Census 2011 – Hacked? Nope!
Another Census 2011 post to complement my previous post (one of the top read posts on AR). It seems from certain sections of the media that the census results have been hacked.
They are using a boast posted on a geek site as evidence that the whole census has been hacked and all the data downloaded and liable to appear on the PirateBay any minute.
I know it’s nice to hope that it’s true as it would be an almighty embarassement for the government and one that would make the potential life of any kind of national database shorter than an ice cream in hell. It would also give the powers that be a serious headache in terms of public confidence.
Myself, I think it’s just a boast. As LulzSec themselves are saying, “anyone can cut and paste the Lulz Boat ASCII art and general lighthearted theme”.
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/83172344398487552″]
So unfortunately I call it a hoax.
It’s also not true that the leader of LulzSec has been arrested.
June 22, 2011 at 17:28
-
“So unfortunately I call it a hoax.”
“unfortunately”?
I think it’s a hoax, too, but I don’t think it’s unfortunate that it
is.
- June 22, 2011 at 14:01
-
Source: http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/1000th_tweet_press_release.txt
Dear Internets,
This is Lulz Security, better known as those evil bastards from twitter. We
just hit 1000 tweets, and as
such we thought it best to have a little
chit-chat with our friends (and foes).
For the past month and a bit, we’ve been causing mayhem and chaos
throughout the Internet, attacking
several targets including PBS, Sony,
Fox, porn websites, FBI, CIA, the U.S. government, Sony some more,
online
gaming servers (by request of callers, not by our own choice), Sony again, and
of course our good
friend Sony.
While we’ve gained many, many supporters, we do have a mass of enemies,
albeit mainly gamers. The main
anti-LulzSec argument suggests that we’re
going to bring down more Internet laws by continuing our
public
shenanigans, and that our actions are causing clowns with pens to
write new rules for you. But what if we
just hadn’t released anything? What
if we were silent? That would mean we would be secretly inside
FBI
affiliates right now, inside PBS, inside Sony… watching… abusing…
Do you think every hacker announces everything they’ve hacked? We certainly
haven’t, and we’re damn sure
others are playing the silent game. Do you
feel safe with your Facebook accounts, your Google Mail
accounts, your
Skype accounts? What makes you think a hacker isn’t silently sitting inside
all of these
right now, sniping out individual people, or perhaps selling
them off? You are a peon to these people.
A toy. A string of characters
with a value.
This is what you should be fearful of, not us releasing things publicly,
but the fact that someone hasn’t
released something publicly. We’re sitting
on 200,000 Brink users right now that we never gave out. It
might make you
feel safe knowing we told you, so that Brink users may change their passwords.
What if we
hadn’t told you? No one would be aware of this theft, and we’d
have a fresh 200,000 peons to abuse,
completely unaware of a breach.
Yes, yes, there’s always the argument that releasing everything in full is
just as evil, what with
accounts being stolen and abused, but welcome to
2011. This is the lulz lizard era, where we do things
just because we find
it entertaining. Watching someone’s Facebook picture turn into a penis and
seeing
their sister’s shocked response is priceless. Receiving angry emails
from the man you just sent 10 dildos
to because he can’t secure his Amazon
password is priceless. You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and
we find
it funny to cause it. We release personal data so that equally evil people can
entertain us with
what they do with it.
Most of you reading this love the idea of wrecking someone else’s online
experience anonymously. It’s
appealing and unique, there are no two account
hijackings that are the same, no two suddenly enraged
girlfriends with the
same expression when you admit to killing prostitutes from her boyfriend’s
recently
stolen MSN account, and there’s certainly no limit to the lulz
lizardry that we all partake in on some
level.
And that’s all there is to it, that’s what appeals to our Internet
generation. We’re attracted to
fast-changing scenarios, we can’t stand
repetitiveness, and we want our shot of entertainment or we just
go and
browse something else, like an unimpressed zombie.
Nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan,
anyway…
Nobody is truly causing the Internet to slip one way or the other, it’s an
inevitable outcome for us
humans. We find, we nom nom nom, we move onto
something else that’s yummier. We’ve been entertaining you
1000 times with
140 characters or less, and we’ll continue creating things that are exciting
and new until
we’re brought to justice, which we might well be. But you
know, we just don’t give a living fuck at this
point – you’ll forget about
us in 3 months’ time when there’s a new scandal to gawk at, or a new
shiny
thing to click on via your 2D light-filled rectangle. People who can
make things work better within this
rectangle have power over others; the
whitehats who charge $10,000 for something we could teach you how
to do
over the course of a weekend, providing you aren’t mentally disabled.
