ANONYMOUS SAYS IT IS GOING AFTER THREE TARGETS ON NOVEMBER 5TH

November 5, known as Guy Fawkes Day in Britain, is a special day for Anonymous. And this November 5, Anonymous is celebrating by saying it will make three different raids: an attack on the social media giant Facebook, a physical protest against banks, and an assault on right-wing news network Fox News.

In "Operation Facebook", Anonymous is targeting Facebook for their inadequate privacy settings and for “selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so they can spy on people from all around the world.” There has been some confusion, even on the part of Anonymous if this operation will actually take place. A call-to-arms video was refuted by a tweet by AnonOps, the Twitter stream of Anonymous Operations, only to be partially retracted with another tweet explaining that some members still might partake in the raid.

"Operation Cash Back" or "Operation Cash Run", both names are used for the same thing, was announced two weeks ago via YouTube video, and the call-to-arms has already been duplicated various times. Both are is reminiscent of the “Move Your Money” project, which asks supporters to close down their accounts with large international banks. They also coincide with Bank Transfer Day, a Facebook group with over 25,000 like, which has a similar objective. Operation Cash Run will both strengthen your community and weaken the forces of global corruption” says the modulated anonymous voice in the Operation Cash Run video. The Operation Cash Back video shares a similar message, and even links to the Bank Transfer Day Facebook page.

The third activity is dubbed "Operation Fox Hunt" and is designed to go after Fox News. The first video calls Fox News’ broadcasts “conservative right-wing propaganda” and states that Anonymous is motivated to punish Fox news for “belittling” Occupy movement protesters. “I've always looked at Fox News as publishing news that borderline Libel (the publication of matter in a defamatory manner). It would be nice for someone to show the truth for once and not the skewed version of it” wrote Bolderdash in a supportive comment on a Reddit thread about the video.

At time of publication, Fox News had yet to make a statement regarding the “Operation Fox Hunt” videos.

HACKTIVIST GROUP ANONYMOUS NOW TARGETING CHILD PORN SITES

Anonymous, the “hacktivist” group that waged war on the U.S. government and large companies such as Apple, has shifted its focus from cracking corporations to fighting online pedophilia. The group is now targeting web host Freedom Hosting and is accusing it of knowingly hosting child pornography. “The owners and operators at Freedom Hosting are openly supporting child pornography and enabling pedophiles to view innocent children, fueling their issues and putting children at risk of abduction, molestation, rape, and death,” Anonymous said in a statement. “Our demands are simple. Remove all child pornography content from your servers. Refuse to provide hosting services to any website dealing with child pornography. This statement is not just aimed at Freedom Hosting, but everyone on the internet. It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or supporting child pornography, you will become a target.”

The full account, according to Anonymous, is below.

#OpDarknet Press Release – 10/15/2011
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Timeline of Events
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At apprx 8:30 CST while browsing the Hidden Wiki we noticed a section called Hard Candy which was dedicated to links to child pornography. We then removed all links on the website, within 5 minutes the links were edited back in by an admin. For this reason, we will continue to make the Hidden Wiki unavailable.
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At apprx 8:45 CST we noticed 95% of the child pornography listed on the Hidden Wiki shared a digital fingerprint with the shared hosting server at Freedom Hosting.
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At apprx 9:00pm CST on October 14, 2011 We identified Freedom Hosting as the host of the largest collection of child pornography on the internet. We then issued a warning to remove the illegal content from their server, which they refused to do.
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At apprx 11:30pm CST on October 14, 2011 We infiltrated the shared hosting server of Freedom Hosting and shutdown services to all clients due to their lack of action to remove child pornography from their server.
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At apprx 5:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 Freedom Hosting installed their backups and restored services to their child pornography clients. We then issued multiple warnings to remove all child pornography from their servers, which Freedom Hosting refused to do.
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At apprx 8:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 despite new security features, we once again infiltrated the shared hosting server at Freedom Hosting and stopped service to all clients.
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Our Statement
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The owners and operators at Freedom Hosting are openly supporting child pornography and enabling pedophiles to view innocent children, fueling their issues and putting children at risk of abduction, molestation, rape, and death.
For this, Freedom Hosting has been declared #OpDarknet Enemy Number One.
By taking down Freedom Hosting, we are eliminating 40+ child pornography websites, among these is Lolita City, one of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100GB of child pornography.
We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting’s server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child pornography.
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Our Demands
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Our demands are simple. Remove all child pornography content from your servers. Refuse to provide hosting services to any website dealing with child pornography. This statement is not just aimed at Freedom Hosting, but everyone on the internet. It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or supporting child pornography, you will become a target.
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Images & Misc
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Dead Server Screenshot: http://i55.tinypic.com/vy9w7k.jpg
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Freedom Host PR Screenshot: http://i53.tinypic.com/o5qlip.jpg
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Our Manifesto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuJp_zPIlU
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#Antisec | #Anonymous | #FreeTopiary | #AnonOps | #FreeAnons | #OccupyWallSteet | #OWS
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

