Hacking 101: Why the US Senate hacking is BS. TPTB want you to believe.

I'll start with saying the US Senate is the latest victim from hacker attacks. Let's remember the IMF, Sony, Citigroup, Google, and the recent request by Anonymous for Ben Bernake to step down.

I'll post this this useless bit of info:

WHOIS information for senate.gov : [Querying whois.nic.gov] [whois.nic.gov] % DOTGOV WHOIS Server ready Domain Name: SENATE.GOV Status: ACTIVE

Then, I'll have to say all these hacking attacks are too quick, too soon. It smells of a skunk. It smells more of TPTB wanting an excuse to censor our interweb, and get the judicial powers to do so. Pause. Think.

This is Terra Incognito as far as legal terms go. The US government wants to make it equivalent to an act of war on our own soil, and to use conventional warfare to combat it as such. What if it is a domestic attack? Do they decide to attack an individual? Bomb the house the IP is registered to? Naw, that's BS.

All these leading authorities suddenly say they have been attacked! Cyber-warfare? The wave of the future? More like, dis-information!

Before I digress how hacking actually works, give me a brief moment to explain why people hack. They are bored. They have a cause, but they don't want to be caught. They think they can get away with it. Hackers are ordinary people, with computers, and with an above average understanding about how they and networks work. They like to be able to commit crimes.

It's the freedom to do what you will is the drug. Hackers get hooked on it. They program scripts to exploit, scripts to gain access, scripts to code what they want to do.

Side: I've only saw the term Hacker mentioned in MSM. Cracker is another term altogether. Whew. If MSM mentions Cracker, OMG, it's the end of the world.

Hackers are TRUE programmers. Their heart, their soul, is into it. The MSM is reporting hack attacks from Lulz and Anonymous, but seriously, the creed is to go in and leave undetected. Pause. Think.

Lulz 'stole' 300 million user accounts from Playstation Network. They copied. They didn't steal at all. Stealing implies removing property, and they did no such thing, as all the information was left intact. They replicated the information in it's exact form, and Sony panicked, and shut down ALL their servers. OMG. Sony had to figure out how Lulz got that kind of access to their database. Minds whirled. Major event in the hacking world. Past tense, and a week from now everyone forgets.

However, there are idiots out there. They are not responsible for anything that is going on. Those 3 in Spain, Anonymous members, uh huh, scapegoats. That's how it works.

The whole ideology is that I can break into your network of computers. You don't want that. You pay people to secure your network from outside attack, but it happens anyway, because the open-source programs are better than the commercial versions. People outside your network are smarter than the people you hired to retain your network validity. Your network gets intruded. Hackers don't EVER delete or CHANGE files, they just COPY. Uhm, back up a step. I'm retired from hacking, just a consultant. Copying violates privacy. When people feel violated, they will allow NEW laws to protect them, without seeing the implications.

All this hacking jargon in the news is about privacy. TPTB want to protect your privacy. EH????? OR, Is it more about controlling and monitoring what you do on the internet? Do you REALLY want to be watched?

Did you not see the httpd.conf file?

Posting that gave anyone else that wanted to take a shot at it a LOT of information.

Other than that, I really do not know what you are trying to say.
I'm sorry.

Or, another way put, the Patriot Act for the internet! Woohoo!

Great thread btw...

I find it strange that hacker groups are targeting video game networks. [most of them grew up on video games no?]

On the other hand, by attacking video game networks you are sending millions of screaming kids around North America into an unhampered rage (I'm sure).

Which means the parents have to deal with their irritable kids. -Seems like a good way to increase support from parents across the country for stricter cyber laws.

Not only that, but the younger generation is going to remember the awful "Video Game attacks of 2011". Which will be imprinted on their psyche far into the future.

If this has all been planned out... It's genius.

reply to post by boncho


That's a bit tenuous at best, no?

Originally posted by hadriana
Did you not see the httpd.conf file?

Posting that gave anyone else that wanted to take a shot at it a LOT of information.

Other than that, I really do not know what you are trying to say.
I'm sorry.

MEH.

I'm trying to say that all these hacking incidents, whether committed by TPTB or actual hacking groups, are going to lead to a decision by TPTB to curb our internet rights. It's open to debate. Please give me your thoughts on this subject, and that is the topic.

A few have wondered about this, but as it stands your post is just conjecture without bringing anything new to the table.
And in regards to how deep your knowledge on the topic is.... I have my doubts.

I've been working my way to the CEH. This thread kind of discouraged me now, but we'll see. I hate, Hate, HATE programming, lol.

But thanks for the info and insight. There has been news for some years about ways to censor the internet. This is just another in a string of false-flag operations to regulate something that couldn't or wouldn't be otherwise.

