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A quarter of all US hackers are FBI informants, report shows

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The recent wave of audacious cyber-attacks has a serious downside for the hacker community: According to the Guardian, one in four US hackers are now informants for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

By threatening hackers with long prison sentences, the FBI and secret service have  thoroughly infiltrated the ranks of hacker groups — so much so that the community “is now riddled with paranoia and mistrust,” the report reads.

The illegal online forums used by hackers to swap stolen credit card numbers and other personal data are riddled with hackers working for the authorities. And in some cases, FBI agents posing as “carders” — hackers who specialize in identity theft — have successfully taken over management of these crime forums in an effort to gain information about hacker groups, and put their members in jail.

The two most high-profile groups targeted are the hacktivist sect Anonymous, who has waged attacks against everyone from Visa to the government of Iran, and Lulz Security (LulzSec), who set off on a digital war path in recent weeks, infiltrating the servers of PBS.org, Sony and, in their most brazen move to date, FBI affiliate group Infragard. (Anonymous is also said to have targeted Sony in an attack that resulted in the shut-down of the PlayStation Network and the theft personal information of as many as 100 million Sony customers — an accusation Anonymous firmly denies.)

While LulzSec remains an enigma, even to the FBI, the heavy hammer of the law has already begun to smash down on Anonymous. Federal authorities have raided 40 addresses believed to be linked to Anonymous members in the US and five in the UK. And a grand jury in California has already begun to hear evidence against the group.

“The FBI are always there,” says Barrett Brown, a self-appointed spokesman for the loose-knit Anonymous. “They are always watching, always in the chatrooms. You don’t know who is an informant and who isn’t, and to that extent you are vulnerable.”

This fact should come as no surprise to anyone who closely watches the moves of Anonymous. The group widely publicizes the IRC chat rooms in which the members organize their attacks. And anyone with the motivation can join in, or simply watch their plots unfold.

In addition to pressure by the FBI, the Pentagon recently declared cyber attacks “acts of war” worthy of retaliation with military force, in instances where the attacks cause death and/or significant destruction of US property.

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Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
LulzSec hacker identities apparently outed by rival group

For almost two months, hacker group Lulz Security has waged what amounts to an Internet terror campaign on... well... pretty much everyone. PBS.org, CIA.gov, Senate.gov, a range of major video game developer and publisher websites, porn sites, 4chan.org... the list goes on. LulzSec followed up its latest attack, which involved revealing the identities of agents with a number of Arizona law enforcement agents, with a public statement revealed that, after 50 days, its work is officially finished. A rival group calling itself "The A-Team" doesn't see things that way, however, claiming that LulzSec "lack[s] the skills to keep it going."
The statement comes from an anonymous -- not to be confused with Anonymous -- post on Pastebin (via Gizmodo). The A-Team contends that LulzSec, which is made up gn0sis and Anonymous group members, "after Sony [LulzSec] couldn't get into anything. So they switched their focus to just releasing random crap that didn't mean anything."
The document goes on to describe a disorganized hacker group that, realizing it had hit a wall, reached out for new members capable of keeping up with the pace that had been set. "Their releases have nothing to do with their goals or their lulz," The A-Team writes. "It's purely based on whatever they find with their 'google hacking' queries and then release it." The rest of the space is filled with any available personal information on known LulzSec members.
Whether or not The A-Team's information is accurate is another question entirely. LulzSec's retirement announcement did come very suddenly however. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to the majority of us; one group going away, whatever the reason, isn't going to fracture the global network of hackers.

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Sony PS3 hacker George ‘GeoHot’ Hotz ‘works for Facebook’
geohot-facebook-george-hotz

Just when you thought the massive hacker stories were over for the evening, another twist comes in: Hacker George 'GeoHot' Hotz, who recently settled a lawsuit with Sony for publishing a PlayStation 3 crack online, now works for Facebook, according to various sources. His exact position with the company is unclear, but he may be on a the development team tasked wit building the social network's rumored new iPad app.
The rumor of Hotz's break into "legitimate" product development comes first from jailbreak hacker Joshua Hill (aka p0isixNinja), who said in a recent interview that Hotz had made the move. Hill reportedly challenged Hotz to a iPad 2 jailbreak duel. (Both hackers come from an iOS-cracking background.) Hotz declined, saying that he wanted to remain out of the attention of the media after the debacle with Sony.
Gabe Rivera, creator of news aggregator Techmeme, said that he noticed on Hotz's Facebook page a message that reads, "Facebook is really an amazing place to work…first hackathon over." Hotz reportedly published that post on June 17, but he is said to have worked at Facebook since May.
Hotz has become somewhat of a symbol for the hacking community. Hacktivist group Anonymous launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Sony in April as retribution for suing Hotz. Coincidentally or not, the DDoS onslaught came at the same time as a monstrous breach of Sony's PlayStation Network put the personal data of as much as 100 million people worldwide at risk.
Those hacks became the preface to an ongoing campaign by Lulz Security, who hacked Sony in a variety of ways. The group later went on to attack everyone from PBS to the CIA. By chance, LulzSec announced tonight that it was disbanding, and would never perform another cyberattack under the LulzSec pirate flag again. There is so far no evidence that GeoHot going corporate has anything to do with LulzSec's sudden death.
Watch the interview with Hill and Craig Fox, founder of My Great Fest jailbreak convention:

