According to the Associated Press, the military issued a shutdown of the wireless network at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also blocking access to social media websites, including Twitter and Facebook, via the base’s computers. No cyberattacks have happened thus far; the shutdown was initiated merely as a precaution due to the posted threats.

The threats were made on May 6 via Anon Insiders, where Anonymous published a press release regarding “Operation Guantanamo.” According to the statement, May 18 represented the 100th day the prisoners had been on the hunger strike, the same time the hackers’ 3-day operation would take place. The public was called to initiate “twitterstorms, email bombs, and fax bombs” nonstop to show their support.

The press release also included numbers to the White House, U.S. Southern Command, and Department of Defense, urging the public to call the numbers and demand a change in conditions and eradication of the force-feedings, as well as demands that the Obama Administration close Guantanamo, as was the original plan. People were also asked to call their representatives and senators to petition for its closure.

It is worth noting the press release doesn’t say anything about hacking or cyberattacking the network, instead urging the public to bombard the powers that be with denouncements of the prison’s conditions, actions, and continued existence. As such, it has been pointed out on the Operation Guantanamo’s Twitter account that the base has taken itself offline, with the hacking collective not having to do anything, seemingly fulfilling the purpose it was assumed Anonymous sought to achieve.

There’s no word on when the network will be available again.

SOURCE: Associated Press

The OpUSA cyberattack was set to take place on May 7, which has come and gone for most of those in the US, and thus far no reports have surfaced regarding cyberattacks against the intended targets, among which was the Pentagon, NSA, FBI, the White House’s website, Capital One, Bank of America, and many more banks. A YouTube video was also specified as a target.

YouTube hosted a video titled “Innocence of Muslims,” which Islamist hacking collective Izz al-Din Qassam Cyber Fighters would remove from the website, said Anonymous. Several other Islamic hacking collectives were also specified in the cyberattack’s announcement. For all the grand talk, however, little came of it and websites were by-and-large unaffected.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement earlier this week akin to an amused pat on the head, stating that the attack, at the most, would temporarily disrupt websites and nothing else. According to Mashable, the Honolulu Police Department and one hundred or so obscure small businesses had their websites hacked. That took place on May 6, however, and may have been unrelated.

[via Mashable]

The final written warning was issued back on October 25th, 2012. It was issued to Keys because he created a parody Twitter account named @PendingLarry. It was used to mock Larry Page, CEO of Google. The warning goes on to say that creating the fake account that did not identify Keys as the author violated Reuter’s Social Media Policy. It also stated that his actions “displayed a serious lapse of judgment and professionalism that is unbecoming of a Reuters journalist.” The following sentences may be the reason as to why Keys was terminated,

“For these reasons, we are issuing this final written warning. We must see immediate improvement in your communications with managers and more discretion in your social media practices.”

Keys, who was Reuter’s Deputy Social Media Editor, recently came under fire a few days ago after he was criticized for tweeting misinformation from police scanners. His first tweet stated, “Dispatch: First Boston bomb suspect is Mike Mulugeta,” and his second tweet stated, “Dispatcher: Suspect 2 is missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi.” Keys defended his position in a Facebook post, stating he was unaware that the police asked people not to publish information from police scanners, and that other social journalists were doing the same thing as he was.

Keys told Politico that his termination from Reuters “wasn’t unexpected”, and that his independent coverage of the Boston bombings was one of the reasons why he was fired. Keys also told Politico that Reuters had a “specific set of reasons for the termination” which he and the union agree “is incorrect and doesn’t hold any water.” He states that Reuters may have just been “looking for an out” and jumped at the opportunity to fire him.

[via Politico]

CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, was passed by the House on April 18th with a majority vote of 288 to 127. The bill will allow corporations to share their users’ personal information with the government without the government needing a warrant beforehand. The bill will kill any privacy contracts that companies have with their users, the same contracts that ensure users that they will not share their personal information with anyone.

Currently, the White House is concerned over CISPA, and may veto it because it invades the privacy of internet users. In a statement that it issued last Tuesday, it stated that even with its new amendments, CISPA,

“does not require private entities to take reasonable steps to remove irrelevant personal information when sending cybersecurity data to the government or other private sector entities. We have long said that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation, but they must include proper privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the appropriate roles of civilian and intelligence agencies, and include targeted liability protections.”

In order to encourage the White House to veto the bill, Anonymous, and the vast majority of the internet, will participate in the blackout to show their unified opposition against it. There were several petitions made that were signed by over 1.5 million users, however, it still wasn’t enough to get Congress to change their minds, or take the public’s opinion seriously. Senator Mike Rogers, Representative of Michigan, stated that many of those against CISPA were just “teenagers in their basements”, and that many powerful internet entities, like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, are in support of the bill. He says,

“The very companies that you say are uncomfortable with this support this bill. The people who are in the business of prosperity on the Internet think this is the right approach.”

With the blackout, Anonymous hopes that President Obama will see how strongly opposed the vast majority of the internet is against the bill, and hopes that he will be convinced to veto it. This internet blackout will be similar to the blackout that occurred last year in opposition of SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), which garnered support from over 7,000 sites. If you have a website, and you plan on participating in the event, Anonymous has provided instructions on how to do so.

[via Huffington Post]

To draw attention to that cause, Anonymous has been spreading its mischief as broadly as it can. The Uriminzokkiri Twitter account remains apparently hacked, and the main site itself has been taken down, though it’s unclear whether that’s due to a hack or a denial-of-service attack.

In an expletive-punctuated release the purported team responsible for the hacks describe the campaign as one targeting “oppressing and violent regimes” and calls for an end to the North Korean nuclear program and the resignation of Kim Jong-un. There are also demands for a “free direct democracy” in the country, alongside “uncensored internet access.”

