March 6th, 2012 Posted in Hackers
25 suspected members of the Anony
mous hacker movement were arrested this week in a series of raids in Europe and South America. National law enforcement officers in Argentina, Chile, Columbia and Spain arrested the suspects who were aged between 17 and 40.
They were suspected of planning coordinated cyber attacks against such institutes as Colombia’s defence ministry and presidential office, Chile’s national library and flagship Electrics Company and Spain’s biggest political parties.
The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation that began last month. So far, 250 computers and mobile devices have been seized in 40 premises across 15 cities, according to Interpol. Two servers used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have also been blocked.
One of the people arrested is though to be the manager of Anonymous’ computer operations in Spain and Latin America, identified only by his initials and the aliases ‘Thunder’ and ‘Pacotron’.
Source: Telegraph
February 7th, 2012 Posted in Hackers, Humour
Kim Dotcom is the notorious and f
lamboyant founder of Megaupload, the file sharing website that was dramatically shut down a fortnight ago amid a storm of debate surrounding SOPA, PIPA and digital piracy. Until then he was relatively unknown to most of the world, but now all eyes are on him as he is detained in New Zealand on suspicion of leading a global criminal conspiracy to pirate films, music and television shows. Here are ten good, bad and ugly facts about this interesting figure.
1. His birth name is Kim Schmitz. He legally changed it to Kim Dotcom in 2005 and also goes by the monikers Kim Tim Jim Vestor and Kimbles.
2. He is a massive 6ft 7inches tall and weighs 285 pounds.
3. He is married with three children.
4. Until recently he held the title of world’s top player of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Since his arrest he has dropped to second place.
5. He has dual German-Finnish citizenship but grew up in Kiel, Germany.
6. He once sent an email to new neighbours who were concerned about his previous criminal convictions, stating that he was a ‘good boy’ and that they could either ‘call Interpol, the CIA and the Queen of England and try to get me on the next plane out’ or ‘give me a chance to do good for New Zealand.’
7. His (seemingly extravagant) house contains a panic room, where he was found with a sawn-off shotgun on the day of his arrest after police cut through the wall.
8. He has a long string of previous convictions including hacking offences, insider trading, embezzlement and, of course, copyright infringement.
9. He set up the Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism, an effort to find Osama Bin Laden by hacking into Arab banks and websites.
10. He has a love of fast cars and has participated in the Gumball Rally across Europe. He would often upload videos of his exploits on YouTube.
Source: The Telegraph
August 16th, 2011 Posted in Facebook, Hackers
A minor panic was caus
ed last week when the Anonymous hacker group announced that they were to target Facebook in a Guy Fawkes-style ‘killing’ on November 5.
Anonymous spokespeople have denied both organising and supporting an official attack, but have acknowledged that some hackers associated with the group may be pursuing the project.
The group is sending out mixed messages, however. They said they ‘prefer to face the real power’ instead of ‘medias that we use as tools’ but tweets with the #OpFacebook hashtag and @OpFacebook account contradict this.
The definitive answer on the matter appears to be this Tweet from August 13: “#OpFacebook is being organised by some Anons. This does not necessarily mean that all of #Anonymous agrees with it.”
But judging from the previous behaviour of many hacktivists, it would be wise to wait and see what happens.
Source: PC Mag