LULZSEC 'TOPIARY' ARRESTED

The Metropolitan Police Service announced on Wednesday that it has arrested a 19-year old hacker suspected to be a member of both “Anonymous Operations” and “Lulz Security,” also known as “LulzSec.” The hacker, who went by the name Topiary, served as the publicist of both hacker groups and often posted press releases and statements on Twitter. His apartment in the Shetland Islands, Scotland is currently being searched and Topiary is on his way to a police station in London. A second 17-year old person in Lincolnshire, England is also being interviewed but has not yet been arrested. The FBI began raiding apartments and arresting a number of people believed to be involved with Anonymous and LulzSec on July 19th. The hacker groups responded to the arrests and said there is “nothing – absolutely nothing – you can possibly to do make us stop.” During that time, Topiary is believed to have tweeted “Arresting people won’t stop us, FBI. We will only cease fire when you all wear shoes on your heads. That’s the only way this is ending,” from the official LulzSec Twitter account.

FBI RAIDS SUSPECTED 'ANONYMOUS' HACKERS HOMES

The FBI raided the homes of three hackers from the infamous hacking group ‘Anonymous’ in New York, Fox News reported on Tuesday. Reportedly, more than 10 FBI agents stormed the house of Giordani Jordan in Baldwin New York and took “at least one laptop from the premises.” Jordan is suspected to have been behind denial of service (DoS) attacks against a number of firms, including Mastercard and Visa. In addition, agents are also searching homes in Long Island and Brooklyn. The hackers are said to be in their late teens and early 20s. It’s unclear if the hackers were also part of the group LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for hacks against Sony, the U.S. Senate and the CIA.

15 SUSPECTED ANONYMOUS MEMBERS ARRESTED IN ITALY

The Italian government capped off a long investigation yesterday with a series of 32 raids across Italy and one in Switzerland. Authorities arrested 15 alleged members of Anonymous and accused them with conducting denial of service attacks against government web sites and the web sites of private and state-owned media organizations.

The alleged Anonymous members are being held in separate locations around the country, and all are aged between 15 and 28. Five of those detained are minors, under the age of 18. The Italian police also said they are not done with their list of people to detain, and are looking for an additional 30 people they claim are in the group and are wanted on similar charges, including a 26-year-old whose handle is “Phre.” Italian authorities say Phre is the “leader” of the group.

Anonymous, for their part, has always maintained that the group has no “leader,” and re-iterated this point in their own statement on the arrests. AnonOps downplayed the arrests as a minor infraction, but called other Italian members of the group to conduct their own new attacks in retribution for the arrests. Their statement tells others to “Let them have it, stronger than ever.”

