WikiLeaks, Net nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize

WikiLeaks and Internet are among the 241 2011 candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

(Credit: Short)

Nobel's appointment comes as Julian Assange, spokesman for the secret-sharing site, is facing possible extradition to Sweden on charges of sex-related, and a criminal probe on charges of spying is likely underway in Washington, D.C..

Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize can come from any Professor of "social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology," in addition to national Governments and former recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the rules of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize have included Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, the United Nations and Kofi Annan, Al Gore, Desmond Tutu and Henry Kissinger. They are awarded by a Committee composed of officials of the current and former Norwegian Government.

The Committee announces nominees, but individuals who have submitted proposals are free to disclose it.

"Looking at the long term, we can say interest is strong and growing with the number of candidates," Geir Lundestad's notion, a member of the Group of experts, without voting told Reuters. Winners will be announced in October.

The Internet may have been named one of the reasons is the role in catalyzing uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Activists coordinated protests using Facebook and instant messaging services, and filed dispatches with YouTube and Twitter, leader of a complete disconnect in serious interruptions in Egypt and Libya.

WikiLeaks imitators to endanger your email?

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Imagine having every e-mail you've written published by hackers for the entire world to see. You don't have to stretch your imagination very far -- it's already happening to some folks.

Meet the new face of computer hacking. Inspired by the success of WikiLeaks, stealing and disclosing data is the new form of Internet revenge -- and chaos. There's concern that a new generation of WikiLeaks imitators will come along and use widespread dissemination of embarrassing information as its weapon of choice.

Hackers who call themselves Anonymous -- the group that has gained notoriety for attacking Visa and MasterCard in defense of WikiLeaks -- broke into computers operated by a government contractor named HBGary Federal in early February.  Once inside, Anonymous members wreaked all kinds of electronic havoc, including the theft of thousands of employee e-mails. These were then published in searchable form on a Web site similar to WikLeaks, leading to a host of embarrassing disclosures for HBGary employees.  The incident drew so much attention that it was featured in a recent segment on “The Colbert Report.”

At the world’s largest computer security conference in San Francisco last month -- RSA USA -- the attack dominated conversations outside meeting rooms.

But lost in the noise and the embarrassment was this chilling truth: It could happen to you. In the old hacker world, it was enough to deface a company's Web site and put up a sarcastic, embarrassing message.  The HBGary e-mail history incident -- stealing data, publishing it online, and creating an easy-to-use search engine that encourages its spread -- takes the game to a whole new level.

“Leaking has gone mainstream,” said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Finland-based F-Secure.com. “It's likely this phenomenon isn't going to go away, and we will be seeing leak sites for years to come.”

In the aftermath of the WikiLeaks controversy over the release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables last fall, security research firm McAfee predicted that so-called hacktivism would take an aggressive new turn this year. Traditional electronic activists were generally content to perform online versions of sit-ins, temporarily disabling Web sites of targeted entities with denial-of-service attacks. The spreading of previously non-public information through a sophisticated network of Web sites beyond the reach of law enforcement is a far more effective -- and potentially damaging -- form of online protest.

In fact, security experts openly fretted at the security conference that WikiLeaks imitators will soon become commonplace.  And unlike WikiLeaks, not all imitators will consider their work to be goal-oriented hacktivism. In other words, they may not go to any trouble to redact information prior to publication in an attempt to avoid collateral damage to innocent bystanders. Some may simply be motivated by creation of pure anarchy.

"The question is, will the advent of WikiLeaks trigger a mass distribution of information from the hidden depths of public and private entities?" said Jeff Bardin, founder of security research firm Treadstone LLC.

Most who examined the HBGary incident came away with the view that CEO Aaron Barr willingly put a target on his own back by threatening to publicly expose members of Anonymous.  And since the release of the e-mails, several important discoveries have been made, suggesting the firm was part of a conspiracy to discredit WikiLeaks in advance of upcoming data leaks that could embarrass prominent U.S. companies.

