FBI arrests 16 in Anonymous hacking investigation | Hacker News Reader

FBI arrests 16 in Anonymous hacking investigation

news.cnet.com

25 pointslucasjung16 comments

Note: These arrests are connected with the PayPal/Visa/Mastercard DDoS attacks organized by Anonymous/AnonOps, and have nothing to do with Lulzsec/Antisec or any of the major breaches.

  > In two other separate indictments, a Sarasota, Fla., man was arrested on
  > charges of intentional damage to a protected computer for allegedly
  > accessing the Web site of InfraGard Tampa Bay, an FBI partner, in June. The
  > complaint alleges that he released instructions on how to exploit the Web
  > site.

This seems related to Lulzsec[1], though maybe indirectly.

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/04/infragard-atlanta...

It may seem that this is unrelated to Lulzsec but why do you think the feds have a fire under their ass these days?

Fun fact: a large portion of computer-related busts happen when the Feds catch some low hanging fruit, lean on them, then roll up their accomplices.

Step 1, acquire low-hanging fruit. Check....

I hear from a user on another forum that a guy on his dorm floor got arrested and had previously bragged about participating in an attack on a group who opposed the food drive in Orlando that got shut down (user hasn't mentioned hearing about involvement in anything else).

Rule #1 states you do not talk about Anonymous.

Anyone who is dumb enough to brag about something that can land them in jail deserves to go to jail.

No.

OK, not anyone, but bragging about stuff you can be arrested for is still stupid.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/iu93n/fbi_raided_...

All the major LulzSec players have been tweeting all day. I'm doubtful that they caught any big fish.

I thought ddos was usually via botnets/unaware infected users. The story states such people were willing participants?

DDOS is indeed normally conducted by botnets; however, Anonymous uses a tool called LOIC‡ to carry out DDOS attacks.

Unlike a normal DDOS attack, people actively coordinate the attack (ie: it's not automated), and apparently, do so from their own systems.

I suspect a lot of the people who participate either aren't aware of the technical particulars, figure they'll be masked by large amounts of traffic, or just don't care.

‡ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOIC

How exactly does running LOIC constitute "conspiring to intentionally damage protected computers?" Where's the damage? Does standing in front of a vending machine now qualify as vandalism?

IANAL, but I would guess that the actual text of the statute in question extends beyond things that you or I would normally consider "damage." The names given to legal codes are necessarily concise, and therefore sometimes don't fully describe the contents of the code in question.

(8) the term “damage” means any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information;

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_0...

Its interesting that an FBI bust comes the day after News International had its DNS servers knocked down taking out every News International website.

Given that Rupert Murdoch and his businesses are already under suspicion for bribing police and government officials (and possibly had a whistle blower murdered), why does it feel like one of Murdochs cronies must have a director at the FBI on a leash.

It could be coincidence, but IMO when you have billions of dollars, there's no such thing as coincidence.

Even if presented with billions of dollars, the FBI is not efficient enough for this to have anything to do with news corp.

Please don't post conspiracy theories unless you have some sort of evidence to back them up.

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