UNIVERSAL AND VIACOM HACKED LEAKING USERS PASSWORDS AND INFORMATION; ANTISEC CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY

A hacking group named LulzSec made headlines recently for attacking high visibility targets, including Sony and the U.S. government. LulzSec announced earlier this week that it was stopping its operations, and rumor has it many of the members joined up with Anonymous’ “AntiSec” hacking group. Now that group is making its own headlines. On Tuesday AntiSec claimed responsibility for attacks against Universal and Viacom.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the hackers released personal data, including passwords, from the Universal Music Website. It also obtained and leaked information about Viacom’s network. It’s unclear how many users were affected by the security breach, although we hope to hear an official word from both firms in the near future.

LULZSEC LEAVES BEHIND ONE LAST PARTING SHOT WITH MALWARE, TROJANS AND VIRII

The small group of hackers known as Lulz Security, or simply “LulzSec,” would never disband without one final round of fun. BGR reported on Monday that the group’s reign of terror was coming to an end after 50 lul-filled days. During that period of time, LulzSec released data stolen in a series of online breaches with targets ranging from Sony to the U.S. Government.

In its coup de grâce, LulzSec released a stash of stolen data from a variety of targets, including AT&T, Disney and the U.S. Navy. But data obtained through online breaches wasn’t the only thing LulzSec stuffed into the file; a directory named “BootableUSB” also contained a variety of malware including trojans and worms. While “LulzSec” is no more and its notorious Twitter account now sits dormant, members of the well-known hacktivism group “Anonymous Operations” have confirmed that LulzSec is gone in name only — the six LulzSec members have been absorbed by Anonymous, according to the group’s official Twitter feed.

LULZSEC DENIES LEADER ARRESTED

There are numerous reports claiming that the leader of the now infamous hacking group LulzSec has been arrested in the United Kingdom. According to London’s Metropolitan Police, the shadowy leader was a 19-year old responsible for hacking “a number of international businesses and intelligence agencies.” The group took responsibility for Sony’s recent massive security breach and has also targeted a number of high-visibility websites, including that of the Central Intelligence Agency, and has waged war on the U.S. government with another group dubbed Anonymous.

Despite the reports, however, LulzSec has denied that any of its members have been arrested. Early Tuesday morning the group tweeted: “Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it’s all over now… wait… we’re all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?”

TURKEY DETAINS 32 ALLEGED 'ANONYMOUS' HACKERS

More than 30 individuals allegedly associated with the hacker group “Anonymous” have been detained by Turkish police according to a report from the Turkish state media on Monday. Police executed raids in 12 separate Turkish cities as part of the operation that resulted in 32 arrests across Turkey.

The news follows reports that three men allegedly tied to the group were detained in Spain last week, a move that sparked a statement from an Anonymous spokesperson. “You have not detained three participants of Anonymous. We have no members and we are not a group of any kind. You have, however, detained three civilians expressing themselves,” the group wrote on Saturday in a statement directed at the Spanish government. “You are providing us with the fuel, but now you must expect the fire.” Anonymous, which refers to itself as an “international Internet hactivist collective,” has carried out cyberattacks on numerous high-profile targets including Visa, Amazon and Sony.

TOR FORKS FIREFOX

The Tor project has announced that it will launch its own fork of Firefox that will include Tor integration. At present, users who want to use the decentralised Tor network to browse the internet anonymously install the Firefox extension Torbutton and additional Tor software. As developer Mike Perry has written on the project blog, the need to install additional software creates an unnecessary and complicating hurdle for many users. They also often find the toggle system for turning anonymity on and off confusing. Users would also often not remember in which mode certain tabs were opened, thereby putting anonymity and privacy at risk.

It has also proved difficult to maintain Torbutton as new features are introduced and bugs are fixed in Firefox, disrupting the functioning of Torbutton; avoiding this was not usually a high priority for the Firefox developers. For these reasons, the project has decided to maintain its own Firefox fork which will be developed under the name of the Tor Browser. In addition, the project also intends to remove the Torbutton Firefox extension from Mozilla's add-on repository and only offer it for experienced users from the Tor project site; maintenance will be discontinued.

