"WikiLeaks reveals intelligence firm’s e-mails; Accuses US-based think tank Stratfor of shady dealings" by Cassandra Vinograd | Associated Press, February 28, 2012
LONDON — The antisecrecy group WikiLeaks tried yesterday to shed light on the private intelligence firm Stratfor, saying it had more than 5 million of the company’s e-mails and would publish them in collaboration with two dozen international media organizations.
One described a $6,000-a-month payment made to a Middle Eastern source, another carried bits of gossip dropped by a retired spy, and many were filled with off-color office banter.
An initial examination of the e-mails turned up a mix of the innocuous and the embarrassing, but WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange promised more-explosive material in the coming weeks.
It's a controlled-opposition, intelligence agency outlet; otherwise, they would just dump 'em all. Instead we get leaks little by little that fulfill an agenda.
“What we have discovered is a company that is a private intelligence Enron,’’ Assange told London’s Frontline Club, referring to the Texas energy company whose spectacular bankruptcy turned it into a byword for corporate malfeasance.
Those records all disappeared when WTC 7 dropped to the ground.
Assange accused Stratfor of funneling money to informants through offshore tax havens, monitoring activist groups on behalf of big corporations, and making investments based on its secret intelligence.
Stratfor denied there was anything improper in the way it dealt with its contacts.
“Stratfor has worked to build good sources in many countries around the world, as any publisher of global geopolitical analysis would do,’’ the company said in a statement. “We have done so in a straightforward manner and we are committed to meeting the highest standards of professional conduct.’’
The Stratfor statement suggested the company would not be commenting further on Assange’s allegations.
“Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them,’’ the statement said.
It is unclear what impact the leak will have on the Austin-based Stratfor and its clients. The company client list includes investment firms, academic institutions, and major multinationals.
Answer: not much.
How WikiLeaks got the company’s e-mails remains unclear. Assange refused to answer questions about the matter, but Stratfor said the messages appeared to be the same ones stolen by hackers in December. That breach, claimed by the Internet activist group Anonymous, ravaged the company’s servers and led to the disclosure of thousands of credit card numbers and other information.
See: The Anonymous Trap
Don't fall for it.
Wired magazine quoted an unnamed member of Anonymous as saying that the stolen data had been transferred to WikiLeaks, which allegedly acknowledged receiving the transfer using a coded message on Twitter. Anonymous appeared to confirm that account, pointing to the cryptic message “rats for donavon,’’ which WikiLeaks posted on Dec. 30.
Several media groups, including Rolling Stone magazine and German broadcaster NDR, said they have been offered advance access to the e-mails and will publish stories based on the documents if appropriate.
One academic said the disclosures probably would scare away corporate clients.
“When people discover, ‘Hey, here’s your clients,’ then your clients are chilled,’’ said Jeffrey Addicott, the director for the Center of Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. “It causes a certain uproar.’’
Some clients are already facing questions. Among the e-mails are reports apparently compiled for the Dow Chemical Co. on activists who have targeted the company over its links to the Bhopal gas leak disaster, which killed thousands of Indians and spawned a long-running legal battle.
Dow said in a written statement that “major companies are often required to take appropriate action to protect their people and safeguard their facilities,’’ adding that it operated within the law.
The reports prepared for Dow appeared to be little more than roundups of news stories and Internet chatter, but Stratfor also boasts of more serious sources.
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"Interpol says 25 arrests target hackers" February 29, 2012
PARIS — Interpol said yesterday that 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.
The international police agency said in a statement that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Spain were carried out by national law enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol’s Latin American working group of specialists on information technology crime.
The suspects, between ages 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyberattacks against institutions including Colombia’s defense ministry and presidential websites, Chile’s Endesa electricity company and national library, and other targets.
The arrests followed an ongoing investigation begun this month that also led to the seizure of 250 items of IT equipment and mobile phones in searches of 40 premises in 15 cities, Interpol said.
Four of the 25 suspected Anonymous hackers were arrested by police in Spain in connection with attacks on Spanish political party websites.
A Spanish National Police statement said two servers used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been blocked.
It said the four included the alleged manager of Anonymous computer operations in Spain and Latin America, identified only by his initials and the aliases “Thunder’’ and “Pacotron.’’
The four are suspected of defacing websites, carrying out denial-of-service attacks, and publishing data on police assigned to the royal palace and the premier’s office online.
Interpol is headquartered in Lyon, France. The organization has no powers of arrest but helps police forces around the world work together, facilitating intelligence-sharing.
Anonymous, whose genesis can be traced back to a popular US image messaging board, has become increasingly politicized amid a global clampdown on music piracy and the international controversy over the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks, with which many of its supporters identify.
Some Internet chatter appeared to point to a revenge attack on Interpol’s website, but the home page appeared normal late yesterday.
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Related:
"Anonymous Takes Down Interpol For Arresting 25 Anons
Earlier the hacker group Anonymous teamed up with WikiLeaks to dump millions of emails from the private intelligence company stratfor, which is also known as the shadow CIA.
