Hasta La Gadget!

On Monday, Anonymous and various extremist Islamic hacking collectives announced their OpUSA mission, which was a planned cyberattack against nine big-name US agencies/institutions that the hackers wanted to take down. The attack was announced in a manifesto of sorts on Pastebin, which you can read here if poor grammar is of no bother to you. Not surprisingly, the attack appears to have fizzled out with little effect.

The OpUSA cyberattack was set to take place on May 7, which has come and gone for most of those in the US, and thus far no reports have surfaced regarding cyberattacks against the intended targets, among which was the Pentagon, NSA, FBI, the White House’s website, Capital One, Bank of America, and many more banks. A YouTube video was also specified as a target.

YouTube hosted a video titled “Innocence of Muslims,” which Islamist hacking collective Izz al-Din Qassam Cyber Fighters would remove from the website, said Anonymous. Several other Islamic hacking collectives were also specified in the cyberattack’s announcement. For all the grand talk, however, little came of it and websites were by-and-large unaffected.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement earlier this week akin to an amused pat on the head, stating that the attack, at the most, would temporarily disrupt websites and nothing else. According to Mashable, the Honolulu Police Department and one hundred or so obscure small businesses had their websites hacked. That took place on May 6, however, and may have been unrelated.

[via Mashable]

Anonymous OpUSA cyberattack plan goes out with a fizzle is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

As you may, hopefully, be unaware, today is Alice Day, a day inspired by Lewis Carroll’s debated sexual attraction to Alice In Wonderland’s very underage and very real counterpart, when proud pedophiles come together in celebration of their disorder. So it’s a beautiful day for a NAMBLA takedown, and Anonymous was happy to answer the call. More »

Matthew Keys, the journalist who was accused of conspiring with Anonymous, has been fired by Reuters today. On his Twitter account, Keys tweeted, “Just got off the phone. Reuters has fired me, effective today. Our union will be filing a grievance. More soon.” David Girardin, a Reuters spokesperson, confirmed the firing. According to Keys, his termination from Reuters had no relation to his alleged involvement with Anonymous, but was due to him violating his “Final Written Warning”.

The final written warning was issued back on October 25th, 2012. It was issued to Keys because he created a parody Twitter account named @PendingLarry. It was used to mock Larry Page, CEO of Google. The warning goes on to say that creating the fake account that did not identify Keys as the author violated Reuter’s Social Media Policy. It also stated that his actions “displayed a serious lapse of judgment and professionalism that is unbecoming of a Reuters journalist.” The following sentences may be the reason as to why Keys was terminated,

“For these reasons, we are issuing this final written warning. We must see immediate improvement in your communications with managers and more discretion in your social media practices.”

Keys, who was Reuter’s Deputy Social Media Editor, recently came under fire a few days ago after he was criticized for tweeting misinformation from police scanners. His first tweet stated, “Dispatch: First Boston bomb suspect is Mike Mulugeta,” and his second tweet stated, “Dispatcher: Suspect 2 is missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi.” Keys defended his position in a Facebook post, stating he was unaware that the police asked people not to publish information from police scanners, and that other social journalists were doing the same thing as he was.

Keys told Politico that his termination from Reuters “wasn’t unexpected”, and that his independent coverage of the Boston bombings was one of the reasons why he was fired. Keys also told Politico that Reuters had a “specific set of reasons for the termination” which he and the union agree “is incorrect and doesn’t hold any water.” He states that Reuters may have just been “looking for an out” and jumped at the opportunity to fire him.

[via Politico]

Reuters fires journalist accused of conspiring with Anonymous is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Earlier this month, Anonymous revealed they had hacked a number of North Korea’s social networks as part of their “Operation Free Korea” campaign. It looks as though the organization isn’t stopping there as they have yet again launched an attack on a number of North Korean websites, resulting in complete control over the websites.

Anonymous is claiming responsibility for hacking its way into North Korean’s news and information site Uriminzokkiri.com, which has since been taken down and is completely offline as of this writing. Anonymous reveals they were the ones behind this attack as they tweeted on Uriminzokkiri’s Twitter account “more of North Korean websites are in our hand. They will be brought down.” (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: South Korea Blames North For TV Stations, Banks Cyberattacks, Google develops job search engine for the US military,

Hacking collective Anonymous has apparently selected its next high-profile target, in the shape of any sites or social network accounts related to North Korea, seizing control of Flickr and Twitter pages in the process. The activists cracked the Uriminzokkiri accounts and uploaded images of their own, which still remain online at time of writing, in addition to claiming to have extracted 15,000 usernames and passwords from the site, the BBC reports. Anonymous’ goal appears to be loosening the restrictions on internet access North Koreans face from their government.

To draw attention to that cause, Anonymous has been spreading its mischief as broadly as it can. The Uriminzokkiri Twitter account remains apparently hacked, and the main site itself has been taken down, though it’s unclear whether that’s due to a hack or a denial-of-service attack.

In an expletive-punctuated release the purported team responsible for the hacks describe the campaign as one targeting “oppressing and violent regimes” and calls for an end to the North Korean nuclear program and the resignation of Kim Jong-un. There are also demands for a “free direct democracy” in the country, alongside “uncensored internet access.”

A follow-up release went on to describe a “a chain of long distance WiFi repeaters with proprietary frequencies” that had been used to bring internet access some way into North Korea itself. The system is described as “slow and unstable” however, and subject to retaliation by the government.

Attitudes toward internet access in North Korea had seemed to be loosening in recent months, with the country even allowing visitors to access the web on their mobile devices in early March. However, the freedom was short-lived, lasting only a few weeks before North Korea clamped back down on it.

Anonymous hacks North Korea’s social media in net freedom bid is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.