anonymity

Hackers today released data they said was from the governments of Zimbabwe and Brazil, entertainment giants Universal Music Group and Viacom, and a municipal government in Australia.

Meanwhile, the Anonymous group also reportedly temporarily shut down a tourism Web site for Orlando, Fla., with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack today to protest the arrest of Food not Bombs volunteers for serving food in public in Orlando without a permit.

Later in the day the data dump, which the hackers said was the first official release from the AntiSec campaign launched by Anonymous and LulzSec last week, appeared on The Pirate Bay … Read more

commentary For the past 50-odd days a group calling itself LulzSec went on an Internet rampage, taking down government sites, compromising Web servers, posting police files and consumer data to the Web, and taunting a host of gaming companies and others. The hacking spree has come to an end--at least from that group, which announced Saturday that it was throwing in the towel. But has anything really changed?

Not really. Here's why:

First off, LulzSec is folding back into the group it spun off from: Anonymous. "We didn't 'run' we are in fact online @ irc.anonops.li,&… Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down California's attempt to ban the sale of violent video games to minors, arguing that the current ratings system is enough to let parents make informed decisions about what to buy. Unlike the MPAA's rating system, which led me and my 4-year-old to "Cars 2." Thanks for that, MPAA. Also, LulzSec tucks its puppykicker tail and runs away, but not before hacking a librarian and book-sharing Website. Nice.

Anonymous is picking up where the apparently disbanded LulzSec left off.

The hacking organization released information to the Web last night that came from the Cyberterrorism Defense Initiative's Security and Network Training Initiative and National Education Laboratory (Sentinel) program. The Sentinel program is administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to "educate technical personnel in cyberterrorism response and prevention."

The Sentinel training program was designed for workers in public safety, law enforcement, state and local government, and public utilities. Health care professionals and employees at colleges and universities … Read more

Police are investigating a possible data breach at a NATO-related Web site.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said the "probable data breach" involved NATO's e-Bookshop, a service for releasing documents to the public that's operated by an external company. The site does not contain classified documents, NATO said in a statement Thursday, adding that the site has now been blocked and subscribers have been notified.

It's unknown whether the attack is related to NATO's recent clash with the online group Anonymous after the global organization warned member nations about the rising threat of "… Read more

For several months, hackers have been having a heyday taking down Web sites and leaking data from compromised servers with victims ranging from the CIA and U.S. Senate to Sony, Citigroup and the Turkish government. (A growing list of attacks is here).

A 19-year-old identified as Ryan Cleary was arrested Tuesday in the U.K. on hacking charges, but it's unclear whether he was involved with either of the two main hacker groups that have been taking responsibility for and organizing some of the attacks--Anonymous and LulzSec.

In the game of disinformation and occasional real information surrounding the … Read more

The otherwise staid and professional Jason Hiner joins us from TechRepublic to discuss important issues like the amazing Yonanna machine, which turns your banana into froyo just like that! Ok, ok, in tech news, a 19-year-old is arrested in the UK, but LulzSec says he's just the IRC moderator. Sounds important to us. Plus, your Facebook and Twitter posts will haunt you for seven years, just like your bad credit card purchases.

The identity of the man arrested in the U.K. last night in an antihacking sting has reportedly been revealed.

According to the BBC, citing locals in Essex and the man's mother, 19-year-old Ryan Cleary was arrested by police last night. The Guardian also has given Ryan Cleary as the name of the person arrested. So far, however, the U.K.'s Metropolitan Police and the FBI, which was also involved in the operation, have not divulged any name.

The arrest--"on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act, and Fraud Act offences"--stemmed from an investigation into denial-of-service … Read more

Hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec said today they are uniting in a campaign aimed at banks, government agencies, and other high-profile targets, and they are encouraging others to steal and leak classified information.

The "AntiSec" campaign appeared to have its first target earlier today--the Web site of Serious Organized Crime Agency in the United Kingdom was down. "Tango down - http://t.co/JhcjgO9 - in the name of #AntiSec," the group tweeted after releasing a statement announcing the campaign. The site was down this morning but back up at midday.

"Top priority is to … Read more