A follow-up release went on to describe a “a chain of long distance WiFi repeaters with proprietary frequencies” that had been used to bring internet access some way into North Korea itself. The system is described as “slow and unstable” however, and subject to retaliation by the government.

Attitudes toward internet access in North Korea had seemed to be loosening in recent months, with the country even allowing visitors to access the web on their mobile devices in early March. However, the freedom was short-lived, lasting only a few weeks before North Korea clamped back down on it.

The accussed man is Eric J. Rosol, aged 37, hailing from Black Creek, Wisconsin. According to charges made yesterday by the Witchita attorney’s office, Rosol was took part in the late February attacks on two of Koch’s websites: Kochind.com and Quiltednorthern.com, something that eventually took them offline.

As you may have suspected, the attacks were of the DDOS variety. Rosol is the only individual who has been indicted in the attacks, and has been charged with one count of damaging a protected computer, and another count of conspiracy to damage a protected computer. If the book is thrown at him, the participant could face a total of ten years in prison and a half a million dollar fine.

Although the website attacks came during a time when Koch and his brother came under fire for their support of union cutbacks in Wisconsin, it is possible that Koch Industries’ hand in climate change research could also have been a motivating factor for Roscol. According to the LA Times, the day the attack took place, Rosol linked on his blog the Greenpeace report that shined an unpleasant light on the business.

[via LA Times]

The information was provided by Keys in an unnamed Internet forum, where he posted the information for Anonymous and added a qualifier to “go [expletive] some [expletive] up.” We’ll let you fill in the blanks. One of the hackers then proceeded to use the login information about a week later, accessing the media company’s website.

A news story on the Times website about Representative Steny Hoyer was altered in an unspecified manner. According to a post by the hacker on the forum with which he was associated with Keys, the altered information was live on the media company’s website for about 30 minutes. Keys responded with “nice,” according to the complaint.

Keys, who has been charged with three felonies related to information transfer, worked for the Tribune until he was fired, at which point he took up his current job with Reuters as deputy socia media editor a little over a year ago. Keys faces up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000, and three years of supervised release per felony.

[via Wall Street Journal]

According to Anonymous, it considered this information to be newsworthy for several reasons, including the insecure way it is stored and the rather disconcerting fact that it contains information about “hundred [sic] of thousands” of both employees and executives of many corporations globally, with that information including data about the individuals’ salaries. The data on individuals was named “Bloomberg” and tagged as “reuterscompanycontent,” and comprised a total of 4.8 gigabytes.

The point about the data being stored insecurely is underscored not just by the fact that the hackers accessed it, but also by how they did it – without hacking. The amassed data is reportedly stored in Tel Aviv, where ClearForest is based, on an open server that is misconfigured, meaning that just about anyone can get it with a little bit of elbow grease.

Says the hackers, the information gathered is of a poorly researched nature, meaning that portions of it may not even be correct. The information being gathered is coming from IRC channels, social media, forums, and other such Internet locations, and has a focus on targeting activist movements and Anonymous. The spying utilizes an apparent keyword list with in excess of 10,000 entries used to find content on Twitter, IRC, and other Internet locations. Most of the entries are Wikipedia references, with 1,125 believed to be actual, relevant keywords.

Says Anonymous, it has released the data it found to raise awareness and make a point.

[via Paranoia]

While the bank said that the breach didn’t “affect critical operations”, the news definitely doesn’t make the situation any less worrisome. The bank didn’t specifically mention any details, but a spokesperson said that the hacker group got in “by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product…exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue.”

The hackers accessed the St. Louis Fed Emergency Communications System database, which was put in place in 2008, and is used by banking agencies to communicate during an emergency. In total, the system is used by 17 states in the US, with several more to utilize the system sometime this year.

Of course, some are saying that the Federal Reserve is downplaying the severity of the hack on its systems. Sensitive data on more than 4,000 banking officials was compromised, and while the organizations try to minimize the damage of the hack, security experts say that the damage that was already done is bad news and poses serious risks.

[via ZDNet]

The message said that “a line was crossed” with the death of Swartz and lambasted the current state of the justice system in the United States, claiming “law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.” In the time since Anonymous took over the website, the U.S. government has taken it offline. There’s no word on when the website will return, but you can bet that the government will be looking for the hackers who carried out this attack.

Those who did hack into the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s website need to tread carefully, because lately we’ve been seeing quite a few hackers get arrested for their actions. Just yesterday, a group of Anonymous hackers were arrested for their involvement in the attacks on PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa. Still, Anonymous members have never seemed too concerned about the repercussions of their actions in the past – they just want to get their message across.

Anonymous is upset over the treatment of Aaron Swartz, who allegedly downloaded millions of papers from JSTOR. Swartz was facing a fine of as much as $1 million and could have been hit with 35 years of jail time. These penalties were seen by many as extreme, and after his passing, we’re seeing blowback from a lot of Internet activists. Stay tuned for more information.

[via CBSNews]

The attacks costs all the companies involved a large sum of money, and it cost PayPal alone over $5.5 million. Both Weatherhead and Rhodes were found guilty of conducting various DDoS attacks between August 2010 and January 2011, and the sentences are said to be the first convictions for DDoS attacks in the UK.

Co-conspirators Peter Gibson and Jake Birchall also face sentences, although Gibson was sentenced to six months in jail, with a two-year suspension, while Birchall will face the judge on February 1. The hacking group called the attack “Operation Payback” and targeted various payment sites that had withdrawn support from Wikileaks.

Anonymous ended up launching DDoS attacks against PayPal, MasterCard, Swiss bank PostFinance, Visa, and Amazon. The financial impact other websites were not disclosed, although it’s said that Weatherhead once bragged online at having caused almost $1.6 million in damage to MasterCard.

