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Britain's GCHQ Attacked Anonymous Supporters With DDoS
An anonymous reader writes "NBC News reports that, during a 2012 NSA conference called SIGDEV, GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group bragged about using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against members of Anonymous during an operation called Rolling Thunder in 2011 (there is evidence that says it was a SYN flood, so technically it was a simple DoS attack). Regular citizens would face 10 years in prison and enormous fines for committing a DoS / DDoS attack. The same applies if they encouraged or assisted in one. But if you work in the government, it seems like you're an exception to the rule."
...No, I got nothing.
... then they proceed to DDoS anonymous
In other news, the UK military can drive tanks, fire missiles & carry weapons - but regular citizens cannot.
It's all about oversight, not an attitude of "why can't we legally do this too?".
Police are allowed to do many things in their duty that non-police aren't allowed to do.
Can it not be argued that GCHQ is also allowed to do many things in their duty that non-GCHQ folk aren't allowed to do.
To the police that is? That government agents (no not only the 007 kind) tend to overstep their authorities and commit crimes from time to time isn't that uncommon or even strange (even a government consists of people after all) but the solution to that is to report the event to police and let the legal system handle it. And hope the guilty are punished, sadly that isn't certain...
It can levy taxes, print money, jail people involuntarily, declare war, kill people , etc.
Who will win in the end? Stay tuned!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
of course it's the least that they did. Do you really think the SIGINT community for the British Government is going to do nothing whilst our institutions are attacked? Anonymous declared war so they got attacked. Boo. Hoo.
http://pigs-at-gchq.com/ Do laws matter? When all agree to abide by a law it is called a social contract in English. “An agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for mutual social benefits, by safeguarding individual freedom for state protection.” The Oxford dictionary puts it this way: “Agreement among the members of a society or between a society and its rulers about the rights and duties of each.” The U.K. and the U.S. authorities have broken this agreement so badly in so many different ways that the future is not looking very good. Until they agree to keep within this social contract I will simply tell them at every opportunity to fuck off. Hope you do the same.
if you're a private citizen, and you get denies service... isn't that more of an inconvenience? it's not really costing individuals millions of dollars or setting them back. if my connection had been attacked, it would be hard to tell if I was being attacked or if my internet connection was on the fritz. really, it's kind of a waste of tax payer money they're bragging about. stupid.
I'm not in support of their actions, but this is a pretty stupid thing to say: ... But if you work in the government, it seems like you're an exception to the rule."
"Regular citizens would face 10 years in prison and enormous fines
Yes, you are an exception to the rule if you work for the government. That's how the entire policing, military, intelligence system works. If you disagree with that then you have very fundamental philosophical problems with the way our society is structured.
And there's already a comment there: http://blog.erratasec.com/2014...
. . . I'm totally down with it.
If you live where shooting an armed criminal during the commission of a crime is illegal then you're already in trouble. If you're not trying to change it, then you're part of the problem.
I know DDoS attacks against IRC servers aren't uncommon...
But we're talking about an IRC server being DDoS'd by a security agency.
A place where people go to talk (regardless of how affiliated they are with Anonymous or not.)
So I'm guessing this means that Freedom of Speech no longer means shit the fascists in charge.
Yes, they can do this shit and you can't. Get over it.
Would you also say that to the people of North Korea?
At what point do you draw the line?
So it's rather odd to see a post crying over them being given a dose of their own medicine. But this is /. so I suppose it shouldn't be.
This was the first DOS attack I ever heard of. Used against Panix (ISP in NY) back in the day. Now most systems (Linux kerel, etc) are hardened against syn floods.
Primitive.
I need to know exactly the rules, before I face the exceptions.
This is no satisfying order for the world i live in.
Please eat shit and die.
these fucking fucks out. FFS. The amount of shit I have to look forward to is dwindling. Domestic terrorism in the younger generation is going to be high, i think.
Um... no. DDoS means that the attack comes from a set of attacking servers, typically distributed geographically. A SYN flood can be performed with a single server or with multiple servers sending SYN requests to the target. In fact, if the target is more robust than the attacker (for example, if the target is a cluster and the attacker is an iPad) a DoS SYN flood will likely fail, and DDoS is necessary.
Whoever wrote that line needs more edumucation.