In an apparent direct reaction to the leaked emails, INTERPOL launched an international crackdown which led to the arrest of 25 members of the Hacker groups anonymous and the seizure of 250 computing devices seized in searches of 40 locations in 15 cities.
Now, Anonymous has struck back by taking INTERPOL offline.
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Lord, am I tired of the MSM lying!
"Hackers attack key Israeli websites" January 17, 2012
JERUSALEM - Hackers disrupted the websites of Israel’s stock exchange and national air carrier El Al yesterday in a deepening cyber war launched earlier this month by a group claiming to be Saudis.
Neither website contains sensitive information, and trading and flights were not affected.
I'm smelling a false flag, sorry.
But the ongoing salvos by hackers who use anti-Israel language in their posts have revealed how vulnerable Israel is to cyber warfare, despite its sophisticated computer security units in the military and advanced high-tech sector.
The attacks began earlier this month when hackers identifying themselves as Group-xp, a known Saudi hacking group, claimed on an Israeli sports website to have gained access to 400,000 Israeli credit card accounts. The group called it a “gift to the world for the New Year’’ designed to “hurt the Zionist pocket.’’
************************
Last week, an Israeli hacker identifying himself as a soldier in an Israeli intelligence unit retaliated by posting information online about hundreds of Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians, and others.
El Al Israel Airlines took down its website after the alleged Saudi network warned that both sites would be targeted by allied pro-Palestinian hackers, a source close to the company said....
I don't want to read anymore leaks.
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Related: Wikileaks Whisper
Say what?
"Hackers claim attack on US tear gas company" Associated Press, February 15, 2012
LONDON - A US security company whose tear gas has been used against Egyptian demonstrators has become the latest victim of the Anonymous movement, hackers claimed yesterday.
In a statement posted to the Internet, hackers claimed to have broken into Combined Systems Inc.’s website and stolen personal information belonging to clients and employees of the Jamestown, Pa.-based firm. They accused the company of being run by war profiteers who sell “mad chemical weapons to militaries and cop shops around the world.’’
The hackers’ allegations could not immediately be verified, although the company’s website was down yesterday.
Messages left for Donald Smith and Jacob Kravel, Combined Systems executives, went unreturned. A customer service representative said senior employees were unavailable for comment because they were in a meeting.
Anonymous has claimed a series of Web attacks worldwide and has increasingly focused on security companies, law enforcement, and governmental organizations. The group has often worked in tandem with the Occupy protest movement in the United States and has expressed solidarity with the pro-democracy activists across the Arab world....
Don't do us any favors.
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"Judge refuses to dismiss WikiLeaks case" Associated Press, April 26, 2012
FORT MEADE, Md. - A military judge refused Wednesday to throw out the case against an Army private accused of providing reams of sensitive documents to WikiLeaks in the biggest leak of government secrets in US history.
Army Colonel Denise Lind said she would rule Thursday on whether to dismiss any of the individual charges against Private First Class Bradley Manning, including the most serious count of aiding the enemy - which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Prosecutors argue that the leak helped Al Qaeda and that Manning knew its members regularly viewed the antisecrecy website.
This poor kid being framed for an Israeli document dump.
Manning has not entered a plea to the charges. He also has not yet decided whether he wants to be tried by a judge or a jury. Lind scheduled Manning’s trial for Sept. 21 through Oct. 12.
He is accused of sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WilkiLeaks, a website founded by Julian Assange, in late 2009 and early 2010.
Manning’s lawyers had sought dismissal of all 22 charges, contending prosecutors had failed in their duty to share information that could be helpful to the defense, a legal process called discovery.
It wouldn't be the first time US government lawyers have done that, and it means throw the case out. Of course, in the event of trial it means you must acquit.
Lind agreed that prosecutors had wrongly assumed the discovery rules did not pertain to classified information but she found no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, rejecting the motion to throw out the case.
Kid is being railroaded.
She heard arguments later on defense motions seeking dismissal of individual charges.
Defense lawyer David Coombs said a conviction would require the government to show that Manning sent WikiLeaks the material with a “genuine evil intent’’ that it be seen by Al Qaeda.
Manning’s alleged motive, as he stated in his online chat logs with a confidant-turned-informant, was “I want people to see the truth.’’
Oh, no, the kid was set up!
And if not, SEE WHAT HAPPENS when you BLOW A WHISTLE and TELL the TRUTH!
Related: Goon Squad Censored?
:-(
Absent an evil intent, Coombs said, sending intelligence information to WikiLeaks without authorization was no different than giving it to The New York Times or the Washington Post - a punishable offense, perhaps, but not as serious a crime as the government alleges.
Actually, when the NYT or WaPo are conduits for war propaganda it's all okay.
“What the government’s really trying to say is, ‘He should have known better,’ ’’ Coombs said.
But prosecutor Captain Joe Morrow said the government needs only to show that Manning knew the enemy would see the material and that he sent it without authorization.
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Related: Waiting on Wikileaks
Also see: Julian Assange loses extradition battle
Update: WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange seeks asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London