Originally posted by T0by
A few have wondered about this, but as it stands your post is just conjecture without bringing anything new to the table.

Those that have been paying attention to the news in the past few years already know the accuracy of what the OP speaks.

Originally posted by T0by
And in regards to how deep your knowledge on the topic is.... I have my doubts.

Those that know about advanced networking and security would not have doubts.

Originally posted by _BoneZ_

Originally posted by T0by
A few have wondered about this, but as it stands your post is just conjecture without bringing anything new to the table.

Those that have been paying attention to the news in the past few years already know the accuracy of what the OP speaks.

Originally posted by T0by
And in regards to how deep your knowledge on the topic is.... I have my doubts.

Those that know about advanced networking and security would not have doubts.

And what has helped you determine his technical knowledge of hacking, apart from him calling the internet the 'interweb' which i hope to god was an intentional joke.
All he brought to the table was regurgitated info which is readily available in articles, and basically said lulz ( It's lulzsec btw ) is a TPTB plan.

So naturally, i'm not really impressed.

His explanation of hacker culture whilst mostly correct, has a certain lack of understanding and reminds me of the way a journalist would be explaining the topic within an article.

Every attack on a gov, mil, or political website can't be taken as an indication that it's the work of tptb.
Sometimes there really are groups of people that just do this because they want to.

Originally posted by _BoneZ_
Those that know about advanced networking and security would not have doubts.

I know nothing about advanced networking and security and I have no doubts. It really does not take any special knowledge to see where this is leading.

Originally posted by T0by

Originally posted by _BoneZ_

Originally posted by T0by
A few have wondered about this, but as it stands your post is just conjecture without bringing anything new to the table.

Those that have been paying attention to the news in the past few years already know the accuracy of what the OP speaks.

Originally posted by T0by
And in regards to how deep your knowledge on the topic is.... I have my doubts.

Those that know about advanced networking and security would not have doubts.

And what has helped you determine his technical knowledge of hacking, apart from him calling the internet the 'interweb' which i hope to god was an intentional joke.
All he brought to the table was regurgitated info which is readily available in articles, and basically said lulz ( It's lulzsec btw ) is a TPTB plan.

So naturally, i'm not really impressed.

His explanation of hacker culture whilst mostly correct, has a certain lack of understanding and reminds me of the way a journalist would be explaining the topic within an article.

Every attack on a gov, mil, or political website can't be taken as an indication that it's the work of tptb.
Sometimes there really are groups of people that just do this because they want to.

Yes, sometimes there are groups, but not all hitting the fire with fresh wood day after day, T0by, you should know better. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, either, and yes, I was trying to explain things in layman's terms. I'm not necessarily trying to blame TPTB, but it seems real fishy that they try to deem a cyber attack equivalent to a domestic attack on US soil. That simple fact is what bothers me and what prompted me to post this thread. We attacked Iraq over WMDs, and guess what?

TPTB point the finger too quickly, IMHO.

Continue......

reply to post by Druid42


it is called censorship,china did it to it`s people ,the middle east is still doing it to it`s people and so are many other nations that don`t want the u.s. style democracy as it`s system of government as this system does not work at all.
copyright laws being used as a platform to allow all other forms of censorship world wide to be brought into play under the disguise of national security-hogwash- if our damn brain dead governments don`t want their dirty laundry hung out on the back fence for all the world to see disconnect your damn computers from the net. simple solution.
what was that new law passed in the u.s. -if you the people revolt or stand up for your rights -protest your government now has the right by law to call in your own troops that you the tax payer paid for -and they the military have the right to shoot you down like dogs in the street .
you have got to love the paranoia of you own brain dead governments and all of it`s useless minions when they decide that their laws are all important and you the peoples rights are now denied .
up here in canada the great g20 meeting is a prime example of the goose stepping neo- nazi`s and their minions at work -the worst part is that we the people are seeing this take place world wide ,no matter what style of government`s we have or what nation we come from.and the governments so called inquisition will probably find that there is no fault of the boys in blue or their wall of blue silence -even though they attacked the protesters with out any name tags on -which by the way is illegal up here or is it the law is only what the law and it`s minions say it is and it does not apply to them as they are above the law as they are the law. this is their crap excuse.

Well I see it as just embarrassing whichever company pisses them off, and just doing it for fun.
They even hacked bethesda and many other game companies http:///i5M0LB58 despite liking them
It's pretty much just chaotic grey hacking in whatever piques interest and whatever's open to abuse.
And some do leave things horribly vulnerable:

"From our LFI entry point, we acquired command execution via local file inclusion of enemy fleet Apache vessel. We then found that the HTTPD had SSH auth keys...."