[via BBC News]

It just got a whole lot easier to migrate your Xbox Live account, while LG announced its goal of selling 75 million phones in 2013. Experts are saying today that soot is greatly contributing to climate change, and Apple’s leaked roadmap is suggesting that the company may release the iPhone 5 in various colors with plastic casing. AT&T is now allowing FaceTime over cellular for all tiered subscribers, and Real Racing 3 has been teased with real tracks and locations.

A Missouri lawmaker wants to place a tax on violent video games, and Microsoft announced today that first Surface Pro tablets have started coming off the production line. Temple Run 2 is launching on iOS tonight and coming to Android next week, while Facebook seems to be quick to reassure users about security concerns with its new Graph Search feature. Microsoft’s new Play store is bringing Xbox Arcade games to Windows 8 and RT, and the T-Mobile Nexus 7 is now available through the tablet’s Google Play listing. NASA has joined forces with the European Space Agency for the new Orion module, and Anonymous has forced the Westboro Baptist Church out of Aaron Swartz’s funeral service.

RIM has managed to get 1,600 companies to sign up for its BlackBerry 10 testing program, and one analyst from UBS AG has cut his Surface sales projections for Microsoft’s fiscal Q2 in half. T-Mobile might be very close to launching its 4G LTE network in Las Vegas, and we learned today that Disney Infinity will come sporting a pretty expensive price tag. Blockbuster UK has entered into administration, while the latest Google Doodle is celebrating Frank Zamboni’s 112th birthday. Finally tonight, Chris Burns delivers his review of the AirDroid 2 beta. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night folks!

The Anonymous message sent out this week made it clear that they were sorry that the WBC was targeting Swartz and his family, and that they felt responsible for the fact that it was happening. They go on to state several ways in which they’ll make sure the WBC would not make an impact on the funeral for Swartz, saying how it’s important that the Department of Justice is the focus here surrounding Swartz’s death, not the WBC cult.

“Before discussing the operation, there is something that needs to be said to Aaron’s family and his friends: We’re sorry. It is likely that our continuous condemnation and attacks against this cult is the very reason Aaron is being targeted by them. We would do anything to stop them from attending Aaron’s services. Aaron deserves peace and we will not allow this cult to overpower what should be the media’s focus, the monsters at DOJ who ruthlessly targeted your son.

We encourage organizations who would like to form protective human shields near Aaron’s funeral to listen closely for any announcement by the family on this action and respect their wishes.” – Anonymous

Twitter is currently flowing with the hashtag #OpAngel, also the title of the “operation” as run by Anonymous. Anonymous is also holding a peaceful protest proposed for the 25th of January, 2013, that will include discussion surrounding the DOJ and freedom of information across the web.

Have a peek at the brief timeline below to learn more about Aaron Swartz and the events that lead up to his death – and the impact his life is having here in his wake. Operation Angel, as they’re calling it, will continue through the future with Anonymous, but you can get involved in any number of open source friendly events in the future as well.

In a lengthy post, including a link to details on Swartz’s funeral on Tuesday this week and a copy of the “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto,” Anonymous describes Swartz as “A hero in the SOPA/PIPA campaign, Reddit cofounder, RSS, Demand Progress, Avaaz, etc.” and sets out a list of “wishes” for legal and ethical change moving forward. “The situation Aaron found himself in highlights the injustice of US computer crime laws,” the hackers wrote, “particularly their punishment regimes, and the highly-questionable justice of pre-trial bargaining.”

Our wishes

We call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of computer crime laws, and the overzealous prosecutors who use them.

We call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of copyright and intellectual property law, returning it to the proper principles of common good to the many, rather than private gain to the few.

We call for this tragedy to be a basis for greater recognition of the oppression and injustices heaped daily by certain persons and institutions of authority upon anyone who dares to stand up and be counted for their beliefs, and for greater solidarity and mutual aid in response.

We call for this tragedy to be a basis for a renewed and unwavering commitment to a free and unfettered internet, spared from censorship with equality of access and franchise for all.

However, contrary to some of Anonymous’ more aggressive take-overs, the hacking team included an apology to MIT for co-opting their site. In fact, despite complaints from some that MIT had let Swartz down by not vigorously defending him when the US government decided to prosecute over the JSTOR case, Anonymous claims not to blame the institution:

“We tender apologies to the administrators at MIT for this temporary use of their websites. We understand that it is a time of soul-searching for all those within this great institution as much — perhaps for some involved even more so — than it is for the greater internet community. We do not consign blame or responsibility upon MIT for what has happened, but call for all those feel heavy-hearted in their proximity to this awful loss to acknowledge instead the responsibility they have — that we all have — to build and safeguard a future that would make Aaron proud, and honour the ideals and dedication that burnt so brightly within him by embodying them in thought and word and action” Anonymous

Swartz had a history of butting heads with the law as he pushed for freedom of data. Back in 2008, he wrote a custom app to take advantage of free Pacer digital judicial library accounts to gather around 20m documents in a more easily-accessed place, while the similar hack which led to the JSTOR indictment saw him pull almost the entire database using a secretly-installed laptop.

The petition can be found over at the White House’s We the People page, where it currently has 775 signatures. Per the website’s FAQ, the petition has to reach 25,000 signatures within 30 days in order to be reviewed by the White House. To meet this requirement, it currently needs a little over 24,000 signatures by February 6.

Says the petition: “With the advance in internet techonology [sic], comes new grounds for protesting. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), is not any form of hacking in any way. It is the equivalent of repeatedly hitting the refresh button on a webpage. It is, in that way, no different than any “occupy” protest. Instead of a group of people standing outside a building to occupy the area, they are having their computer occupy a website to slow (or deny) service of that particular website for a short time.”