On the other hand, many of the e-mails contained innocuous information, such as personal life details, information that could lead to identity theft, or potentially humiliating online purchases.  It’s important to note that both senders and recipients of the e-mails were made public, meanings hundreds -- if not thousands -- of outsiders were also dragged into the HBGary disclosure. Nearly everyone interviewed at the RSA conference in February had searched the database to see if their name and e-mail was in it.

"This goes way beyond exposing wrongdoing, though there was wrongdoing exposed by the e-mail," said Kevin Poulsen, author of the new book “Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground.” Poulsen is also senior editor at Wired.com

Stealing someone's e-mail and publishing it online, regardless of the impact on innocent bystanders, is hardly new. It happened when a criminal stole Sarah Palin's e-mails during the last presidential campaign, and it's happened to plenty of so-called "white hat" security researchers in the past.  The Anonymous incident is different, however, because the group made it so easy for others to search the e-mails for embarrassing details.

"It's the sophistication with which they put it out there that's different," Poulsen said. "That was clearly WikiLeaks-inspired."

Gregg Housh calls himself an Internet activist who has been associated with Anonymous in the past. He describes himself as an avid observer of Anonymous, and he has at times served as the group’s public face. He said Anonymous had no concerns about such collateral damage when it published the data, and probably won't think much about that going forward.

"That's just the way it’s going to have to be now," he said. "It didn't have to go this way, but many people in your field (journalism) failed us. ... It was only natural that something would show up and replace it. I don’t see anyone at all, even slightly, caring about what happened. For the most part the Anons who did it feel like messengers.  It's Aaron's (Barr) fault it happened and all blame should be put squarely on his shoulders."

Housh agreed to act as a go-between for msnbc.com to get thoughts from Anonymous members, and said a spokesman from the group offered this response: "In all honesty, we didn't care what was in these e-mails, let alone what damage they might have caused. We were focused on getting revenge on Aaron Barr, everything else was just a bonus --  we don't regret what was uncovered and we'd do it again a thousand times over."

Barr resigned from HBGary on Monday, according to Forbes.com. Anonymous, meanwhile, knocked the website for Americans for Prosperity offline. That conservative organization has been very active in the Wisconsin standoff over collective bargaining rights, spending more than $400,000 in TV ads in support of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's plan to take away union bargaining rights.

In a press release attributed to the group, Anonymous said it was taking on the billionaire Koch brothers, who fund Americans for Prosperity.

"Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back," the press release said.

Anonymous acts much like a traditional hacktivist group, having planned several old-fashioned denial-of-service attacks in support of WikiLeaks and other causes.  But theft and distribution of data as a method for revenge will likely bleed into pure anarchy, experts worry.

"The evidence is thin at this point but I think we will see a lot of that in the future," Poulsen said. "Intruders motivated by ideology and revenge, hacking for the purpose of shaming."

Such groups will be particularly troublesome because, unlike WikiLeaks, they will have little to lose. WikiLeaks had donors to please, Poulsen said, and leader Julian Assange showed signs that he was motivated by a quest for credibility.  As a result, the Web site improved efforts over time to remove information that might cause collateral damage from its releases, at one point experimenting with eliminating all proper nouns from some document dumps.

"We will not see that from copycat groups,” Poulsen said. “They don't care about respectability. They have no interest in fundraising."

One reason Poulsen thinks a rash of copycats might be coming: It's often easier to hack into mail servers than other computer targets.  Until recently, hackers seemed primarily interested in stealing financial information for personal gain. That means computer firms have spent most of their energy protecting computers which host that valuable data. But it also means that many have taken their eye off the ball when it comes to other servers, which were thought to be unattractive targets.

Until now.

Internet users have always been told that anything they write in an e-mail could end up in court, or in front of a boss's prying eyes. Now more than ever, that warning should be heeded: Don't type anything on a keyboard that you wouldn't want the entire world to see. Even if you feel like your company’s servers could never be hacked, can you trust every company you ever e-mail?

And here's another piece of advice from Poulsen.

"Don't piss off Anonymous," he said. 

Bardin is not quite as pessimistic as some of his peers. He thinks the current trend of leaked and hacked information being splattered all over the Internet will not continue unabated.  A combination of improved security techniques, and the establishment of alternate channels for airing government and corporate gripes, will ultimately slow down WikiLeaks imitators, he thinks.

