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How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price
Aaron Barr believed he had penetrated Anonymous. The loose hacker collective had been responsible for everything from anti-Scientology protests to pro-Wikileaks attacks on MasterCard and Visa, and the FBI was now after them. But matching their online identities to real-world names and locations proved daunting. Barr found a way to crack the code. In a private e-mail to a colleague at his security firm HBGary Federal, which sells digital tools to the US government, the CEO bragged about his research project. "They think I have nothing but a heirarchy based on IRC [Internet Relay Chat] aliases!" But had he? "We are kind of pissed at him right now" Barr's "pwning" meant finding out the names and addresses of the top Anonymous leadership. "At any given time there are probably no more than 20-40 people active, accept during hightened points of activity like Egypt and Tunisia where the numbers swell but mostly by trolls," he wrote in an internal e-mail. Indeed, publicity was the plan.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/how-one-security-firm-tracked-anonymousand-paid-a-heavy-price.ars

TASC - Echelon 2 TASC, Inc. describes itself as "a renowned provider of advanced systems engineering, integration and decision–support services across the intelligence, defense, homeland security and federal markets." It's also a major target of our investigation due to correspondence discovered between HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr and TASC executives Al Pisani and John Lovegrove regarding their collaborative pursuit of the Romas/COIN contract, which was then held by Northrop Grumman . Throughout 2010, Barr exchanged dozens of e-mails with TASC executives as the two parties collaborated on building a team capable of winning the Romas/COIN contract away from Northrop; to a lesser extent, Mantech CEO Robert Frisbie was also involved in this effort, mostly in communication with Barr. The full report on Romas/COIN may be found at its page; below is a sampling of e-mails from the period. From: Aaron Barr <aaron@hbgary.com> To: Pisani, Albert A. Al, I met with Bob Frisbie the other day to catch up.

"TWO *REAL* GUNS POINTED AT ME": how the FBI raided Anonymous The FBI yesterday executed 40 search warrants around the US to gather evidence on the Anonymous distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in defense of WikiLeaks last year—attacks which targeted Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Amazon. And when the FBI comes a-knockin', the whole house starts a rockin'. Ars has seen posts from a private forum in which several targets of the FBI raids offer brief descriptions of the experience, along with the occasional photo of a beaten-in front door. We cannot guarantee the authenticity of these accounts, though we believe them to be genuine.

Home Of Happy Wheels - Happy Wheels Full Version Hello pals. I'd like to continue hosting the flash version of Happy Wheels as long as possible. With the loss of certain ad networks, I'm going to try out a few different ad formats on this site as I continue to attempt to regain some of the revenue that went missing. I'll be making a few minor changes here and there to see whatever works best. Nothing should be annoying. This heads up was the main reason for this news post. How Aaron Barr Infiltrated Anonymous, and Why He Decided to Do It Ars Technica's Nate Anderson has put together a long and fascinating report on the tumultuous recent history of Aaron Barr -- the security expert who successfully infiltrated Anonymous, and then got burned, after running to the FBI with his findings. Based on e-mails he sent before beginning his mission, it's clear that Barr's motives, from the very beginning, were profit-driven. A social media fanatic, Barr firmly believed that he could use data from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to identify any hacker in the world, including members of Anonymous. "Hackers may not list the data, but hackers are people too so they associate with friends and family," Barr wrote in an e-mail to a colleague at HBGary Federal. "Those friends and family can provide key indicators on the hacker without them releasing it...."

FBI goes after Anonymous for pro-WikiLeaks DDoS attacks The FBI has joined in the hunt for those who participated in the retaliation attacks against companies that cut off services to WikiLeaks, executing more than 40 search warrants across the United States on Thursday, the bureau announced. In what seem to be timed raids, British police arrested five men Thursday morning who allegedly participated in the Anonymous group’s denial of service attacks on Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Amazon in mid-December. Anonymous was seeking to bring attention to—and punish—the financial-service companies’ decisions to prohibit donations to Wikileaks. Amazon was targeted after it kicked Wikileaks off its Web-hosting service. The nightmarish hybrid taxidermy that could land 'Franken-artist' in jail By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 06:44 GMT, 19 December 2011 Like a modern day Dr Frankenstein, Enrique Gomez De Molina creates hauntingly stunning hybrid sculptures made from the stuffed parts of dead animals. But it is his beloved mythical creatures that could land the Miami artist in jail for up to five years and see him forking out $250,000 in fines. De Molina uses the parts of once-living animals and merges them together to create strange beings, one example features the head of two swans on the body of a goat and another shows the head of a squirrel meshed with a crab. Mythical: The surreal sculptures feature a doubles head swan on the body of what appears to be a goat Creepy: This otherworldly piece is created with the head of a screaming squirrel and the body of crab