The petition then goes on to state that those who have been jailed for performing DDoS attacks should be released, and that any criminal record resulting from such legal situations should be cleared. Anonymous has performed its fair share of denial of service attacks over the years, often as a form of protest. Recently, McAfee Lab published a report in which it states that we’ll see a decline in Anonymous attacks in 2013.

[via White House]

This isn’t to say that we will see Anonymous disappear, according to McAfee, but rather that we will see it decline as cohesive groups bound by specific causes fling attacks against organizations and companies conflicting with them. Examples provided include hacktivists, ecoterrorists, and anti-globalization supports.

Says McAfee Labs: “Sympathizers of Anonymous are suffering. Too many uncoordinated and unclear operations have been detrimental to its reputation. Added to this, the disinformation, false claims, and pure hacking actions will lead to the movement’s being less politically visible than in the past. Because Anonymous’ level of technical sophistication has stagnated and its tactics are better understood by its potential victims, the group’s level of success will decline.”

Other expected issues in 2013 include a combination of smaller malware nuisances and scams, as well as large, destructive malicious malware that launch digital attacks against platforms and infrastructure, with the goal being to create destruction rather than illicitly harvest money. Another problem expected to boom is so-called randsomware, which provides a government emblem and purports that the user must pay a fine because child pornography and other nastiness was detected on their computer, both scaring and scamming people out of hundreds of dollars.

[via ars technica]

Anonymous recently announced a campaign against Westboro Baptist Church after it stated that it would picket the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school where the school shooting took place earlier this week. Allegedly, Anonymous tweeted an image that revealed personal information about Westboro’s member Shirley Phelps-Roper.

As a result, Twitter pulled the plug on Anonymous’s @YourAnonNews account, where the information was tweeted. The social network sent Anonymous a letter stating the reason for the suspension: “Your account has been suspended for posting an individual’s private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents. It is a violation of the Twitter Rules to post the private and confidential information of others.”

The account was down for approximately one hour before being reinstated – sans the personal information. Twitter declined commenting on the issue. The suspension ultimately proved fruitful for Anonymous, however, not only drawing additional attention to its operation against Westboro Baptist Church, but also gaining it 100k new followers.

[via New York Times]

PayPal says that it is currently investigating the claims of a breach, but so far the company hasn’t found any evidence that it has been hacked. SEE: quote below. That isn’t all Anonymous has been up to though, as the BBC reports that Symantec is looking into claims that it has been hacked as well. Over the weekend, sites belonging to NBC, Lady Gaga, and the Australian government were compromised in an apparent protest for Guy Fawkes Day.

“It appears that the exploit was not directed at PayPal after all, it was directed at a company called ZPanel. The original story that started this and was retweeted by some of the Anonymous Twitter handles has now been updated.” – PayPal Spokesperson

Guy Fawkes, who attempted to blow up the House of Lords in an effort to kill King James I back in 1605, has become something of a legend within Anonymous, thanks to 2005′s V for Vendetta. “Members” of the group often wear Guy Fawkes masks that were used in the movie when they appear publicly, and indeed, a few of the websites displayed the famous Gunpowder Treason rhyme after being compromised. “Remember, remember the fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot,” the rhyme commands. “I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.”

A number of the sites that were reportedly compromised in this Guy Fawkes protest are now back to normal, but you can bet that Anonymous is pleased with the attention it has received this fifth of November. Even though PayPal hasn’t confirmed that it was hacked, it might not be a bad idea to switch up your password if you happen to be a customer. Knowing Anonymous, this won’t be the last we hear of the hacktivist group today, so keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more details.

In a forum post on AnonNews.org, Anonymous has shared some links to data files it has allegedy stolen from Zynga. On November 5, Anonymous says it will “release the key to the data files,” which the group claims outline a Zynga plan to layoff even more employees and outsource those jobs. Not only that, but Anonymous claims it will release games it has stolen from Zynga’s servers for free unless the company halts its plan to layoff more employees.

Anonymous put a video up on YouTube explaining the plan, but it has been taken down since it violates YouTube’s policy against the “depiction of harmful activities.” In the video transcript posted to the AnonNews forum, Anonymous explains, “With a billion dollars cash sitting in a bank we do believe that such actions are an insult to the population and the behaviour of corporations like Zynga must change.” The group has posted a transcript of one of these stolen internal documents, which supposedly outlines the company’s plan to layoff more workers in the US while outsourcing these jobs to India.

This is where the story gets a little difficult to believe, as the transcript from this alleged internal document is very poorly written. In other words, take these claims from Anonymous with a grain of salt, because it’s possible the infamous hacker collective is just making the whole thing up. In any case, November 5 is right around the corner, so we should be finding out if Anonymous is telling the truth soon enough. Stay tuned.

[via Eurogamer]

Dell is getting in early on the Windows 8 action, opening up pre-orders for a handful of new machines today, and we learned that a staggering 6 billion people around the world are now using a mobile phone of some type. A leaked T-Mobile release roadmap gives us an idea of when the carrier expects to receive a bunch of different devices, including the Windows Phone 8X. We received a rather in-depth look at an LG Nexus prototype today, and LG delivered a brand new Optimus G “product movie” that aims to get us familiar with the new handset’s features. Netflix released a Windows 8-compatible version of its app today, just ahead of the launch of the OS.

Google could be headed for an antitrust case from the FTC, and it seems that the Apple Maps controversy hasn’t done much to damage consumer enthusiasm for the iPhone 5. Speaking of the iPhone 5, Apple’s latest mobile offering has managed to overtake the Samsung Galaxy S III in web traffic despite being available for a much shorter amount of time, and Google is getting the Play Store ready for the holiday rush. SoftBank is looking to secure $23 billion to buy a majority stake in Sprint, and industry insiders are claiming that the long-rumored iPad Mini will be revealed on October 23 – just a couple weeks from now.

