DMagazine.com published a profile of Barrett Brown and the group (or nongroup) Anonymous, which, according to Forbes' technology blog, is targeting Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore for allegedly cooperating with Mexican drug cartels. Some excerpts from a long article:
...Anonymous is sometimes referred to in the mainstream media as a group or a collective—the Christian Science Monitor went with “a shadowy circle of activists”—but Anonymous, per se, doesn’t exist. It has no hierarchy, no leadership. So even though Bloomberg and others have called Brown a spokesman for the group (which, again, isn’t a group at all), Brown denies having any position within Anonymous. ...
If the Church of Scientology gave Anonymous its first major target the group could agree on, then Visa and MasterCard gave Anonymous its first big kill, the trophy that made the world take notice. Last year, at the urging of Senator Joe Lieberman, who heads the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, PayPal froze WikiLeaks’ account, and Amazon booted the organization off its servers. Visa and MasterCard stopped processing donations to the organization, saying in a press release that they were taking this action because WikiLeaks was engaged in illegal activity. Never mind that WikiLeaks had not even been charged with a crime. Anonymous responded with Operation Payback. ...
The great thing about Anonymous’ botnet is, it never sleeps. With involuntary botnets, users turn off their zombie computers when they go to bed at night. The botnet army never fights at full strength. Anonymous’ voluntary botnet might be small, but it packs a powerful punch.
When the Anons working on Operation Payback pointed the LOIC [botnet] at MasterCard’s website on December 8, 2010, it crashed in about five minutes. Visa crumbled in 30 seconds. Anonymous didn’t target the servers that process credit card transactions, just the companies’ websites. ...
A few weeks ago, [Brown] talked to a woman in the NSA. He says he contacted her as a courtesy, to let them know that Anonymous had a copy of Stuxnet. That would be the most infamous, most complex bit of malware ever written, the world’s first weaponized computer virus, which was revealed last year to have crippled much of Iran’s nuclear program. Some think the Israeli government created it, possibly with help from the United States. The copy Anonymous has—meaning, also, that Brown has a copy of Stuxnet on his harmless-looking Sony Vaio notebook—is defanged, to an extent. ...
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Thanks to Jon Elliston for the heads-up about this article.Read the full article
...Anonymous is sometimes referred to in the mainstream media as a group or a collective—the Christian Science Monitor went with “a shadowy circle of activists”—but Anonymous, per se, doesn’t exist. It has no hierarchy, no leadership. So even though Bloomberg and others have called Brown a spokesman for the group (which, again, isn’t a group at all), Brown denies having any position within Anonymous. ...
If the Church of Scientology gave Anonymous its first major target the group could agree on, then Visa and MasterCard gave Anonymous its first big kill, the trophy that made the world take notice. Last year, at the urging of Senator Joe Lieberman, who heads the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, PayPal froze WikiLeaks’ account, and Amazon booted the organization off its servers. Visa and MasterCard stopped processing donations to the organization, saying in a press release that they were taking this action because WikiLeaks was engaged in illegal activity. Never mind that WikiLeaks had not even been charged with a crime. Anonymous responded with Operation Payback. ...
The great thing about Anonymous’ botnet is, it never sleeps. With involuntary botnets, users turn off their zombie computers when they go to bed at night. The botnet army never fights at full strength. Anonymous’ voluntary botnet might be small, but it packs a powerful punch.
When the Anons working on Operation Payback pointed the LOIC [botnet] at MasterCard’s website on December 8, 2010, it crashed in about five minutes. Visa crumbled in 30 seconds. Anonymous didn’t target the servers that process credit card transactions, just the companies’ websites. ...
A few weeks ago, [Brown] talked to a woman in the NSA. He says he contacted her as a courtesy, to let them know that Anonymous had a copy of Stuxnet. That would be the most infamous, most complex bit of malware ever written, the world’s first weaponized computer virus, which was revealed last year to have crippled much of Iran’s nuclear program. Some think the Israeli government created it, possibly with help from the United States. The copy Anonymous has—meaning, also, that Brown has a copy of Stuxnet on his harmless-looking Sony Vaio notebook—is defanged, to an extent. ...
----
Thanks to Jon Elliston for the heads-up about this article.Read the full article
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I'm glad Xpress is on this fascinating case.
But I wonder if local media isn't getting ahead of itself and following a pretty confusing Forbes mag blog post in directions that seem unsupported by the available evidence.
Both Xpress and TV station WLOS have reported that the hacker group Anonymous is targeting Buncombe DA Ron Moore. I haven't seen any evidence of that. If someone has, please correct me.
Brown, who has disassociated himself from Anonymous, appears to be making the allegation, but on what grounds? I don't know but would certainly like to know. It'd be great if Brown himself would tell us what he knows or thinks he knows.
If there's a good basis for the allegation, let's hear it. Otherwise, I'm tired of swimming in this fog of innuendo and rumor.
By Jon Elliston
11/07/2011
Jon,
I'm sorry that you found my post at Forbes confusing. Let me clarify for you.
You haven't seen evidence that Anonymous is targeting Ron Moore. That's because they are not. And that's not what I said in my story. I said that Barrett Brown is targeting Moore. I provided evidence of that--i.e. links to tweets in which Brown says as much. Also, I sat in on a public question and answer session with Brown in which he said that Moore is the DA that he is targeting. If you still aren't convinced, I have a screenshot of that chat session. Email me and I can send it to you. Brown's latest tweet (as of this comment) says he will be posing more specific questions to Moore. Another tweet says he has already called Moore's office late last week but has not received a reply. To know more about what Brown is up to, you too can follow him on Twitter and watch his periodic, online Q&A sessions.
On what grounds is Brown making the allegations? Again, that was in my story. He claims to have thousands of stolen emails, some of which allegedly incriminate Moore. He has not released those emails yet. So we don't know if what Brown claims is true. But it is a fact that he is making claims against Moore and that he says those claims are based on stolen emails.
My story is well supported by evidence and focuses on reporting what Brown is doing and claiming. I agree with you that Brown will need to show us all whatever evidence he claims to have now that he has publicly accused Moore. Like you, I am waiting to see what he produces. I will report on that if/when he releases anything.
Best,
Sean Lawson
Contributor, Forbes.com
By Sean Lawson
11/07/2011
Thanks, Sean, for replying here. I'm afraid some confusion persists, in part because Xpress' coverage of this started under this headline:"Forbes: Anonymous going after Ron Moore."
And I have been following Brown, and he says that his info on Moore isn't from the trove of emails at all -- he says he got it from an Asheville-area source. He hasn't said what that supposed info is, or what the actual source is. Seems mighty thin so far.
By Jon Elliston
11/07/2011
Brown is having a video chat right now with 7 others about this topic.
http://tinychat.com/RonMoore
By Jumangi
11/08/2011
Oops....Ron Moore forgot to cover a trick?
Waiting on the Federal Indictments coming soon.... Sad when those who have inside information intentionally destroy others in their greed... what goes up must come down... just a matter of when and who falls too... You thought Bobby Medford was a bad boy.... you have not seen anything yet!
By glolady
11/17/2011