Additionally this was found whilst making a fool of Karim:
"the U.S. government is funding the CSFI to attack Libya's cyber infrastructure."
Throwing in a piece of information like to make it look legit would be fair enough, but info directly related to the cyber warfare topic therefore making the us gov look like hypocrites?

It is possible:

- tptb have orchestrated this in order to restrict the internet
- tptb have not, but will use it as an opportunity to restrict the internet
- lulzsec is doing it of its own accord and simply doesn't care or believe anything bad will happen
- there is no tptb and nothing will happen
- there is no tptb and the gov in general will use it to try crack down.

Who knows really.
Same deal with wikileaks, same deal with anything that exposes government weakness and flaws.
Is it possible to do so without being called out as working for tptb?

reply to post by T0by

Every attack on a gov, mil, or political website can't be taken as an indication that it's the work of tptb.
Sometimes there really are groups of people that just do this because they want to.

Lack of direction and angst leaves people wide open to be manipulated.

Not much more to say about it as long as you understand the issue.

A hundred pages can be written about malicious hacking and hackers. About why and how they do what they do.

I definitely agree that there is more to all these 'hacking' incidents than what is being made public. I personally find all these hacking news stories suspicious. Some because some high profile targets are being made public when they can be kept secret. Some because the true motives of the hacker seem unclear. And also because all the victims seem to be large well known organizations. Also because Anon and Lulzsec are consistently being referenced as the perpetrators when there are hundreds of other much more malicious hacking groups in the world. Maybe TPTB are exaggerating what was actually done during a hack attempt.

Based on the targets, these attacks and security breaches seem to be from a well organized and expert-level hacking group. A lot of time, planning, resources, high-level expertise and tight nit organization is required to achieve what is being claimed by MSM.

A list the various classifications of what the media generalizes as "hackers" or "crackers" by some.

Script Kiddies (getting smarter by the day and seem to have a lot of free time on their hands to "play around")
Black Hat Hackers
Hacktivists
State Sponsored Hackers
Corporate Spy Hackers
Cyber Terrorists
Criminal Hackers
There are other hacker types I didn't list because they don't seem relevant.

Hacking has been going on at the corporate level for years without notice. Much of the MSM news recently has been portraying the recent "cyberhacking" as a sinister threat to society. These hacking attacks are being sensationalized to appear that America is in danger of cyber terrorists, state sponsored hackers and criminal hackers (this is what TPTB wants people to believe). Anon and Lulzsec (Hacktivists) seem to use automated DOS attacks and front end hacking for retaliation, attention or to prove a point, not data theft. Most, if not all, of their hacking activities are announced or later made public. Key members of these groups could still operate independently, yet I find it more probable that the real hackers could be impersonators attempting to incriminate or discredit Anon and Lulzsec. Maybe use them as an example to inform people that secret (yet mostly harmless) hacking organizations do exist. Or better yet, hackers unrelated to these groups who are using aggressive hacking as false flag attacks to propose and pass legislation in a plan to restrict, control, monitor, and censor internet activity and content.

I think all this hacking activity is directly related to passing the Protect IP Act (PIPA). This bill is the first step to strip away online privacy and enact censorship on Internet content.

Below are my opinions regarding this topic.

All this latest hacking activity as well as the war on piracy all tie into a larger govt scheme of internet censorship and the elimination of online privacy. The Internet is one of the last truly private free-speech forums to express ideas and openly share information without govt or media controls. This same freedom of information sharing is starting to unsettle the govt and many in MSM. Look at all the online publicity lately on corrupt politicians, wall street fraud, foreign relations, etc. (the list goes on and on). All these accusations and discoveries are being made from online sources, not by MSM.

Control of MSM is becoming less viable now because of the real-time distribution and assimilation of information over the Internet to the masses. Online information that is shared to millions around the world does not require peer review, corporate or political support, financial resources, or media oversight. Most importantly it can be anonymous. The whole concept of free online publishing is a threat to MSM control. Privacy and censorship controls will attempt to put on stop on this, yet it will be very difficult. It will make life miserable for many content publishers. Those out there who think they will be able to hide behind proxies, IP spoofing or other IP blocking methods - think again.

Quoted below is a post I made about piracy that falls into the same theme of this thread. I think all this hacking lately is part of the plan to pass this Protect IP Act. It was not passed by enough votes just recently. Yet, now with all these high profile cyberthreats, supporters will be able to rally much more support and votes to pass this bill into law. Politicians will be able to rationalize the passing of this cyber law to safeguard national security. Does this sound familiar? This bill is the first step in creating an “Internet Patriot Act”.