Star Citizen has already managed to raise an absurd $500,000 in funding, while Borderlands 2 was seen outshining its predecessor in a pretty significant way. We learned that the games industry is still on the decline, and ASUS unveiled a brand new Windows 8 VivoBook today. Amazon is now posting a disclaimer about the Kindle Paperwhite’s backlighting, YouTube is rethinking the way it ranks videos for search results, and Anonymous has cut ties with Wikileaks after the website started restricting access and asking visitors for donations.

Finally tonight, we have an unboxing and hands-on with the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD for you to check out, and Chris Burns tells us why every little piece of Apple news seems to matter so much these days. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, here’s hoping that this weekend is a good one!

It isn’t much of a secret that Wikileaks and founder Julian Assange are strapped for cash these days. Assange is facing a lot of legal bills, and Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal all decided cut off service to Wikileaks a couple years back, which did a lot to block funding to the site. Needing to raise cash quickly, Wikileaks imposed a paywall on October 10, which blocks out the page users are trying to view with an overlay requesting donations. Once users donate, they gain access to the site, although disabling Javascript will get rid of the overlay as well.

This paywall has Anonymous – once one of Wikileaks’ biggest allies – angry. In a new statement, Anonymous says that it has been concerned about the direction of Wikileaks for some time now, but this paywall is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Anonymous has apparently had enough of Wikileaks, saying that it can no longer be associated with the site it fully supported in the past:

Anonymous has had enough. The conclusion for us is that Anonymous cannot support anymore what Wikileaks has become. We will NOT attack the web assets of WikiLeaks, as they are media. We do not attack media. Any future attack on the WikiLeaks servers attributed to Anonymous is a lie. But what we will do is cease from this day all support of any kind for WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. No longer will Anonymous risk prison to defend WikiLeaks or Julian Assange from their enemies. No longer will Anonymous risk prison to supply material for WikiLeaks disclosures. Anonymous turns it’s back on WikiLeaks.

And just like that, Wikileaks has lost the support of an organization that has come to its aid many times in the past. Anonymous members have been arrested while attacking government websites in the name of Wikileaks and Assange, but it’s clear from this statement that Anonymous members won’t be willing to put themselves in harm’s way for Wikileaks any longer. Anonymous says that it will have a more detailed statement on its history with Wikileaks coming in a few days, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for that. Stay tuned.

[via Ars Technica]

If AnonymousOwn3r is telling the truth, then that would mean the now-infamous group Anonymous is behind the Facebook outage. Just a few minutes ago, he tweeted that he’d be halting his attack so people could get back on the social network, but it’s hard to tell if he’s telling the truth. As far as we can see, he hasn’t given a reason for his attack on Facebook, only saying that he tried to carry out the attack yesterday but was unsuccessful.

It seems that he has enjoyed plenty of success today, though, apparently bringing Facebook down across Europe. The Next Web reminds us that this is the same Anonymous member who claimed the attack on GoDaddy last month. That attack brought down millions of GoDaddy-hosted sites and kept them down for hours, effectively making millions of site owners angry in the process.

It seems that this was an attack on Facebook’s DNS servers, as trying to access touch.facebook.com brings up the site with no problems. If AnonymousOwn3r is serious when he says that he’s halting his attack on Facebook (and he’s responsible for bringing Facebook down in the first place), then the service should be coming back across Europe soon. If you live in Europe, do you have access to Facebook yet, or is it still down for you?

The LG Nexus G has been tipped for a reveal later this month, and it looks like problems with component yields might mean that we’re headed for iPad Mini shortages (assuming the rumored tablet actually exists, of course). The Kindle Paperwhite has officially been jailbroken, and Rovio was spotted teasing a new Star Wars-Angry Birds tie-in earlier today, leaving us to wonder what’s in the pipeline. Sprint might be looking to rain on T-Mobile’s MetroPCS parade, and Anonymous is at it again, this time bringing down government sites in Sweden in the name of The Pirate Bay and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Wii U pre-orders are hard to find these days, but provided you’ve got the cash to burn, you can pick one up on eBay. iPhone cases were popping up left and right today, like this Loop Mummy case for the iPhone 4/4S and these Moshi cases for the iPhone 5. Xi3 has gone to Kickstarter to fund its new X3A and X7A modular computers, and one analyst is saying that HP’s stock should be worth negative $2. Ubisoft gave us a brand new ZombiU development diary, and we heard that increased iPhone 5 quality demands led to a strike at a Foxconn factory in China today.

New algorithms may eventually lead to cell phones that charge twice as fast, while NASA explained why Curiosity is collecting dirt from the surface of Mars. Motorola has managed to fight off Microsoft in a patent dispute over in Germany, while astronomers say they’ve discovered a new star circling a black hole at the center of our galaxy. Pokemon Black and White 2 launch in the US this Sunday (are you ready to be the best?) and we found out today that New Zealand authorities may have been spying on Kim Dotcom much earlier than they’ve admitted.

Finally tonight, we have quite a few original articles to share with you. Don Reisinger asks if Bill Gates will be remembered in the same way as Steve Jobs when he’s gone, Chris Burns explains why the iPad Mini will be free when it launches and what the iPad Mini needs to fix when it comes to Apple tablets, and Chris Davies has a review of the Synology DS213air NAS. That does it for tonight’s evening wrap-up – we hope you have a fun weekend!

That includes the websites of the Swedish Security Service, the Swedish Prosecutors’ Office, and the Swedish Central Bank. It sounds like these sites were all taken down by DDoS attacks, which has become the trademark weapon of Anonymous throughout the years, in a way. In all, over 20 Swedish sites have been taken down this week, though authorities can’t say at this time if all of those attacks are related.

