Anonymous Takes Down NYSE Site for Two Sad, Short Minutes [Anonymous]

By Roberto Baldwin Oct 10, 2011 6:14 PM 20,490 72

Everyone's favorite hacktivists, Anonymous took down the New York Stock Exchange's site today for two terrifyingly boring minutes.

The group used a DDoS attack to briefly knock the site offline as a show of solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protestors. Trading wasn't affected while the site was down. The group posted a YouTube video in early October warning that the attack would take place. This warning probably gave the NYSE time to bolster their site's defenses against the Anonymous threat.

The attack wasn't popular amongst the majority of Anonymous members. Many thought that the attack would create bad press for the Occupy Wall Street movement. They also might have realized that the takedown was going to be sort of sad. [Chicago Tribune]

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That Anonymous Cop Leak Was Much Worse than We Thought [Hacking]

When Anon stuck their finger in the eye of many a Texan cop with their huge 3 GB data dump, we were more interested in the bigoted juicy stuff. Turns out, it was also an identity thief's wet dream.

Security firm Identity Finder ran a detailed analysis of the leaked goods, and came up with some astonishing stats—within the cache was enough to steal a hell of a lot of money:

•647 Social Security Numbers, of which 418 were unique;
•42 Credit Card and Bank Account Numbers, of which 26 were unique;
•174 Passwords;
•83 Driver License Numbers;
•6,182 Dates of Birth;
•78,869 Phone Numbers, of which 14,701 were unique;
•10,175 Personal Postal Addresses, of which 4,631 were unique; and
•325,596 e-mail addresses, of which 39,419 were unique.

Put this together and you have everything you need to take out a fake credit card in some deputy's name, as well as locational information that would help with something more nefarious. It's easy to dismiss these leaks as the equivalent of a bunch of kids running away with armfuls of Halloween candy, but we shouldn't forget the kind of highly sensitive stuff that can be extracted with ease. All those cops in Texas sure aren't going to forget.

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Watch How You Walk If You Want To Remain Anonymous [Science]

If you're in a crowd, it doesn't take long to notice that people walk differently. A recent study suggests each person's gait is supposedly so distinctive that their way of walking could be used for identification purposes.

Led by Todd Pataky, a team of researchers at Shinshu University in Japan looked at walking characteristics like heel strike, roll to forefoot and push-off in 104 volunteers. They found that footstep patterns identified each person with 99.6% accuracy. It's almost as sensitive as a fingerprint.

The researchers note that this is an early study and they only examined people walking barefoot. It's not known whether these unique walking patterns occur when people are walking with shoes. The researchers also point out that someone who wants to remain anonymous can easily alter their way of walking by changing how they move their feet.[Discovery; Image from Pichugin Dmitry/Shutterstock]

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Anonymous Roars Back With 3GB Leak of Texas Police Chief Emails: "That stupid bitch got what she deserved" [Hacking]

Anonymous, after a relatively large period of doing nothing, are back with a vengeance. Even without their (arrested) de facto leader Topiary, they've punched Texan law enforcement squarely in their gut: a giant email leak, internal documents, addresses. Anon's back.

Anon explains the motives for the attack thusly:

We are doing this in solidarity with the "Anonymous 16" PayPal LOIC defendants, accused LulzSec member Jake Davis "Topiary", protesters arrested during #OpBart actions, Bradley Manning, Stephen Watt, and other hackers and leakers worldwide.

But really, it's Topiary's arrest more than anything. That cut of the hydra counted for more than one head, and they've been hurting (and quiet) ever since. Or at least that's how it's seemed. Now, Anon says they've been spending the time dormant in Texan police servers, preparing for this moment—a huge data dump and a site defacement.

Unsurprisingly, there's some damaging stuff in there—beyond the fact that this was all supposed to be private law enforcement dialogue.

Exhibit A, an email from Robert Wieners Chief of Police, Friendswood, Texas Police Department. Subject line? "Stupid Bitch":

That stupid bitch who started that stolen car chase at Yale and 610 got what she deserved (I'll bet she was fat and black too). Same with that pervert that got shot by the county. Fuck that guy, see ya. That all sounds like good police work to me. Those folks got the criminal cure. It's guaranteed, they will never commit a crime again.

Literally, the first email in the leak is racist.

Exhibit B, this bigoted chain message regarding "Muslim inbreeding." Yeah.

Subject: 1,400 years of inbreeding among Muslims
Attachments:
View As Web Page
GUYS,
I DO BELIEVE THAT THIS GUY IS ONTO SOMETHING!!

JESS

Subj: 1,400 years of inbreeding among Muslims

Read the article and make up your own mind. JHB
Hi everyone, this very interesting one came in tonight maybe it explains some of why the radical Muslims act so unreasonably brutal. Are the fact true? Don't know but if it is true that they have as a common practice of marrying first cousins, all kinds of problems can erupt. OK, I looked at all my "hoax sites" but couldn't find anything. But, just typing "1,400 years of inbreeding among Muslims" on Google results in a large number of articles discussing this topic. Is Bryan Fischer for real? Yep, See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Fischer and other sites about him.
Doc <°)))><

Anyway, here's the article that came in:

I admit that I have not studied the Koran or Quroan or whatever it is, nor do I intend to !! I was subjected to enough of of their total nonsense as only a casual observer in their part of the world :( .... I only forward this for your reading pleasure and to add to our understanding of the Muslim world. Sharing my opinion that they need to stay in their own sandbox instead of trying to inflict their insane beliefs and religion upon civilized people. (Shucks, now they will call me an infidel)
..... JD

Other questionable content includes the use of homophobic language, and this request for the Texan chiefs to investigate an officer's affair with a married woman. Tax dollars at work:

From: Doug Lauersdorf Sent: Thu 9/16/2010 10:06 AM
To: Bob Wieners; Luke Loeser
Cc:
Subject: Complainant
Attachments:
View As Web Page

Chiefs:

I conducted a preliminary inquiry into information received from Detective Price who received a call from Mr. Clements wanting us to know that one of our officers on midnight shift was having an affair with his wife. He also complained that the officer had run his criminal history. I asked KC to contact DPS to research their database to ascertain any person(s) that had ran his information to obtain information from any of the following: CCH, TDL, NCIC, TCIC, SETCIC, etc. The search revealed that the only person with the Friendswood Police Department that had run him was Elaine who had ran the information at KC’s direction at my request. This matter is mute until the time comes when he initiates the complaint process and provides us with the officer’s name.

Sergeant Douglas E. Lauersdorf

The dump is enormous, and contains multitudes. And it makes me feel like it's Summer again—Anonymous looks as zesty and unafraid as they were before the cops neutered their leadership. Now it's #chingalamigra and #antisec all over again.

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Anonymous Is Helping Time Warner Make Money [Anonymous]

Anonymous would have you believe that they're about the little guy, going after oppressive governments and major corporations both online and IRL. But who quietly benefits when they mount a protest like their recent one against BART? Time Warner. Wow.

It's not intentional. It's all in the details. You know those Guy Fawkes masks that everyone loves has become a symbol of the AntiSec movement? Yeah, Time Warner owns that image and takes a cut every time a mask is sold. So when Anonymous and their supporters go out and buy the masks for a rally, Time Warner profits. Time Warner. One of the biggest media companies on the planet. the bane of many a New Yorker's existence, and one of the many cable companies we want to fix. Irony!

Correction: Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are separate entities. Sorry about the confusion![NYT]

Image Credit: Sklathil/Flickr

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