General Firm hacked by ‘Anonymous’ plotted against WikiLeaks on bank’s behalf: report

The Helper

The Helper

Necromancy Power over 9000
Staff member
Reaction score
1,701
Three data intelligence firms concocted a plan to attack WikiLeaks on behalf of Bank of America, according to a published report.

The three firms, Palantir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies, planned to "disrupt" Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald's support of WikiLeaks, create a disinformation campaign to discredit the secrets outlet, sow discord among WikiLeaks volunteers, and use cyber attacks to target the website's infrastructure.

The proposed assault on WikiLeaks, The Tech Herald reported, was revealed after the "non-group" of hacktivists known as "Anonymous" gained access to more than 44,000 emails from HBGary Federal's COO, Aaron Barr, after he said he had identified "core leaders" of the group. Barr also said he had information that could potentially lead to their arrest. The emails were released to the public in a 4.71 gigabyte Torrent file.

The emails show the proposal was developed at the request of the Hunton and Williams law firm, which had a meeting with Bank of America on December 3 to discuss legal action against WikiLeaks.

Do you want to know Moar?
 
Slapshot136

Slapshot136

Divide et impera
Reaction score
471
the "report"

not really anything surprising.. but I am curious as to what exactly would be illegal? just a disinformation campaign doesn't seem like it would be

as far as cyber attacks, good luck doing anything to anonymous/wikileaks..
 
Ninja_sheep

Ninja_sheep

Heavy is credit to team!
Reaction score
64
oO Paying for cyber attacks on a website sounds pretty illegal to me Oo

He should sue the shit out of that bank.
 
S

Sevion

The DIY Ninja
Reaction score
413
GooS said:
A 4.71 gigabyte torrent file, that's some extreme metadata!
Click to expand...

I've seen/downloaded 50+GB torrents ;)

In fact, I have one right now that's 54.5GB.

4.71GB torrent files are actually really common. Many movies are about that size. Games as well.
 
The Helper

The Helper

Necromancy Power over 9000
Staff member
Reaction score
1,701
Bank of America using three intelligence firms to attack WikiLeaks

You would almost need to be disconnected from the Internet to not know about Aaron Barr, the CEO of HBGary Federal, feeling the wrath of Anonymous after Barr told of his intentions to expose the leaders of Anonymous at an upcoming Security B-Sides conference. But today, WikiLeaks published a document called "The WikiLeaks Threat" [PDF] which revealed two other intelligence firms, besides HBGary, were working to develop a strategic plan of attack against WikiLeaks on the behalf of Bank of America.

When I saw that, I wanted to relate what I saw in the proposal.

"The WikiLeaks Threat" outlines a plan by three private data intelligence firms, Palantir Technologies, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies, which were hired to effectively combat and attack WikiLeaks. The intel firms were "acting upon request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm working for Bank of America." According to The Tech Herald, "Hunton and Williams were recommended to Bank of America's general council by the Department of Justice. Hunton and Williams would act as outside counsel on retainer, while Palantir would take care of network and insider threat investigations. For their part, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal would analyze WikiLeaks."

The Bank of America drama started when The New York Times wrote that Assange said he planned to "take down" a major American bank and use data off an executive's hard drive to reveal an "ecosystem of corruption." At that point, Bank of America began an internal investigation, "scouring thousands of documents," and looking for any systems that had been compromised with the help of consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. The NYTimes reported that the Bank of America "has also sought advice from several top law firms about legal problems that could arise from a disclosure, including the bank's potential liability if private information was disclosed about clients."

More.
 
shinami

shinami

Redirect your complaints to the nearest wall
Reaction score
47
Sevion said:
I've seen/downloaded 50+GB torrents ;)

In fact, I have one right now that's 54.5GB.

4.71GB torrent files are actually really common. Many movies are about that size. Games as well.
Click to expand...

I think he's talking about the actual torrent files, which are only a coulpe of kb's of size.
 
Slapshot136

Slapshot136

Divide et impera
Reaction score
471
Ninja_sheep said:
oO Paying for cyber attacks on a website sounds pretty illegal to me Oo

He should sue the shit out of that bank.
Click to expand...