It’s clear that Anonymous is behind at least some of them, however. This new operation is being called #OpPRQ #OpPirateBay, and though some were claiming this was a honeypot – essentially a government-organized setup to catch these Anonymous members in the act – the AnonNCarolina2 Twitter account said earlier today that there isn’t any evidence that a honeypot is being carried out.

Interestingly, The Pirate Bay has been down for a few days now, and we’re not really sure why. Earlier this week, The Pirate Bay’s former host, PRQ (the same service mentioned in the name of this operation) was raided by police, but The Pirate Bay Facebook page says there’s no relation between the raid and the site outage. Instead, the outage seems to be the result of “power problems,” though we aren’t getting anything in the way of specifics. Whatever the reason, those who run The Pirate Bay expect the site to be back up tomorrow, and it appears that this Anonymous operation will be ongoing, so we’ll share any new details that surface. Stay tuned.

[via PCMag]

In other news, it turns out that AntiSec may not have stolen all of those Apple UDIDs from the FBI like the group originally claimed, and the LG Escape was leaked shortly before being confirmed by the company. Toys R Us has a new tablet on offer, and it’s aimed directly at your children, while TTP is looking to give Google Glass a run for its money with some new specs of its own. Speaking of Google Glass, the headsets made an appearance at Fashion Week, with designer Diane von Furstenberg sending her models onto the runway while wearing them.

The FBI has rolled out a $1 billion facial tracking initiative, and it seems that GoDaddy’s network of hosted websites has been taken down by a lone hacker associated with Anonymous. Google says that 180 “fiberhoods” qualify for Google Fiber service after a lengthy preliminary sign-up period, and a new Samsung Galaxy Note II leak suggests that the new phablet will be launching at Verizon. The founder of The Pirate Bay has been deported to Cambodia, while Samsung’s hopes for a 13-megapixel camera in the Galaxy Note II were dashed when LG bought up most of the stock from suppliers.

Sony is launching the first installment in its new Wonderbook series in November, and today is the day that the Steam Big Picture Beta comes to televisions everywhere. Bethesda’s Pete Hines doesn’t see the need for a new generation of consoles just yet, some scientists are now thinking that Mars was too hot to support life in the past, and Nielsen has discovered that the number of teenagers who own a smartphone is on the rise, climbing faster than any other age group.

Finally tonight, we have a few original articles for you to check out. Chris Davies examines the LTE situation with the incoming iPhone 5, while Chris Burns makes the distinction between tablets and laptops when it comes to work and play. Finally tonight, we have a hands-on with the upcoming LG Intuition, so if you want a phablet-like device that isn’t the Galaxy Note II, you might want to take a look at that. Enjoy the rest of your evening, everyone!

Of course, this is causing a headache for more than just the folks at GoDaddy, as many business owners are seeing their sites go down as a result of the attack as well. Since the attack makes a number GoDaddy’s DNS servers inaccessible, many site owners who were using GoDaddy’s DNS service were affected by this breach. Customers are also saying that the company’s email and phone services are down as well.

GoDaddy itself has had to deal with a number of angry customers this afternoon, and at the time of this writing, the hosting service is still down for many. GoDaddy seems to be making progress, with one of its most recent tweets claiming that service has returned for some customers. With tens of millions of sites down, however, GoDaddy has its work cut out for it.

What’s interesting is that AnonymousOwn3r did this whole thing by himself. He hasn’t really given a reason for his attack on GoDaddy, saying in a tweet that the breach was meant to test GoDaddy’s “cyber security,” among other reasons that he can’t talk about now. A lot of GoDaddy customers are understandably calling him out on Twitter, so let’s just hope that the company can get everything back to normal soon. Stay tuned, as we’ll have more details for you as this story develops.

NBC News has reported on the real victim of the breach: publishing company BlueToad, which operates out of Florida. CEO Paul DeHart says that the information Anonymous shared last week was stolen from BlueToad’s servers two weeks ago, and that the company came to this conclusion by comparing the stolen information to its own collection of UDIDs. The result? 98% of the data matched up, which leads DeHart to believe that the data originally came from his company’s servers.

“That’s 100 percent confidence level, it’s our data,” DeHart said. “As soon as we found out we were involved and victimized, we approached the appropriate law enforcement officials, and we began to take steps to come forward, clear the record and take responsibility for this.” BlueToad has since posted a statement about the breach to its blog, apologizing about the information getting loose. DeHart didn’t give much more information about the breach, saying that an investigation is still ongoing.

It sounds like BlueToad has quite a few UDIDs in its database, too – though you probably don’t recognize the name, the company provides app building services for 6,000 other publishers. This realization seems to mesh well with statements made by both the FBI and Apple last week. When the data was leaked, the FBI claimed that it didn’t come from any of its computers and Apple insisted that it wasn’t sharing UDIDs with the organization. As a publisher, on the other hand, BlueToad would have access to those UDIDs, though DeHart admits that the stolen information could have made it onto FBI computers in the time since the breach.

Still, even if that information was taken from an FBI computer, it seems that it didn’t originate there. The good news is that BlueToad, at the request of Apple earlier this year, stopped storing UDIDs, and updated its apps so they would stop collecting the information. Stay tuned for more on this rather strange story, as more information will likely develop in the coming days.

This morning AntiSec reportedly managed to get their hands on over 12 million Apple IDs and other personal user information, and even posted 1 million of them to a pastebin. Now according to AllThingsD the FBI is calling AntiSec liars after reaching out and receiving this statement in return.

The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed. At this time there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.”

the FBI is basically saying these reports are totally false and that they never actually had the information mentioned to begin with. Essentially what this means is FBI is trying to distance themselves from the situation, and wants to get the word out that they are indeed not collecting this type of date. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen.

Now the real question is regarding all the information. If it wasn’t obtained from FBI then were did AntiSec managed to snag well over 12 million Apple IDs? The FBI has even tweeted that the claims are “totally false.” Now the heat is back on AntiSec as they are left to either prove how they got the information from the FBI, or share where it actually came from. Thoughts?