GROUP PLANNING ANOTHER ROUND OF SONY HACKS

A group of hackers says it is planning another wave of cyberattacks against Sony in retaliation for its handling of the PlayStation Network breach. An observer of the Internet Relay Chat channel used by the hackers told CNET today that a third major attack is planned this weekend against Sony's Web site. The people involved plan to publicize all or some of the information they are able to copy from Sony's servers, which could include customer names, credit card numbers, and addresses, according to the source. The hackers claim they currently have access to some of Sony's servers.

Should the planned attack succeed, it would be the latest blow in a series of devastating security breaches of Sony's servers over the past month. The failure of Sony's server security has ignited investigations by the FBI, the Department of Justice, Congress, and the New York State Attorney General, a well as data security and privacy authorities in the U.K., Canada, and Taiwan.

Several weeks ago the hacker group known as Anonymous targeted several Sony Web sites, including Sony.com and SonyStyle.com, with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in retaliation for what its members saw as Sony's unfair legal action against hacker George Hotz. Two weeks ago Sony's PlayStation Network, along with its Qriocity service and Sony Online, were the target of an attack that exposed the personal information of more than 100 million Sony customers. Sony was forced to shut down PSN, Qriocity, and Sony Online, and is currently working to bring them back online after rebuilding the security of its servers.

Sony says it doesn't know who orchestrated what it's calling a "highly sophisticated, planned" attack, but it has dropped hints that the group Anonymous is involved. Kazuo Hirai, chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, told a Congressional subcommittee in a letter yesterday that the intruders on its servers planted a file named "Anonymous" containing the statement "We are Legion," part of the group's tagline.

Anonymous issued a statement yesterday denying it was involved in the PSN breach. "While we are a distributed and decentralized group, our 'leadership' does not condone credit card theft," the statement said.

Now it seems the same group of hackers that was able to infiltrate the PSN servers is planning to hit back against Sony.

Sony has not responded to a request for comment.

ANONYMOUS DENIES HAVING ANYTHING TO DO WITH SONY HACKING

Hacktivism group Anonymous, which routinely attacks major corporations and takes up political causes, said it is not responsible for the theft of sensitive information and credit card data from Sony’s Playstation Network (PSN) online gaming network in an announcement today.

Sony laid indirect blame for the intrusion and PSN outage on Anonymous yesterday, saying that its defenses were down while it fended off a denial of service attack — which left the doors open for the hackers to come in and steal sensitive information. Anonymous took on Sony after the company went after hacker George Hotz, who reverse engineered the PlayStation 3 to run unauthorized programs.

“If a legitimate and honest investigation into credit card theft is conducted, Anonymous will not be found liable,” the group stated in a press release.

In a letter to Congress earlier today, Sony said that it found a file labeled “anonymous” with a fragment of the hacktivism group’s slogan — “we are legion.” That prompted the company to label Anonymous at least partially responsible for an attack that brought down its online gaming network and resulted in hackers stealing sensitive information about 100 million PSN and Station.com users.

“While we are a distributed and decentralized group, our ‘leadership’ does not condone credit card theft,” the group stated in a press release. “We are concerned with the erosion of privacy and fair use, the spread of corporate feudalism, the abuse of power and the justifications of executives and leaders who believe themselves immune personally and financially for the actions the undertake in the name of corporations and public office.”

ANONYMOUS TARGETS ANTI-GAY WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH

Online vigilante group Anonymous appears to be stopping its campaign against HBGary and its CEO Aaron Barr and going after anti-gay group Westboro Baptist Church. Anonymous have accused the church of bigotry and fanaticism, and have warned them that if they did not stop their public protests they would be attacked. In response the Baptist Church hit back and said that they would not be threatened and goaded Anonymous to “bring it!”

The argument was started when Anonymous laid their cards on the table to Westboro Baptist Church with a letter stating:

We have always regarded you and your ilk as an assembly of graceless sociopaths and maniacal chauvinists & religious zealots, however benign, who act out for the sake of attention & in the name of religion.