"We are seeing the spikes of those releases until controls are put in place and it becomes a method of ethical disclosure as opposed to a state of information disorder," he said. 

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
Hypponen said that even though he believes the likelihood that the average Internet user will get caught up in an Anonymous-style disclosure is small, there are some common-sense steps users can take to protect themselves.

“It might be worth considering deleting all e-mails that would be older than, say, six months. You could archive older e-mails to an offline storage that could not be reached by an online attacker. This would at least limit the amount of damage that could be done,” he said. “And of course, create a smart password and authentication policy and follow it through.”

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The world after Wikileaks

December 16, 2010 Last updated at 11: 46 GMT Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has caused protests by the Governments of the world, things will be different after Wikileaks, but not in ways that we could wait, says regular commentator Bill Thompson.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange might not be Time Magazine Person of the Year for 2010-the distinction went to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg-but certainly managed to dominate the global conversation the past few weeks.

You feel the reverberations of Wikileaks publishes many documents confidential and secret for many years and he has attracted a large band of supporters, but support for Assange is as much about your personal situation as it is an expression of support for what Wikileaks or proposing to do.

To properly understand the philosophy that underpins its activities or its long-term objectives, people should read interesting analysis by Aaron Bady Assange's policy, as posted on the blog zunguzungu.

Bady uses a narrow reading of an essay by Assange status and terrorist conspiracies that Assange sees modern governance as a conspiracy than those with the power that goes against the interests and wishes of the governed and that Wikileaks exists in order to weaken the ability of Governments to communicate secretly and decrease the power of authoritarian States.

By doing this, he believes, will be opening force and lead to more progressive forms of Government-or, at least, less repressive ones.

Also, inevitably, will lead to a response from the targeted institutions and in recent weeks we have seen what happens when a State feels threatened.

Although it is neither pleasant surprise: Governments, like other complex systems, will act to preserve themselves and try to hurt or neutralize the opposition, and nothing to the United States or other Governments have done so far is exceptional.

NET conflict

In a statement made to his mother, from his prison cell, Assange said "we now know that the Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and others are tools of u.s. foreign policy," referring to the way in which these large companies had decided not to provide the service of Wikileaks.

But anyone who has observed the growth of the internet might have been surprised by this.

Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu wrote about this back in 2006 in their excellent book that rules the Internet, where they stressed that the Government will always go after gatekeeper and choke points in their attempt to regulate the online activities.

In that same year, Visa and Mastercard refused to pass the funds to the .com site allofmp3 download music, even if the site has been legal in Russia, but attracted little attention because it was cheap and not music freedom of expression.

Now we face a different type of conflict, and seems to be that shape the political landscape in the years to come.

The ending of the movie Ghostbusters heroes eponymous founders are obliged to defy God Gozer, but before he looks that are said to be "choose the shape of your destructor."

Gozer, they realize, will result in any form monstrous imagine and Venkman tells others don't display anything. Unfortunately, it's too late-Ray has already thought of "but which could, something that would never hurt me"-to the point that a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow man appears and proceeds to destroy New York City.

Something similar is behind the emergence of Wikileaks. Over the past two decades we have built the internet and the web and completed a process of digitization that has transformed most of the world's operational data in electronic form, from banking to love letters to diplomatic cables.

Status quo

We called away at the age of the network and still practiced in our daily lives as though nothing has really changed.

As a result we made this moment inevitable, even if it was impossible to predict the shape that would take our "destructor".

Wikileaks will inaugurate a new era of control, Bill Thompson wonders

Now it is materialized as a stateless person, formless "new media non-profit international organization that publishes observations of documents otherwise available from anonymous sources and leaks," as Wikipedia describes it.

This organisation is under threat from the outside by some of the world's most powerful States, whose action capacity is enormous. It is also challenged from within, as internal mail and documents, made available online on the website reveal the Cryptome.

But what really matters is that the disruptive power of the internet has been conclusively demonstrated, and the old order has been caused to respond.

This is the Napster of democracy, where the forms of Government that have evolved over 200 years of industrial society eager to demonstrate network, just as the business models of the recording industry were swept away by the ease with which the internet could make perfect digital copies of music file compressed.