[via 9to5Mac]

According to the group, a remote exploit on the Dell laptop used by one FBI supervisor managed to pull out several files saved to the desktop. One of those files was a .CSV database containing a huge number of Apple device details, though no other mention of the purpose of that file was discovered on the machine.

“During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of “NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv” turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc. the personal details fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted [sic] on many parts. no other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose” AntiSec

However, that hasn’t stopped speculation as to the FBI’s intentions with the data. AntiSec suggests that it could be the basis of a tracking project, using Apple UDID codes to monitor individual users; it also claims that “it’s the right moment to release this knowing that Apple is looking for alternatives [to UDID].”

Not all of the records have all of the database fields filled in – some are limited to ZIP code – and it’s unclear where the FBI sourced the data from initially. The filename includes “NCFTA”, which is potentially the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, an organization which “functions as a conduit between private industry and law enforcement with a core mission to identify, mitigate and neutralize cyber crime” and which “manages the collection and sharing of intelligence” between those groups.

Although app developers have access to some of the data included, it’s apparently rare that they would have full postal address details for individual users.

[via TNW; via Hacker News]

Speaking of Samsung devices, we may have received our first glimpse at the front panel of the Samsung Galaxy Note II today, and a video of the Jelly Bean update for the Samsung Galaxy S III surfaced today as well. Looking at Samsung’s current court battle with Apple for a moment, Samsung delivered the argument many on its side were waiting for, saying that the iPhone’s design is “obvious.” HTC rallied employees today by saying that it’s coming back, Amazon might have a new Kindle Fire in the works, and we were treated to a mock up of what the rumored iPad Mini might look like if it, you know… existed.

Verizon will begin offering an LTE-enabled version of the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 later this week, and a new SwiftKey update brings Google Voice recognition with it. Facebook is in trouble with data protection officials in Germany again, a reported iPad Mini dock connector surfaced today, and we happened upon some specs for the Motorola RAZR HD. Anonymous claimed today that it had hacked the PlayStation Network, but Sony was right there to say that it was all a hoax. Microsoft detailed the problems it’s currently having with the Windows Phone marketplace, and Pinterest revealed new apps for both Android and iOS, and if you’re planning to pick up, be sure to have a look at our review first.

LG announced that it has sold 5 million smartphones worldwide, and Netflix is about to roll out to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Nokia has reiterated its commitment to Windows Phone, and the Windows 8 RTM software build is now available. Finally tonight, the Waverider hypersonic aircraft has crashed during an Air Force test flight, and the Humble Indie Bundle for Android 3 is now available, so if you’re in need of some games, be sure to check that out!

That does it for the evening wrap-up everyone, so go and enjoy what’s left of Wednesday!

Reports of a new PSN security breach make us immediately recall the bad memories from spring 2011, but there may not be reason to worry just yet. The list which was posted to Pastebin is apparently just a duplicate of a list posted back in March. Kotaku says that SCEA’s Shane Bettenhausen has stated on Twitter that claims of the hack are “totally fake,” but that tweet appears to have been taken down too.

It’s all very confusing, but at the moment, it seems that the PlayStation Network is safe. It’s a good thing too, because PS3 owners definitely still remember last year’s attack all too well. The attack was severe enough that Sony had to take PSN down for a month as it worked on boosting security and investigated what all was stolen. When Sony reported that credit card details may have been stolen in the attack, that made things go from bad to worse, and Sony had to do a lot to restore faith in the company.

Luckily, it seems that history won’t be repeating itself quite yet, but with Sony claiming that it greatly improved security after the first attack, you know that there are plenty of hackers trying to bring PSN down for a second time. With that in mind, it seems that it’s only a matter of time before someone gets in, but who knows? It could be that Sony’s defenses are as strong as the company says. In any case, we’ll be bringing you more information as this rather strange story develops, so keep it tuned here to SlashGear!

Anonymous and WikiLeaks are said to have similar aspirations, hence the heavy crossover between the personnel: “Both groups are first and foremost information activists, so there is a common ground between us.” One member of Anonymous went on to detail the work behind the Syria email leaks, saying the group working tirelessly to breach “multiple domains and dozens of servers.” While the information was handed off to WikiLeaks, the organization didn’t reveal its relationship with Anonymous.

The hacktivist group doesn’t seem to mind, however: “Nor would they be expected to reveal their source that is after all what WikiLeaks is all about.” There’s also the fact that WikiLeaks seems to have no qualms about releasing any information. Anonymous is said to have negotiated with Al-Jazeera regarding the release of the email dumps, but “no suitable disclosure agreement could be negotiated.”

Still, Anonymous is looking ahead to the future. Members of the group have recently launched their own version of Wikileaks, dubbed Par:AnoIA. The site is designed is host Anonymous leaks, and is said to have been created to gain better media coverage for highly sensitive dumps and expose information faster than WikiLeaks.

It was a collection of 80 members of the Anonymous conglomeration that hit the street this week in Tokyo, complete with their V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks and their iconic black suits as well. They hit Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward and made a quick thing of it, making sure there were plenty of photographers around to capture the event as it went down.

The folks in Anonymous have been vocal, for their part, in letting the world know that they feel Japan has not done an adequate job of representing the full truth about the laws they’re protesting and the changes that have been made in Japanese law as of late regarding web downloads. This protest has been called just one of many upcoming “Cleaning Service” protests Anonymous has said they’ll be making, with future litter removal dates planned for the future around the world.

Hopefully they’ll be showing up in your local town soon, clean streets as a protest for everyone!