However, despite the above being posted on the Anonymous news site, there has been uncertainty surrounding its authenticity. Graham Cluley from security firm Sophos believes that due to Anonymous being a headless organization its loyal followers could be led into mounting an attack on the church under false pretense:

There are dangers in future that someone may pose as Anonymous and say that they want an attack.

Unfortunately it may be too late for withdrawal as the Westboro Baptist Church issued a statement of its own which labeled Anonymous as “a puddle of pimple-faced nerds” and this in turn led on to the opening “bring it!” statement which brought Anonymous into action.

Westboro Baptist Church has been widely criticized for its stance against homosexuality and various protests which include picketing at military funerals and desecrating the American flag. The church leader Fred Phelps was banned from entering the UK in 2009 by the Home office and a number of US states have banned various members from protesting close to the aforementioned military funerals.

ANONYMOUS GOES AFTER SECURITY FIRM FOR SELLING SUPPORTERS DETAILS TO FBI

If you thought Anonymous limited its cyber attacks to those who blocked WikiLeaks or suppressed free information, you’d be wrong. One software security firm is learning the hard way that it also targets anyone who acts to bring down the loosely-knit, global movement of young people who campaign through Web attacks.

On Sunday evening, just when the Super Bowl was kicking off in Dallas, Texas, five supporters of Anonymous’ elite arm AnonOps brought down the Web site for HBGary Federal, a small, Washington D.C.-based security services firm.

They then hacked into the Twitter account of CEO Aaron Barr, releasing a series of profane, self-denigrating Tweets that also provided links to the hacked Web site of one of his researchers.

An hour later, they released this screenshot, which reads: “Let us teach you a lesson you’ll never forget: you don’t mess with Anonymous,” which they hoped to use it as a new placeholder for HBGary’s site.

Why? Barr was recently quoted in the Financial Times as saying that he had identified two key members of Anonymous, including a co-founder in the U.S. along with senior members in Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Australia. He claimed to have picked up clues to their identities by monitoring emails, Facebook and IRC chat using fake online names.

The report followed news that police had arrested five suspected members of the group in the U.K. last month and carried out 40 court-authorized searches in the United States.

Though the FT report says that Barr did not plan to give his findings to the police, one person from within AnonOps who took part in Sunday night’s attack tells me that he had, in fact, been planning to sell his research to the FBI and hold a meeting with the authorities on Monday morning.

The five Anonymous supporters who participated in the hack also obtained more than 50,000 of Barr’s personal emails, financial details for HBGary and said they were planning to delete the company’s backups and support servers. The whole operation took just over 24 hours.

The hackers found that at Monday morning’s meeting with the FBI, Barr had been planning to offer a document showing names and addresses of dozens of Anonymous members, for a yet-to-be-negotiated fee.

Yet having obtained the alleged file, the Anonymous members didn’t destroy it–they made it public. The majority of the details in the 23-page document, they said, were incorrect and the names “random.” Nearly everyone actively involved in previous attacks has read the file and confirmed they were not it. The attackers thus released a link to the document through Barr’s own hacked Twitter account.

Barr did not respond to voicemails seeking comment at the time of writing.

Not long after this, Anonymous was Tweeting Barr’s cell number, a link to his 50,000 personal emails, social security number and home address.

Anonymous typically goes after big governments they accuse of corruption (think Tunisia, Egypt) and corporate players like MasterCard or eBay-owned PayPal. But in taking out HBGary the group has targeted a smaller player who, despite being a software security firm, isn’t very secure itself. (It took one of the hackers little over two minutes to get into the LinkedIn account of chief operating officer Ted Vera, another 10 to get his address and phone number.)

In their view this was all justified for serving a larger purpose: “It is harsh, but we’re harsh people,” said one of the attackers. “We felt Anon needed a break from seriousness for a while, we understood that Anon was getting paranoid about recent FBI raids and companies such as HBGary lurking our chats, so we’ve given all of Anonymous a message: we will fight back.”