Napster was castrated by court action in the United States, but his failure inspired-to-peer services that were much more difficult to control. Sharing of music, now is unstoppable and Wikileaks and organisations that come after will ensure that the same is true of secrets.

Of course we must never underestimate the power of the State, to reinvent itself, as well as modern capitalism and constitutional monarchy seem able to do.

Wikileaks has exposed weaknesses in the way their internal flow of information control of Governments and organizations dedicated to transparency and disclosure will observe the tactics used to shut it down and adapt accordingly. But the State may learn too and have the resources to implement what you learn.

I fear that Wikileaks is likely to usher in an era of more effective control as is to sweep away the authoritarian regimes that opposes Julian Assange.

He can look at a day when the conspiratorial power state has declined, but I think we are more likely to see new forms of governance emerge that take advantage of the features of the network age to ensure that their power is intact.

Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service Digital Planet. Is currently working with the BBC on its draft archive.

British court approves extradition Assange of WikiLeaks

A judge Thursday approved the request of British Sweden extradition Julian Assange, even if the founder of WikiLeaks crenellations of appeal.

District judge Howard Riddle rejected arguments that not having Assange a fair trial in Sweden due to the custom of the country of printing and the public from sexual assault trials. Riddle also said this is a "reasonable assumption" that Assange "was deliberately avoid interrogation" before the period left Sweden when prosecutors were in talks with his lawyer in questioning him ...

Assange has seven days to appeal the judgment. If he does call, extradition could proceed in 10 days, said Riddle while reading of the judgment in Belmarsh security unit Magistrates ' Court in the South-East London.

The Australian 39-year-old is accused of illegal coercion, sexual harassment and rape incidents with two women last August that were consensual Assange supports. He still has not been charged by the Swedish prosecutor, a fact its lawyers used to argue against extradition. If he is convicted and sentenced, Assange could face a maximum of four years in prison.

Assange attorneys suggest even during the two-day-a-half extradition hearing earlier this month that Sweden's pursuit of continuous Assange is connected to the release of some diplomatic cables WikiLeaks 250,000 for U.S. secret.

Assange was free on bail since December on condition that he surrender his passport, wear an electronic monitoring device and regularly check in with the police. Assange was staying a manor in the East of England possessed by Vaughan Smith, founder of Frontline Club journalism organization.

The Attorney General of the United States said that assange was under investigation to determine if he played a role in illegally obtaining U.S. classified material, but no charge has been filed. Cable release of WikiLeaks has provoked strong statements from some U.S. politicians on the right: former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee called for the death penalty for those who have published the cables, while the former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told Assange should be driven with the same urgency as al-sina'a ida and Q a Taliban leaders.

Assange's legal Team seized on comments, saying that if Assange was extradited, Sweden would face intense pressure from the United States. However, if the United States filed a request for extradition by Sweden, the UK Government should give its approval to extradition.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com

Legislator reintroduces WikiLeaks blames Bill

New legislation in the objectives of the Congress of the United States WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to charges of espionage.

Representative Peter King, a Republican of New York, which introduced the protection of human intelligence and dissemination may impose or shield, Act on Tuesday. The Bill would clarify the law of the United States saying it is an act of espionage to publish the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the u.s. military and intelligence communities.

Re introduced similar legislation in 2010. Senators John Ensign of Nevada, a Republican, Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent and Scott Brown, a Republican of Massachusetts, has introduced similar legislation in the Senate last week.

King urged US Attorney General Eric Holder prosecute Assange for espionage. The new law would give the Department of Justice of the United States greater authority to prosecute intelligence leaks, King said in a press release.

"Julian Assange and his collaborators who have operated and supported WikiLeaks damaged not only the national security of the United States with their versions of classified documents, but also countless lives put at risk, including those sources of intelligence of our nation in the world," King said in a statement.

Some employees of WikiLeaks are planning a new website called OpenLeaks, "dedicated to the same conduct dangerous," King added. "These organizations have a clear and present danger to national security of the United States. Julian Assange and his compatriots are enemies of the United States, should be pursued. "

Critics of the shield they said it seems to be directed to the publishers, not ture.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecommunications policy in the Government of the United States for the IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. E-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com of Grant.