This is the Internet, where we screw each other over for a jolt of
satisfaction. There are peons and lulz
lizards; trolls and victims. There’s
losers that post shit they think matters, and other losers telling
them
their shit does not matter. In this situation, we are both of these parties,
because we’re fully
aware that every single person that reached this final
sentence just wasted a few moments of their time.
Thank you, bitches.
Lulz Security
- June 22, 2011 at 13:59
-
Dear Internets,
This is Lulz Security, better known as those evil bastards from twitter. We
just hit 1000 tweets, and as
such we thought it best to have a little
chit-chat with our friends (and foes).
For the past month and a bit, we’ve been causing mayhem and chaos
throughout the Internet, attacking
several targets including PBS, Sony,
Fox, porn websites, FBI, CIA, the U.S. government, Sony some more,
online
gaming servers (by request of callers, not by our own choice), Sony again, and
of course our good
friend Sony.
While we’ve gained many, many supporters, we do have a mass of enemies,
albeit mainly gamers. The main
anti-LulzSec argument suggests that we’re
going to bring down more Internet laws by continuing our
public
shenanigans, and that our actions are causing clowns with pens to
write new rules for you. But what if we
just hadn’t released anything? What
if we were silent? That would mean we would be secretly inside
FBI
affiliates right now, inside PBS, inside Sony… watching… abusing…
Do you think every hacker announces everything they’ve hacked? We certainly
haven’t, and we’re damn sure
others are playing the silent game. Do you
feel safe with your Facebook accounts, your Google Mail
accounts, your
Skype accounts? What makes you think a hacker isn’t silently sitting inside
all of these
right now, sniping out individual people, or perhaps selling
them off? You are a peon to these people.
A toy. A string of characters
with a value.
This is what you should be fearful of, not us releasing things publicly,
but the fact that someone hasn’t
released something publicly. We’re sitting
on 200,000 Brink users right now that we never gave out. It
might make you
feel safe knowing we told you, so that Brink users may change their passwords.
What if we
hadn’t told you? No one would be aware of this theft, and we’d
have a fresh 200,000 peons to abuse,
completely unaware of a breach.
Yes, yes, there’s always the argument that releasing everything in full is
just as evil, what with
accounts being stolen and abused, but welcome to
2011. This is the lulz lizard era, where we do things
just because we find
it entertaining. Watching someone’s Facebook picture turn into a penis and
seeing
their sister’s shocked response is priceless. Receiving angry emails
from the man you just sent 10 dildos
to because he can’t secure his Amazon
password is priceless. You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and
we find
it funny to cause it. We release personal data so that equally evil people can
entertain us with
what they do with it.
Most of you reading this love the idea of wrecking someone else’s online
experience anonymously. It’s
appealing and unique, there are no two account
hijackings that are the same, no two suddenly enraged
girlfriends with the
same expression when you admit to killing prostitutes from her boyfriend’s
recently
stolen MSN account, and there’s certainly no limit to the lulz
lizardry that we all partake in on some
level.
And that’s all there is to it, that’s what appeals to our Internet
generation. We’re attracted to
fast-changing scenarios, we can’t stand
repetitiveness, and we want our shot of entertainment or we just
go and
browse something else, like an unimpressed zombie.
Nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan,
anyway…
Nobody is truly causing the Internet to slip one way or the other, it’s an
inevitable outcome for us
humans. We find, we nom nom nom, we move onto
something else that’s yummier. We’ve been entertaining you
1000 times with
140 characters or less, and we’ll continue creating things that are exciting
and new until
we’re brought to justice, which we might well be. But you
know, we just don’t give a living fuck at this
point – you’ll forget about
us in 3 months’ time when there’s a new scandal to gawk at, or a new
shiny
thing to click on via your 2D light-filled rectangle. People who can
make things work better within this
rectangle have power over others; the
whitehats who charge $10,000 for something we could teach you how
to do
over the course of a weekend, providing you aren’t mentally disabled.
This is the Internet, where we screw each other over for a jolt of
satisfaction. There are peons and lulz
lizards; trolls and victims. There’s
losers that post shit they think matters, and other losers telling
them
their shit does not matter. In this situation, we are both of these parties,
because we’re fully
aware that every single person that reached this final
sentence just wasted a few moments of their time.
