Hackers team up with WikiLeaks

Anonymous — Hidden behind the masks are tech-savvy hackers, self-styled heroes of the people who hold to the slogan, “The corrupt fear us, the honest support us.” Photo credit: Vincent Diamante

What began as a group of pranksters trolling the web for laughs has evolved into a political cyber movement bent on attacking some of the most powerful entities in the world.

Anonymous, the mysterious hacker collective, is growing exponentially, both in capability and notoriety, but can they focus that expanding power into socially positive acts or are they only acting to further their own questionable agendas?

This question is especially pertinent now, as last week Anonymous announced that they would be teaming up with whistle blower web haven WikiLeaks to publish classified data hacked from the servers of Stratfor, a global geopolitical analysis firm—something like a CIA for hire, a private intelligence firm that keeps tabs on major political figures and organizations. And while WikiLeaks has not officially recognized that Anonymous is the source of the leak, Stratfor has acknowledged that they were indeed hacked by the group, according to Stratfor’s weekly newsletter.

“The material contains privileged information about the U.S. government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks,” WikiLeaks said, according to the article “WikiLeaks to Publish E-mails” on nytimes.com. “There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.”

The group has claimed responsibility for numerous cyber-attacks in the past, many of which were in support of WikiLeaks and Assange. In 2010, Anonymous took down the websites of Master Card, Visa, Amazon and PayPal in response to the companies revoking use of their services by WikiLeaks, according to a Washington Post article. Anonymous drowned the sites with traffic, causing them to become inaccessible or significantly slowed down.

Thousands of names, credit card numbers and emails from Stratfor subscribers have been posted online by Anonymous. According to a press release circulated by WikiLeaks, 25 media outlets from across the globe are working to analyze the content of the emails, including the Rolling Stone here in the U.S.

This collaboration represents a fairly massive undertaking, an unprecedented joining together of two of the cyber-world’s most infamous and effective activist groups. The union makes sense. Anonymous is an intentionally leaderless and unstructured group. They are exactly as their name suggests: faceless and untraceable. WikiLeaks, however, is prominent and recognizable and their leadership structure is well known. Anonymous possesses the capability to hack large amounts of data with virtual impunity but is not organized enough to properly analyze the result. WikiLeaks has an extensive network of professional analysts eager for the opportunity to search through data with a fine tooth comb.

With the two of these groups working in tandem, the internet is a much scarier place for those seeking privacy. The union, if it continues, has the potential for either great good or considerable harm.

Anonymous claims to fight corporate and governmental injustice and has been responsible for some attacks that seem worthy of this lofty mission. Their 2008 attacks against the Church of Scientology, in which their official website was overloaded with traffic and droves of black faxes and prank phone calls flooded their offices, were entertaining and justified, according to a New York Times article.

On the other side of the coin, Anonymous has employed unethical tactics in some of its operations. Their denial of service attacks on the U.S. Department of Justice in January recruited unwitting, innocent bystanders by installing software on their computers through an infected email then using that software to overload websites like justice.gov. The attacks were in retaliation for the DOJ’s takedown of popular file sharing site Megaupload, according to an article by the Washington Post.

It is difficult to predict what, if anything, will come of this collaboration between Anonymous and WikiLeaks, but one thing is for sure: the web just got a lot less secure.

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