I guess you have a point, but what court would side with them? certainly no court in the U.S. would side with wikileaks, and can you really imagine anon in court?

and like I said earlier, I don't think their cyber attacks will really be able to do anything, can you sue someone for throwing air at you or something similarly ineffective?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Still lurking
     +3
  • The Helper The Helper:
    I am great and it is fantastic to see you my friend!
     +1
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Here is a great appetizer recipe Texas style! https://www.thehelper.net/threads/recipe-chicken-stuffed-poblano-peppers.194086/
  • The Helper The Helper:
    If you are new to the site please check out the Recipe and Food Forum https://www.thehelper.net/forums/recipes-and-food.220/
  • Monovertex Monovertex:
    How come you're so into recipes lately? Never saw this much interest in this topic in the old days of TH.net
  • Monovertex Monovertex:
    Hmm, how do I change my signature?
  • tom_mai78101 tom_mai78101:
    Signatures can be edit in your account profile. As for the old stuffs, I'm thinking it's because Blizzard is now under Microsoft, and because of Microsoft Xbox going the way it is, it's dreadful.
  • The Helper The Helper:
    I am not big on the recipes I am just promoting them - I use the site as a practice place promoting stuff
     +2
  • Monovertex Monovertex:
    @tom_mai78101 I must be blind. If I go on my profile I don't see any area to edit the signature; If I go to account details (settings) I don't see any signature area either.
  • The Helper The Helper:
    You can get there if you click the bell icon (alerts) and choose preferences from the bottom, signature will be in the menu on the left there https://www.thehelper.net/account/preferences
  • The Helper The Helper:
    I think I need to split the Sci/Tech news forum into 2 one for Science and one for Tech but I am hating all the moving of posts I would have to do
  • The Helper The Helper:
    New dessert for Summer - https://www.thehelper.net/threads/recipe-lemon-blueberry-layer-cheesecake.194113/
  • The Helper The Helper:
    What is up Old Mountain Shadow?
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Happy Thursday!
     +1
  • Varine Varine:
    Crazy how much 3d printing has come in the last few years. Sad that it's not as easily modifiable though
  • Varine Varine:
    I bought an Ender 3 during the pandemic and tinkered with it all the time. Just bought a Sovol, not as easy. I'm trying to make it use a different nozzle because I have a fuck ton of Volcanos, and they use what is basically a modified volcano that is just a smidge longer, and almost every part on this thing needs to be redone to make it work
  • Varine Varine:
    Luckily I have a 3d printer for that, I guess. But it's ridiculous. The regular volcanos are 21mm, these Sovol versions are about 23.5mm
  • Varine Varine:
    So, 2.5mm longer. But the thing that measures the bed is about 1.5mm above the nozzle, so if I swap it with a volcano then I'm 1mm behind it. So cool, new bracket to swap that, but THEN the fan shroud to direct air at the part is ALSO going to be .5mm to low, and so I need to redo that, but by doing that it is a little bit off where it should be blowing and it's throwing it at the heating block instead of the part, and fuck man
  • Varine Varine:
    I didn't realize they designed this entire thing to NOT be modded. I would have just got a fucking Bambu if I knew that, the whole point was I could fuck with this. And no one else makes shit for Sovol so I have to go through them, and they have... interesting pricing models. So I have a new extruder altogether that I'm taking apart and going to just design a whole new one to use my nozzles. Dumb design.
  • Varine Varine:
    Can't just buy a new heatblock, you need to get a whole hotend - so block, heater cartridge, thermistor, heatbreak, and nozzle. And they put this fucking paste in there so I can't take the thermistor or cartridge out with any ease, that's 30 dollars. Or you can get the whole extrudor with the direct driver AND that heatblock for like 50, but you still can't get any of it to come apart
  • Varine Varine:
    Partsbuilt has individual parts I found but they're expensive. I think I can get bits swapped around and make this work with generic shit though
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Heard Houston got hit pretty bad by storms last night. Hope all is well with TH.
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Power back on finally - all is good here no damage
     +2
  • V-SNES V-SNES:
    Happy Friday!
     +1
  • The Helper The Helper:
    New recipe is another summer dessert Berry and Peach Cheesecake - https://www.thehelper.net/threads/recipe-berry-and-peach-cheesecake.194169/

      The Helper Discord

      Staff online

      Members online

      Online now:
      189 (members: 2, guests: 187)

      Share this page

      Affiliates

      Hive Workshop NUON Dome World Editor Tutorials

      Network Sponsors

      Apex Steel Pipe - Buys and sells Steel Pipe.
      Top