A sinister cyber-surveillance scheme exposed When President Eisenhower left office in 1960, he provided the American people with a warning. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Sixty years later, the military-industrial complex has been joined by another unprecedented centre of what has increasingly proven to be "misplaced power": the dozens of secretive firms known collectively as the intelligence contracting industry. Last February, three of these firms – HBGary Federal, Palantir and Berico, known collectively as Team Themis – were discovered to have conspired to hire out their information war capabilities to corporations which hoped to strike back at perceived enemies, including US activist groups, WikiLeaks and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Anon pwns HBGary Federal UPDATED w/PRESS RELEASE Like Barr's previous statements to FT, the entirety of his research is not only terrible, but in many cases less informative than is the public record. The entry on me, for instance, is entirely inaccurate despite the fact that I have not been a clandestine participant since coming out of the closet months ago. As noted by Bernard Keane, the situation is rather hilarious. More to the point, it should demonstrate that HBGary Federal is not only incapable of protecting its clients and informing on folks who were among the first to get involved in Tunisia and Egypt - it is incapable of protecting itself. New music: Disclosure – Carnival Band of brothers ... Howard and Guy Lawrence, aka Disclosure. Photograph: Michaela Letang. Disclosure hail from south London and are brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence. They make the kind of music that's influenced by dance genres they're probably too young to have experienced first time round (one of them is 16 and the other is 19).

HBGary - Wiki HBGary is subsidiary company of ManTech International, focused on technology security. In the past two distinct but affiliated firms had carried the HBGary name: HBGary Federal, which sold its products to the US Federal Government,[3] and HB Gary, Inc.[4] Its other clients included information assurance companies, computer emergency response teams, and computer forensic investigators.[5] On February 29, 2012, HBGary, Inc. announced it was acquired by IT services firm ManTech International.[6] At the same time, HBGary Federal has been reported to be closed.[6] History[edit] The company was founded by Greg Hoglund in 2003.[1] In 2008, it joined the McAfee Security Innovation Alliance.[5] The CEO made presentations at the Black Hat Briefings, the RSA Conference, and other computer security conferences.[7][8] HBGary also analyzed the GhostNet and Operation Aurora events.[3][7] As of 2010, it had offices in Sacramento, California, Washington, D.C., and Bethesda, Maryland.[2] Fallout[edit]

HBGary leaked emails Type: Other > Other Files: Size: 4.71 GiB (5053424159 Bytes) Uploaded: Bern The city of Bern or Berne (German: Bern, pronounced [bɛrn] ( In 1983 the historic old town in the centre of Bern became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Bern is ranked among the world’s top ten cities for the best quality of life (2010).[7] Name[edit] Cell Phone Guide for Occupy Wall Street Protesters (and Everyone Else) Occupy Wall Street has called for a global day of action on October 15, and protesters are mobilizing all over the world. In the United States, the Occupy Wall Street movement has already spawned sizeable protests in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, Austin, and other cities. Several of these movements have faced opposition from their local police departments, including mass arrests.

User:Ned Scott/Upper Peninsula War The Upper Peninsula War (1843-1844; also known as the Canadian - Michigan War) was the conflict between the State of Michigan and Canada over a disputed territorial line in the Upper Peninsula, which lead to a secession attempt by the governor of Michigan, Epaphroditus Ransom. The boundary dispute arose out of ambiguous and conflicting mappings of the region, which set the St. Mary’s River through, what is known now as the Upper Peninsula. Governor Ransom feared that the Canadian government would attempt to reclaim sovereignty over the Upper Peninsula. He also feared threats from U.S.

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