"Anonymous" hacker: We can shut your website

The FBI went after a gang of computer hackers today. Agents carried out raids in several states, arresting alleged members of the group that calls itself Anonymous. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian has the story.

Dozens of FBI agents targeted alleged members of the loose-knit hacking group in simultaneous raids driven by the U.S. attorney's office in San Jose, Calif.

Armed with search warrants, agents hit six homes in New York, along with locations in California, New Jersey and Florida, and seized hard drives and computer accessories.

FBI raids multiple sites in Anonymous hack probe

Anonymous first surfaced as a serious cyber threat last year when it claimed responsibility for attacking the Paypal website -- payback, it said, for denying online payment service to the website WikiLeaks.

The group has taken credit for hacking the websites of the CIA and the city of Orlando, after police arrested people for handing out sandwiches to the homeless without a permit.

A man who calls himself Commander X says he's part of Anonymous and orchestrated the Orlando project. He asked us to hide his identity.

"The power of Anonymous," he said, "is that we have the ability to effect change on the Internet. You have a site online -- all of a sudden, we snap our fingers and that site is gone."

Their method of choice: a "denial of service" attack, where hackers overwhelm websites with a huge volume of requests for information. Crashing down the company's Web site, said Commander X, for a cause.

"That process is the equivalent of a virtual sit-in," he said. "It's no different really than taking up seats at the Woolworth lunch counter during the civil rights movement in the Fifties and Sixties."

While 16 people were arrested today, sources say they're not leaders in the group, but rather people who volunteered to help in the attacks.

[alphaa10000]

LISTENING IN ?

Overruled1 said, "The FBI has chosen to go after the watchdog groups LuLz and Anonymous, even though our country's deepest military and corporate secrets were stolen by the Chinese who hack America to the detriment of our nation. (Ten) percent of all electronics coming from China has dual purposes. They are to work as a piece of equipment on your PC, and to also spy. It seems to me that the FBI is looking for the wrong people.
---

You make an interesting comment, especially in light of the fact PRC president Jiang Zemin refused delivery on a Boeing 767 until it was cleared of all 27 listening devices (according to the Chinese claim).

By the same guiltily-cautious approach, the PRC refuses to allow Microsoft Windows to run on any government computers. Reason? The Chinese understand the power of automated systems to serve several purposes, all seemingly at once-- and not all purposes are openly-declared and transparent.

The PRC planted bugging software in the office of the Tibetan Dalai Lama. The software could "photograph" faces in front of the computer, record conversations, and could transmit data (including names, comments and facial images) of Tibetan and Chinese democratic dissidents making contact through the internet (on forums) with the same computer.

The PRC knows all about cyberwarfare technology, and a computer sold by a US firm, but made under contract in China can contain anything-- including root-level software that does the bidding of its remote master. Conceivably, not only Chinese-made computers, but computers containing critical, PRC-made code-driven subassemblies can be instruments of cyberwarfare.

In my own professional practice, I generally avoid software coming directly from Chinese sources, however benign its apparent purpose and mission. Yes, XXXXX software may recover a hard drive, and image my system, but what other tricks can it do? Unfortunately, I am forced to wait and see, if I should choose to install the suspect software.

Since mainland Chinese (PRC) sources of hardware must be distinguished from Taiwanese sources, it is unfair to subject all Chinese sources to the same level of scrutiny-- or is it? Abundant connections exist between nominally Taiwanese factories and mainland Chinese production centers. There is no effective separation or security.

Consider this-- the PRC and/or Taiwan make a huge proportion of all computer hardware sold around the world. PRC-made code-driven components are equally well distributed. This is a perfect ad hoc network for global cyberwarfare-- paid for and installed by the victims.

An average reader might not understand how privately-held computers can be used for espionage and sabotage of the kind Anonymous conducted. But read widely enough about cyberwarfare, they begin to understand the internet is a highway heavily traveled by both cops and robbers.

As an object example, the criminal botnets run by Eastern and Middle European gangs (and gangs from the Middle and Far East) are collections of privately-owned computers (some government-owned, as well) which are subject to remote control. The user will never understand how his bank account has been plundered, or how his computer was used to join a DDOS attack on a gang target.

But it happens every hour.

[Overruled1]

The FBI has chosen to go after the watchdog groups LuLz and Anonymous, even though our country's deepest military and corporate secrets were stolen by the Chinese who hack America to the detriment of our nation.
10 percent of all electronics coming from China has dual purposes. They are to work as a piece of equipment on your PC, and to also spy.
It seems to me that the FBI is looking for the wrong people.

[kbbpll]

Commander X - move out of your mom's basement.

[Scimajor]

Grr. DNS ... DoS. You know what I meant.

[cbs_bull]

Hey, I have no problem if they tried to bring down Murdoch's empire (Well, I understand this might not be a legal way.).

Let's take legal actions...
//www avaaz org/en/stop_the_murdoch_mafia_2/?vl

[KevinSchmidt]

Not legal? That's OK, it's starting to look like Murdoch's empire was not legal either!

[TweakThis]

This is so funny. The "denial of service" is where the so called hackers download a program and run it. That's all, and that requires no genius. And they only have to snap their finger and a site is gone? Not quite. CommanderX fails to mention the many many sites he has attacked but failed to affect. http://getrealdudes000.blogspot.com/2011/07/who-goes-to-jail.html

[Scimajor]

Yup. These online terrorists show their manhood by a quick google search and download of an application that inflicts a DNS attack. Wow, so amazing.

[KevinSchmidt]

Have I told you about the many U.S. military drone attacks that failed to affect?

Oops! I forgot. They did affect scores of innocent civilians all the way to their early graves. But that's OK, because all of those dead people were anonymous.

[DF68]

The FBI will find and slap cuffs on you before your HotPocket is done in the microwave.

[realtimecoffee]

LOL! Good one.

[mryoubrian]

REALLY??????

Mention the "Woolworth lunch counter" and it guarantees they are looking for an American.
Also attack the Orlando site?

You might as well say that "I am an American and live in or near Orlando, Florida".

Thanks for the info........idiot.

[alphaa10000]

Not so fast. His comments about the "Woolworth lunch counter" reflect general awareness among the world's educated about critical points in the civil rights struggle. Nearly every university student has heard about Rosa Parks, for example.

The CBS source also could be an American expatriate- at worst, his comments narrow any search down to a few hundred million Americans.

[tryhonesty]

Just another HACK with an EGO!