DDoS/DoS CAN be stopped (Microsoft & Amazon are setup PERFECTLY vs. it in fact, read on below on that note)!
---
Microsoft Windows NT-based OS settings vs. DoS:
Protect Against SYN Attacks
FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...
A SYN attack exploits a vulnerability in the TCP/IP connection establishment mechanism. To mount a SYN flood attack, an attacker uses a program to send a flood of TCP SYN requests to fill the pending connection queue on the server. This prevents other users from establishing network connections.
To protect the network against SYN attacks, follow these generalized steps, explained later in this document:
Enable SYN attack protection
Set SYN protection thresholds
Set additional protections
Enable SYN Attack Protection
---
The named value to enable SYN attack protection is located beneath the registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters.
Value name: SynAttackProtect
Recommended value: 2
Valid values: 0, 1, 2
Description: Causes TCP to adjust retransmission of SYN-ACKS. When you configure this value the connection responses timeout more quickly in the event of a SYN attack. A SYN attack is triggered when the values of TcpMaxHalfOpen or TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried are exceeded.
---
Set SYN Protection Thresholds
The following values determine the thresholds for which SYN protection is triggered. All of the keys and values in this section are under the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters
These keys and values are:
Value name: TcpMaxPortsExhausted
Recommended value: 5
Valid values: 0?65535
Description: Specifies the threshold of TCP connection requests that must be exceeded before SYN flood protection is triggered.
Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpen
Recommended value data: 500
Valid values: 100?65535
Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.
Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried
Recommended value data: 400
Valid values: 80?65535
Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state for which at least one retransmission has been sent. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.
---
Set Additional Protections
All the keys and values in this section are located under the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters. These keys and values are:
Value name: TcpMaxConnectResponseRetransmissions
Recommended value data: 2
Valid values: 0?255
Description: Controls how many times a SYN-ACK is retransmitted before canceling the attempt when responding to a SYN request.
Value name: TcpMaxDataRetransmissions
Recommended value data: 2
Valid values: 0?65535
Description: Specifies the number of times that TCP retransmits an individual data segment (not connection request segments) before aborting the connection.
Value name: EnablePMTUDiscovery
Recommended value data: 0
Valid values: 0, 1
Description: Setting this value to 1 (the default) forces TCP to discover the maximum transmission unit or largest packet size over the path to a remote host. An attacker can force packet fragmentation, which overworks the stack.
Specifying 0 forces the MTU of 576 bytes for connections from hosts not on the local subnet.
Value name: KeepAliveTime
Recommended value data: 300000
Valid values: 80?4294967295
Description: Specifies how often T
The police can shoot someone, but a regular citizen can't. They can detain you and stick you in a room with a bright light. If a regular citizen does that it's called kidnapping. So there are lots of things the authorities can do that the average Joe can't.
Since when is a link to twitter acceptable? Link straight to the NBC article next time plox.
Does this have anything to do with why FreeNode IRC was being DoS attacked a couple days ago?
ABOVE THE LAW
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
Sure, they probably won't go anywhere, but it'll still be good to have it on public record that the government refuses to prosecute its own agency's crimes.
Wasn't just the Anonymous group the attacked ones, but other people that wanted to stay anonymous too, like political dissidents and others. Is not the War on Anonymous, but the war on anonymous, privacy and anonymity is becoming outlawed (except for them, of course)
... but some of us are more equal than others.
it's only a matter of time before they're used...needed or not.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Am I the only one amused that the spooks have the basement-dwellers a taste of their own medicine?
I suspect most North Koreans would gladly trade the problem of a DDOS attack against them by the government for engaging in DDOS in exchange for their current problems of political prisoners being experimented on and mass starvation due to the government diverting both local food and foreign food aid to the military.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Hey you, peasant! Laws are for you, not for us!
Are belong to us.
*: I did try and warn him about the future but he said he had to rush off to do some shopping..
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
Anonymous factions DoS each other all the time for fun and practice. They are fairly good at working around it.
Hey GCHQ: You're not just denying the target service. The internet isn't magic. It doesn't teleport your packets to the destination. It's a series of tubes, and your syn flood effects all the tubes between you and the target.
do something about your government. It's out of rein.
(now going to do something about *mine*, it's out of rein too).
That reads like you are suggesting any gov't abuse short of North Korea's track record is okay and should be overlooked because we should feel "lucky" our overlords are not quite as malevolent.