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LulzSec calls it quits after 50 days of hacks
Lulzsec-hackers-quit-finished

Only a little more than a month and a half ago, the merry pranksters of Lulz Security began their quest to wreak havoc on the computer systems of the world, all in the name of lulz. Today, that anarchic campaign has come to an abrupt end. The group announced via a statement posted to Pastebin that it will permanently disband, dropping the Lulz Boat anchor for good. As a parting gift, LulzSec also released a trove of data stolen from companies like AOL and AT&T, evidence that the group hacked the website of the US Navy, plus a variety of other illicit goodies.
"For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could," writes LulzSec. "All to selflessly entertain others - vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy."
The group confirmed its retirement on the LulzSec Twitter feed, which managed to amass 277,540 followers during its short stint online.
During its 50-day stint of digital escapades, LulzSec hacked PBS.org, a variety of websites owned by Sony, Nintendo, FBI affiliate Infragard Atlanta, 50+ porn sites, Bethesda software, 4Chan.org, CIA.gov, Senate.gov and a variety of law enforcement agencies in Arizona.
LulzSec's statement goes on to explain that, like "Hitler and Osama bin Laden," they are people, too. "People with a preference for music, a preference for food; we have varying taste in clothes and television, we are just like you," says the group.
In what appears to be an attempt to explain the non-lulz motivation behind its most high-profile hack — this week's release of hundreds of classified and/or private data from Arizona law enforcement as a protest of its strict immigration law, and other moves related to the joint LulzSec-Anonymous "AntiSec" campaign — LulzSec says that its members "truly believe" in that cause — so strongly, in fact, that they "brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz."
While the group says that the brief duration of its existence was planned from the beginning, some have already begun to argue that the pressure on LulzSec simply became too much for them to handle. And they might have a point. In the past two weeks alone, Scotland Yard arrested a 19-year-old with ties to the group; hacker group Web Ninjas published names, photos and other personal data related to people it claims are members of LulzSec; and another hacker group, TeaMp0isoN, defaced the website of an alleged LulzSec member.
Regardless of its reason for throwing in the towel, the group adds this as its final bon voyage: "We must now sail into the distance, leaving behind - we hope - inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere."
"LulzSec" may be done. But something tells us that the people behind its shenanigans are far from finished. Stay tuned.
Read LulzSec's full statement:
Friends around the globe,
We are Lulz Security, and this is our final release, as today marks something meaningful to us. 50 days ago, we set sail with our humble ship on an uneasy and brutal ocean: the Internet. The hate machine, the love machine, the machine powered by many machines. We are all part of it, helping it grow, and helping it grow on us.
For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. All to selflessly entertain others - vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy. It's what we all crave, even the seemingly lifeless politicians and emotionless, middle-aged self-titled failures. You are not failures. You have not blown away. You can get what you want and you are worth having it, believe in yourself.
While we are responsible for everything that The Lulz Boat is, we are not tied to this identity permanently. Behind this jolly visage of rainbows and top hats, we are people. People with a preference for music, a preference for food; we have varying taste in clothes and television, we are just like you. Even Hitler and Osama Bin Laden had these unique variations and style, and isn't that interesting to know? The mediocre painter turned supervillain liked cats more than we did.
Again, behind the mask, behind the insanity and mayhem, we truly believe in the AntiSec movement. We believe in it so strongly that we brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we've gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don't stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve.
So with those last thoughts, it's time to say bon voyage. Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind - we hope - inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere.
Thank you for sailing with us. The breeze is fresh and the sun is setting, so now we head for the horizon.
Let it flow...
Lulz Security - our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011, and a shout-out to all of our battlefleet members and supporters across the globe

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