ATS Thread on Protect IP Act (PIPA):
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Leahy's Protect IP Act (PIPA) or the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act," (COICA).

A BILL that all INTERNET USERS and CONTENT WRITERS WORLDWIDE should be very concerned about....

Leahy's Protect IP Act is NOT about:
Whether LEGITIMATE copyright infringement or piracy is acceptable or not. I presume most already know that piracy, and the like, are criminal acts and breaking them can lead to fines, prosecution, jail time and civil suits. So, I think all who read this knows piracy is a CRIME with repercussions.

Leahy's Protect IP Act is MORE about:
A loosely worded law being enacted (or in this case, online rights and liberties being taken away). Even the name of the bill is misleading.
A bill like this WILL lead to widespread ABUSE and CENSORSHIP towards websites and website visitors that are NOT committing any acts of piracy.
Read the language in the bill if you question this statement. The extreme vagueness of the bill is the reason it was not passed THIS TIME. Yet, it will reappear - without a doubt.

Also, more than likely, there will be little or no accountability or repercussions from wrongful or erroneous "policing" or "censorship" actions due to these newly enacted laws. Every persons online activity will be at risk of becoming monitored, taxed, fined, or worse. Even those NOT perpetrating piracy. Eventually most online liberties as well as privacy will be stripped away all together under the guise of big medias "piracy" protection and regulation. It's like the future Patriot Act for the Internet.

To stop "piracy", the government must remove "privacy". It's that simple.

im loving these groups and organizations breaches of security...

i learned today that there is an investigation of some east coast authorities looking for the MAC address and ip (of a stolen laptop) from which it connected through the VPN of a major rail road company...

this is a serious securlty threat,

not to mention these group have published documentation on how to better secure your self...
with knowledge comes power, and if there is a government sponsered campaign to limit us on
the interlink/web/net, those who know should be able to get around just fine... and stay under a cloak.

but then again there is no such thing as 100% security when it comes to servers/networks:

i personally think the Hack the Planet mantra is not going full steam as of yet...
but these guys are trying to take us somewhere and expose some light... and to add to
that, some of the elite, maybe just using other lesser knoweldgable pawns to cloak them
selves and gain the acess needed for such infiltrations, hell more power to them...

lets also not forget you never really hack/crack a computer, your hacking people who use those computers...
and the knowledge is out there and its free... the fabled Gibson computer is now systems like Cray...
its what the Dept of homeland "Security" uses...

i say lets open it up and have a look...

Well anything you DO is going to cause a reaction.

The real question is whether it is all planned or not.

As far as the senate goes, it's been hacked 3 times that I know of - twice in the past - let me see - once because they had an open proxy (NT PROXY at that), I think that was late 90s, and the 2nd time was a problem with open shares that got pinned on a low level tech and none of the good republicans that had been going through democrats documents and such were ever disciplined that I recall- that was about 2002? Can't recall exactly but earlish 2k, I think Bush was in office then.

As far as the whole ANONYMOUS thing, I think that's a bit of a misnomer. I don't doubt that there is some organization at the top, but acts are committed by individuals and it was an individual that hacked Sony.

My own conspiracy theory is that IF someone (or some group) did this with a hidden agenda, then it is someone out there that knows that the weakest point in US security is our tendency to reuse passwords.
Hitting a group like Sony teaches the young and old alike - I mean, I don't play the stuff, but my son does and it was MY account because he's under 18. I thought it was pretty brilliant myself.

Now if webmasters and system admins were sharp, they'd be running that list that came out against their own user db and resetting passwords for anyone that matched with a letter of warning about WHY they were doing it.

Hacking has ALWAYS happened, now just everything is getting blamed on Anonymous. Hacktivism has also always happened - and China has been doggone at the US for a while now. Whatever the agenda, the effect is going to make US users more secure - they will SEE that they can't keep using asdfjkl as a password on every site! or "abc123" or whatever.

No, I suspect there's a lot of different factions at work here. I still think the core IS the Hacker's Manifesto - and I wonder that if the longer people spend ONLINE, if they don't evolve towards it.

With kids playing video games, they encounter hacking VERY early on - game hacks to net more virtual money or virutal pets. Geez I saw it with my son when he was 8 or so playing NEOPETS, and again when he was 12 playing Mabinogi. These kids have GROWN UP with hacking as a reality and a way to accomplish things.

It's not just our world, you know. It's not all about US.

Originally posted by Brentnauer
reply to post by boncho

 

That's a bit tenuous at best, no?

No, no it's not. Not when you consider what lengths lobbying groups will go to to make changes in laws and regulations.

Not at all...