Thank you, bitches.
Lulz Security
- June 22,
2011 at 13:53
-
The official response to this is interesting though.
Read through it – they’ve just unwittingly confirmed that the database *is*
vulnerable to outside access and given some clues as to its location too.
Looks like a hack may have actually occurred. A social one.
- June 22,
2011 at 11:12
-
What makes anybody in the dumb stream media think that Govt is so efficient
to have recorded one byte of the census data to digital media yet?
It’s all lying on the floor of a warehouse in Peckham still.
-
June 22, 2011 at 12:18
-
One option was to complete the form ‘Online’.
- June 22, 2011 at 14:05
-
Think how much money could be made by hacking the Census rather than
just bribing a member of the Government or company that hold the data.
An advertising wet dream.
It would have been hacked weeks ago.
-
June 23, 2011 at 14:36
- June 22, 2011 at 09:52
-
It is deliciously ironic that the individual who boasts of allegedly
accessing & disseminating the personal details of England’s (?) population
has had his own personal details published on the web.
-
June 22, 2011 at 13:49
-
Ryan Cleary aka “viraL” was the owner of the one of the servers used for
the Anonomous IRC channels where memebrs of the public joined to discuss and
suggest targets. He has been arrested in order for the FBI to gain
possession of his server logs. They will analyse them and arrest kids who
were the hangers on who are based in easily accessible countries. Someone
has to be made an example of. The Government will arrest a few kids, Media
will print lies and FBI will avoid looking totally helpless.
The story at the time was that Ryan tried to take control of some Anon
Chat rooms, a few months ago and was Doxed (Personal Details published) in
revenge. This information has been available to Law Enforcement for many
many weeks on various internet sites like the pastebin link above.
The FBI/UK Ecrime Unit have arrested a person who was loosely associated
with Anon. He is not a part of Lulzsec(6 members) which is an elite hacking
unit comprised of some Anon members. (eg. SAS are part of Armed Forces but
do specialist solo missions as well as support regular army missions. They
also used his IRC servers on occassions in order to direct LOIC initiated
DDOS attacks)
He was likely an active participant of Anonomous Operations during the
Wikileaks campaigns but there are tens of thousands of members on Anonomous.
He is possibly guilty of encouraging others to commit crime and of wanting
to be involved. His was one of many servers used, some of which are totally
legitimate business servers.
Lulzsec / Hacker Anons are not using servers located in their Mums
houses. They are using the servers located in Russia/China where the Western
Govs cannot get the logs. They are also highly skilled and very unlikely to
be arrested due to counter measures taken. There are a few Hackers after
them.
They conduct the attacks from within their own Botnets using compromised
computers/TOR/VPNs/Proxies to avoid detection.
A known conter intel technique is to use a compromised computer system to
create a false lead, gleaming information about a person from hacking their
PC. Using that information as passwords, accountnames and the base for the
attack. When the police put all the pieces together it points at compromised
PCs owner. Police love a straight line of evidence. Job Done. Ryan may quite
easily have been just such a “Mark”
Incidently, I suspect many of highly skilled hackers could well be state
assets of China, Russia, Iran, etc who are using the activities of Anon to
hack US, Japanese, European businesses, government infrastructures as a
front for gathering intel. Whenever a hack happens everyone blames
Lulzsec/Anon.
The idea behind Lulzsec is pointing out various different government
agencies / businesses are holding alot of data on people that is easy to
steal. They prove this and inform everyone. It is illegal but they deem this
as justified as it stops your details being stolen by a third party secretly
and you never know until your credit card is frauded or your identity is
stolen.
Govs and Companies have a legal duty to protect the data they hold. They
are failing this duty. Lulzsec/Anon are making a point, getting a laugh out
of making these Official people look stupid.
The end result should be
that Data will have to be kept securely and then it cannot be stolen.
Another conspiracy theory is that Gov Agencies are behind this rampage to
create a climate of demands for better regulation of internet.
It is certainly fascinating to watch the chatter on twitter from @lulzsec
#antisec #anonomous.
If you have a geeky kid upstairs on his/her computer. Do you really know
what they are doing?
- June 22,
2011 at 09:25
-
Bugger! I was looking forward to downloading a copy…
- June 22, 2011 at 09:17
-
I trust that the census forms of the enlightened readership here were lost
in the post. Mine was. Apparently.
{ 12 comments }