed, then you're no longer a "member" of the group. The ones they catch don't know any of the other members. Hopefully, that puts things in perspective.
Basically, they're unstoppable. Maybe you can scare the group as a whole, sort of. For example, when some members were captured during a protest and taken by the Mexican mafias. Other "members" essentially negotiated for their safe release, using probably the only method they had at their disposal, blackmail. However, the mafia said to anonymous, that they would release the members but that if anonymous continued to expose and attack the mafia they would kill 1 innocent a day or something like that. Guess what anonymous did after their member's release? Sure enough, they went right back to exposing / attacking the mafia. Some "members" are amoral and really don't care, and some do care. But, the ones who care can't stop the ones that don't from doing simply anything they please. Just like if you picked a handful of random members of the general population, you'll find some people that care about others, some that don't, and some that may even amount to being criminal.
The concept of anonymous is a pretty dangerous thing. Just like the war on terror, it's asymmetrical warfare. I'm reminded of an old saying, "It is easier to destroy than create." -- Niven's 6th law.
They're probably going to be with us a very long time, the genie is out of the bottle. Even if you tracked every single communication and person in the world, they're going to find a way around it. They have a lot of hackers as members, great ones and not so great ones. Ironically, probably a hundred years from now they'll be the only thing standing between the average population and an absolute world totalitarianism that controls everything we think, say, and do. That's the only comforting thought I can think of about this whole fiasco.
They're apparently much smarter than you are.
The FBI is what it is because it outwardly appears to operate effectively. If you can demonstrate well enough that it is not effective it will be dismantled either through staffing changes or actual full-on dismantling.
You don't try to tie up the FBI's time, because it will just cost the tax payer more money. You throw egg in it's face as often as you possibly can until it's a laughing stock and must be replaced/removed in order to save face.
Again, clearly much smarter than you
It is poor tradecraft to reveal an adversary's weakness if you plan to continue to exploit it.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
No.
They are moral, legal and operational equivalents of Inspector Javert.
But they are on track to reach STASI equivalency, in th coming decade.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Or, it's brilliant.
Let's say Anon managed to through some one-time gap (ie a sympathetic insider, perhaps) managed to get the login details to this one conference. It's meaningless, because they can't repeat the success.
However, if they leak it:
- heads roll at the FBI
- everyone's walking on eggshells because of management fury
- everyone's required to use full-secure protocols and resources for the stupidest trivial conversations
- FBI still doesn't know who leaked it, so begins witchhunt which consumes resources, and makes everyone nervous.
I think it's probably a one-off, parlayed into a fairly clever bit of system-attack.
You know, like a single coordinated unrepeatable multiplane hijacking could theoretically cause an entire country to be consumed by paroxysms of paranoia for more than a decade, leading to absurd legislation, efficiency costs for hundreds of millions of people, as well as actual TRILLIONS of dollars of waste.
Right?
-Styopa