HBGary Federal closes RSA email anonymous WikiLeaks

By Richi Jennings. 16 February 2011.

HBGary Federal has been the subject of counterattacks by the anonymous group-s-not-a-group. The insecure security companies authorised his email to losses for the supporters of WikiLeaks. And now has had to pull out the RSA Conference and related unconference, HBGary security B-Sides. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers, laugh and laugh and laugh.

Your humble blogwatcher curated by these bits bloggy for your entertainment. Not to mention what they put into Ukrainian water? ...

Josh Halliday reports:

Apparently leaked emails suggest that three private security undertakings – HBGary federal, Palantir technologies and Berico – they pitched a plan to undermine ... WikiLeaks ... for a law firm that represented the Bank of America ... thought to be the next target of WikiLeaks. ... Anonymous began to tens of thousands of emails sent to Federal HBGary last weekend, after the release of the ... group attacked the company's computer systems security.
...
Bank of America ... they said they hadn't known about ... strategy to undermine WikiLeaks ... and that HB Gary Federal was never taken on their behalf. Berico technologies and Palantir also attempted to distance themselves from leaked emails. ... HBGary, an affiliate company at HBGary Federal ... said that the actions of Anonymous were "criminal".

Peter Bright adds:

HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr thought that he had tipped off the hordes of anonymous hacker and was preparing a name and shame those responsible for the coordination of actions of the group. ... When Barr said one of those who believed to be a music man anonymous on his upcoming exposé ... HBGary's servers were broken into, sacked and published his email in the world, its data is destroyed and its website defaced. ... A second site owned and operated by Greg Hoglund, HBGary owner, was taken offline and published user registration database.
...
HBGary Federal HBGary and position yourself as an expert in computer security. ... You might think that this organization estimated would prove insurmountable challenge for a lot of guys disaffected hack. ... Unfortunately for HBGary ... recruiting expertise [not] accurate, as the story of how was hacked HBGary will clarity.

Ryan Naraine observes the empty space on the show floor of RSA Conference:

HBGary start-up security withdrew from the RSA Conference here after the recent hacking attack which included the release of 20,000 email. ... On the show floor of RSA Conference, booth HBGary has been replaced with this sign to explain the circumstances.
...
HBGary people received many threats of violence. ... In an effort to protect our employees, customers and the community of RSA Conference, HBGary has decided to remove the stand and cancel all the talks.

Andy greenbergsays that not only is the show that lacks HBGary:

Rarely in the history of cybersecurity industry has a society become so toxic so quickly as HBGary Federal. ... [I] scandal ... seems to grow every day of his dubious practices come to light.
...
The company is canceling talks of all its directors at the RSA Conference, the largest cybersecurity industry confab of the year. ... Hoglund had planned to give two presentations at the Conference. ... Barr last week has canceled her speech at Conference B-Sides simultaneously, you would put on his expose to anonymous.

and Andrea Petroudirty dishes:

According To ... Crowdleaks.org ... by Greg Hoglund emails show that HBGary could have worked on a new type of Windows rootkit. If it was released in the wild may have caused many security problems due to the fact that it was nearly impossible to remove and undetectable. ... Other emails show the work that has been performed for defense contractor General Dynamics ... HBGary said to have developed, Trojans, rootkits and other spyware programs. ... These codes have been appointed as Project C, Z activities and task M.

Meanwhile,DJ Walter-Morganhas more bad news for the company of "security":

The scale of the disaster that has passed ... HBGary ... is slowly becoming clear. ... It turns out that Aaron Barr, CEO of controlled HBGary federal, offered his services to illuminate the darkness surrounding anonymous the FBI. ... Barr collected information on the accounts of activists suspected IRC, Facebook and Twitter.
...
Seem that attackers have used fake emails to get an administrator to allow SSH access. Attackers had previously had access to the root password. ... However, in view of the practice of sending HBGary even sensitive data in plain text (unencrypted) email to the fact that passwords are that their way into the wrong hands is not particularly surprising.

 
And finally ...
What they are putting in Ukrainian water?

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