[via Japan Daily Press]

Nyre claims to be a former Anonymous member that is now against the activities of the notorious hacker group and attacked The Pirate Bay due to Anonymous’ use of the site to publicize its operations. The hacker posted the following message to Pastebin:

“You must be wondering why did I attacked The Pirate Bay. I am Nyre. I am highly against Anonymous. I do not support Anonymous anymore. I sometimes help the feds. The Pirate Bay was a press-release website for Anonymous, then I had a idea, why not take it down? Why not make it impossible for Anonymous? Get on your knees, Anonymous. I am a one-man army. I am not a hacker. I am a security killer. Expect yourself, f******.”

Although the massive DDoS attack against WikiLeaks during the same week seems to be more than a coincidence, no one has stepped forward to claim responsibility yet and there are plenty of groups that may be motivated to take down the whistle-blowing site, even for no good reason at all.

[via WebProNews]

Over the last 24 hours or so The Pirate Bay has been mostly inaccessible in many countries due to a DDoS attack. Interestingly, the pirate website apparently criticized the hacker group Anonymous for launching a DDoS attack against Virgin Media in the UK last week. I can certainly see some disgruntled Anonymous hackers attacking Pirate Bay in retaliation to the criticism.

Reports indicate that many Pirate Bay users believed workarounds were in place that would allow them to access the site once the European censorship started. However, those workarounds aren’t working in the face of the DDoS attack leaving users of the pirate website unable to access. It’s interesting that a group of hackers has been able to take the site off-line while The Pirate Bay has managed to skirt authorities around the world who have attempted the same thing over the years.

[via TorrentFreak]

The idea first came about when a group of hackers met and began discussing their favourite music, as well as various services already in place. They recognized that while YouTube housed a lot of music (legit or otherwise), it didn’t have more obscure bands or songs. The group then had the idea of pulling in music from various sites across the internet, such as Tumblr and Yahoo, among others.

A prototype of AnonTune was created in December. While the site itself wasn’t particularly good, the group liked the idea and pledged to begin work on it, enough to give up their old hacking ways. The group also posted a video to YouTube outlining the project back in February, declaring that the music industry was corrupt and that online music “has been sabotaged by the fat hands of corporate involvement.”

There’s only a crude demo of the technology available at AnonTune.com right now, although we have to wonder how successful it hopes to be when services like Spotify are largely solving the problem of online music.

[via BGR]

Anonymous has launched a new site, called AnonPaste, which they hope will allow users to post sensitive material, as well as the results of hacks, without fear of repercussion. Anyone will be able to upload anything to AnonPaste with complete anonymity. Anonymous also says that the site will not be moderated or censored, so much so that the creators of the site haven’t implemented the ability to delete posts.

AnonPaste will offer 256-bit AES encryption at the browser level, and any data pasted to the site will be encrypted and decrypted by the browser so that nothing sensitive is stored on servers for authorities to seize. The site also features a URL shortening service, and users will be able to paste up to 2MB of text, as well as specifying how long they want the information to stick around.

The move comes after Pastebin began to delete Anonymous’ dumps to the site, and the hacktivists also claim that Pastebin has provided IP addresses to law enforcement agencies in addition to a private security firm. AnonPaste can be found here, although access has been sporadic for us.

[via Computerworld]

According to Reuters more attacks are on the way as the activist group pushes to highlight corruption and work towards human rights improvement. They mention one of the groups members told them this specifically. This comes just days after all the attacks last week that even had messages warning of the downfall of the Chinese government.

The tweets and information released to Reuters outlined 10-12 people that are a part of the Anonymous China group, and that they have multiple attacks coming soon — a few at a time. One comment even suggested that the censorship and walls blocking out Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will be removed at some point. Stating they will take down the “Great Firewall of China.” Now that would be impressive, right?

Anonymous took to Pastebin, as usual, to post all the relevant information. Included is the long (and we do mean long) list of websites defaced, many of which belong to the Chinese government. Total number of websites defaced? 485. Anonymous has certainly been busy.

Why is Anonymous China performing these attacks? An explanation was posted to Pastebin in both English and Chinese. It reads:

Hello, we are Anonymous.
All these years the Chinese Government has subjected their people to unfair laws and unhealthy processes.
People, each of you suffers from tyranny of that regime.
Fight for justice, fight for freedom, fight for democracy!

In a later hack of zssf.gov.cn, 548 phone numbers believed to belong to Chinese officials were leaked, followed by 860 email addresses. Associated passwords were not released for those addresses. tchjbh.gov.cn was the latest victim of an attack, with one admin username and password leaked, along with an email address and four phone numbers.

[via ZDNet]

This means that if he does indeed find help to do so, Vader will be cracking down on the amount of time that posts with illicit content. This illicit content currently ranges from stolen source codes from closed-source applications, lists of emails and contact information of those who do not know it’s being shared, and rally calls to illegal action. As Vader notes, he doesn’t want this cutdown to affect those using the site for non-illegal matters:

“I think it is very important that people have access to sites like Pastebin, because it offers them total freedom of speech. … I am looking to hire some extra people soon to monitor more of the website content, not just the items reported. Hopefully this will increase the speed which we can remove sensitive information.” – Vader

Pastebin has been blocked by several countries due to its relatively complete lack of censorship, and is, believe it or not, not loved by all citizens of the web. In fact, Pastebin is the target of hackers wishing to break the site down with DDOS attacks quite constantly.

“In the last three months not a single day has gone by that we didn’t get some kind of DDOS [distributed denial of service] attack. I do hear from people in the hackers community that many hackers like to test their DDOS skills on Pastebin.” – Vader

Living in a world where hacking skills are held in high regard and providing a tool that can very well help those with those skills execute plans can be a tough cookie to crack. Vader remains confident that traffic and the usefulness of the site will remain high through this new round of control over its contents.

BONUS: Check out [Pastebin search results] to see how many times we’ve referred to the site in our entire history as news site!

[via BBC]