The problem lies in the fact that the difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.
Any single member of "Anonymous" or any other Guy Fawks club might (or might not) be wrong with what they are doing. If they are wrong, charged in a court of law for whatever acts of defacement, harassment, or bullying (cyber or otherwise) then they can get whatever punishment that is appropriate (locked away, with only a wet string as their means of communication, and no electronic amusements at all, or whatever else is deemed fitting).
Firing into a crowd of people with the equivalent of a rapid-fire shot-gun because you have some suspicion that members of that crowd might or might not be guilty of certain acts that they haven't even been charged with, violates so many of the rules of policing ...
I am in no way, shape or form defending Anonymous. I am simply saying that this response is not acceptable, on any level.
POLICE STATE
Not to defend NK, but which apart of the mass starvation was due to US embargo and which is self inflicted. It nice for the US to 'aid' them and at the same time starve them with using economic sanctions. Before the fall of the USSR the two Koreans was economic equal.
The GCHQ are the GOOD guys, remember? As such why should they be hamstrung by the rules and laws that criminals follow?
Why wouldn't we want to give them those advantages do we want them to do their jobs or don't we?
Whoever would defend governments for attacking their own citizens without you?
Nice screen-spam. Way to make it all the more obvious what cold fjord and his "friends" are tying to do in threads like these.
Hacking stratfor to robin-hood the information on private citizens that they obtained illegally for corporations isn't protest? Ruining HBGary federal, which sought to defame activists on behalf of Bank of America isn't protest? You are so fucking dumb that you think you're convincing anyone. Better have one of yoir sockpuppets downvote me, too, you pussy.
Most of you are too young to recall the great comic strip Pogo,
but the above quote in my subject line is from Pogo.
The full quote is brilliant stuff and worth reading. You can find it below :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)#.22We_have_met_the_enemy_and_he_is_us..22
I suspect most North Koreans would gladly trade the problem of a DDOS attack against them by the government for engaging in DDOS in exchange for their current problems of political prisoners being experimented on and mass starvation due to the government diverting both local food and foreign food aid to the military.
Extreme evil doesn't mean that lesser evils are somehow acceptable,
except perhaps in the twisted reasoning framework of a sociopathic child.
Do you actually believe the twisted illogical transparently bogus propaganda you write ?
Or do you just write this stuff because your masters instruct you to write it ?
You don't even have the courage to give a truthful answer, I know that, but seriously,
this forum is not a place where you will ever persuade any significant number of people,
because most of us see right through your bullshit. So why do you keep it up ? Are you
at such a low pay grade that you have to do this in order to remain enlisted ?
So your preference for the Anonymous members is that instead of suffering a transient DDOS attack having no long term affect on them that they would instead be prosecuted, their PCs confiscated, they be imprisoned and fined for engaging in illegal DDOS attacks - since that is a very possible outcome of the law? It seems to me they got off quite lightly as it was. Instead you wish them far greater punishment and a long term mark against them that could affect their future employment? Do you really think that is wise? Do you hate Anonymous? Or is it something to do with your framework of reasoning?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The two Koreas weren't really equal, South Korea was well ahead in terms of building a viable economy for an advanced nation for the purposes of peace and prosperity. You are right in noting that the USSR was involved since it and China were engaged in providing massive aid to prop up North Korea. The North Koreas are responsible for their famine, not the US. They managed to magnify any hardship caused by the weather by means of incompetent and backwards communist inspired agriculture policy. What's worse is that they prioritize the military and direct food there first. They stole food aid for the peasants and sent it to the military as well, which is why so many nations are hesitant to provide them more aid. To top it all off they recently enacted "currency reform" that crushed what little progress their middle class had managed. The cherry on the top is that they ignore Chinese recommendations to implement market reforms, which they recently set back in a huge way. That is before you discuss the many criminal enterprises the North Korean state is engaged in, such as drug dealing and counterfeiting. You are badly confused about the facts.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It's adorable how you pretend that you, or indeed any of us, live in a society that is as free and accountable to the civilian populace as it pretends to be, and not in point of fact run secretly and corruptly by those with large sums of money.
Who's a-wiving in deni-ew? You are! Ah yes you are -- ah yes you are! You are wiving in deni-ew!