Contents of Leaked HBGary Emails Reveal Wrongdoing 369
chargersfan420 writes "Ars Technica has sifted through the contents of the HBGary emails leaked last week in the attack by Anonymous and posted an interesting story about some of the things they were up to (which include rootkit development, selling rootkits to the private sector, and an entire list of 0-day exploits in a variety of OSes and other software, among a variety of other devious plans). Today they are reporting a democratic push for a congressional investigation of HBGary Federal."
Careful what you wish for (Score:2, Interesting)
a democratic push for a congressional investigation of HBGary Federal
You're going to dig for info on their union-busting, but you're going to be very embarrassed if you find out that the Obama administration was in bed with these scumbags on some other sleazy project(s) that come up too. They were working for the banks, but some of these firms were (or at least had been) working for the government too. Might want to check with the White House before you start digging too deep.
Re:Careful what you wish for (Score:2, Interesting)
How better to hide incriminating evidence if you're the one in charge of the investigation in the first place?
And i TOLD you. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone spending a few years in the early stages of internet, in which those underground circles were not so underground like today, would be able to know and tell the same. Its the rebel net culture. That underground is multitudes over the level of what the private lackey corps or govts. can afford to hire or educate. They are of a sort that grows/breeds on its own.
Despite their roads have diverged with most of us the early netizens like me, i indeed learned to develop a deep respect for their kind. For, even if they do a lot of shady stuff, they do have a very strong attachment to some principles. and that's something to be respected.
Anyway. see, what they have done. good luck to govt and their lackeys in finding who did it. they may even be inside hbgary itself. you'll never know. once a rebel, always a rebel.
Haha. Read the memo they left in the conference (Score:5, Interesting)
down below.
http://sophosnews.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/hbgary-rsa-sign.jpg?w=640 [wordpress.com]
"A group of AGGRESSIVE hackers known as 'Anonymous' illegally broke into blah blah
corporate lack of shame. you produce rootkits, viruses, 0 day exploits, malware to spy on people, steal their confidential, legally private information to SELL them, and then you dub that information 'proprietary' information belonging to you
i wonder what will they say in their defense in front of senate committee. what's more, i wonder what will the senate committee say to them, in regard to their dealings with this filthy outfit.
whats the slogan of hbgary anyway ? "hey - we produce viruses, rootkits, 0 day exploits and malware to steal your private information to sell to corporations and government !!!" ?
Re:Careful what you wish for (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone want to take bets on this, what are the odds that there will be an investigation of HBGary? Anyone want to put up some money on the "Sure, there will be an investigation" side?
Can I be on the "There will be an investigation, but not a good one." side?
Re:Countermeasures against HBGary (Score:5, Interesting)
That only holds true if
1. "ethically" is the same as "legally".
2. You're version of "ethically" is the same as everyone else's version of "ethically".
Re:Somehow (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? It doesn't have anything to do with justice? [wikipedia.org] You DO realize that there are several eastern religions that talk about karma, and that while it isn't the same in all of them, most conceptions of karma can be boiled down to "you reap what you sow." How is that not justice?
It still stems from the misconception that the self is separate from the universe. Being separate, the self is an uncaused cause. We all understand how cause and effect work, if that were all karma were, there would not be a separate word for it, it would just be "causation." No, karma springs from the idea that the self is a separate uncaused cause, and therefore, there needs to be some spiritual method of restoring balance caused by the unbalancing actions of the separate self. That method is karma.
The most common conception of karma is in relation to reincarnation, that how you act in this life determines what you are reincarnated as. That is a form of wishing after justice. The next most common conception is of a kind of universal enforcement of "you reap what you sew," which posits that if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you. As we can see that bad things do not always happen to bad people, that leads right back into believing in reincarnation, karma will ensure those bad people are punished, if not in this lifetime, then the next. That is the sense the OP was using it in.
If you take the self out of the picture, then all the concept of karma is saying is that bad things are bad, while good things are nice. Bad things lead to hurt, while good things lead to happiness. As there is no "self" in this discussion, it doesn't matter who perpetrates the action and who receives the bad feelings. I kick you in the nuts, you feel nut-pain, THAT is real karma. And also not how the OP was using the term at all.
Are we done with school yet, or would you like another lesson?
Re:Careful what you wish for (Score:2, Interesting)
There needs to be radical reform. The states need to reassert their sovereignty on intrastate matters as some are trying to do through a corollary of the commerce clause (the federal government is empowered to regulate commerce between, but not inside states). The supreme court should utilize the division of the political landscape as insurance to overturn decisions made during FDR's administration that were essentially made against the conscience of the justices of the time due to FDR's legislative gun to the head. (Cases like the atrocious Wickard v. Filburn which have heretofore only partially and alternately been contradicted by subsequent rulings.) Lastly absolute limits must be placed on the maximum population that can be represented by merely one man in congress, and steps must be taken to end gerrymandering at all levels.
I'm not holding my breath to see any of this happen, but without a real desire to restore balance to representative government and the checks between branches, there is no hope to resist the slow creep of corruption nor tyranny.
Re:Careful what you wish for (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the main wrongdoing is not the *acts* themselves, but using knowledge gained/obtained by funding of their government military contracts (ostensibly to be used on the non american enemy) and then going around and selling those services for private companies to use against american businesses/corporations/individuals.
I think it is sort of a research to make sure the military isn't effectively funding private espionage. Forget the part where it is American businesses. What's even worse is it is possibly espionage against unions (political speech)
The Facebook "Revolution"... (Score:4, Interesting)