6. Playstation Network Hacked by Anonymous or not

In the article, "Anonymous says it hacked 10M PSN accounts; Sony disagrees" by Rachael King, it talks about whether Anonymous were responsible for hacking PSN or was it a false alarm. We should know that there are many people who'll post fake news about something & claiming that they will strike at it which could cause bad impression to the society. The real members of anonymous will try to make things clear to everyone that the news was a fake & people should be smart enough to understand Anonymous that majority of them are cyber-heroes not criminals.

Sony claimed that Anonymous were denied of hacking into their system which is true while them on the other hand said they did. The message about PSN was threatening because a lot people feared that their accounts would be at risks & they might loose any ingame balance that can be used to purchase game contents. PSN was offline for quite sometime which forced some people to check the news for any signs that might've caused this. That's when some of the employees from PSN actually announced that it was a fake which brought some anger in the society.

    Don't believe everything what Anonymous says on the media because it might be another prank like 4chaun.

5. The Life of being a Hacker

As we all know that hackers are growing everyday because there's a lot of students who choose to study Ethical hacking & forensics either in college or at home. Being a certified Ethical hacker allows you to work in various companies that require security or in government agencies where you may be assigned to bypass terrorist online security & provide valuable info for the government.

An article called, "Anonymous: Ethical Hackers or Cyber Criminals?" by Tang Zijian, and another interesting one "Understanding Anonymous: The Culture of Lulz" by Mike Masnick talks about general info on Anonymous & how it all started. A 15 yr old named Christopher Poole created site called 4chain where people would recruit pranksters so that they can crack jokes or do online pranks anonymously. Since no Identity was given to the user, that's where people began to call themselves Anonymous, in my case "Anonymous Pranksters".

The site was used for entertainment in its earlier stage until the group decided to become cyber heroes & fight against cyber-censorship, surveillance with help of hacking & protest. That's when they converted from prankster to hacker & began to fight back against the government's ridiculous laws in response to the society's protest. Sometimes we get confused since the hackers are anonymous, we cannot be sure whether they're hacking for a greater good or selfish need. They can work either in a group or an individual. The article also mentioned that fighting against the government is "war". This is more of a cyber war not world war 3 so Anonymous rely mainly on computers & hacking skills to either get what they need or do for the good of the people.

   As I discussed earlier, anyone can become anonymous & if you wanna do what's good for the society then do it or if you wanna hack the government just for fun or show you are worthy then no one is there to say anything. I'll always support Anonymous because no government is perfect & they can either be bad or good. If they turn out to be bad then the hackers are there to teach him/her a lesson.

4. How is Anonymous related to the movie "V for Vendetta"?

   V for Vendetta the movie was based on the comic written by Alan Moore & David Lloyd. It talks about a freedom fighter called V who wanted to ignite revolution against the brutal fascist regime led by Adam Sutler that has subjugated the United Kingdom.

The article titled, "‘V FOR VENDETTA’ INSPIRES ANONYMOUS, CREATOR DAVID LLOYD RESPONDS", written by Aaron Colter, explains a short relation between Anonymous and the movie including a few ideas about their actions. The hackers use a private chat room called IRC (Internet Relay Chat) where they can discuss about the operations & plan their attacks. At the near end of the article, there were questions being asked about Anonymous.

They say the Guy Fawkes mask is a political sign of protest against harmful indoctrination of Scientology & is an inspiration to the character V because he was a revolutionary. It became a sign when V manage to defeat the government & assigned a new world order to the people who portray like him by wearing the same mask. I feel that the people are stronger than the government when they all reunite as 1 & fight back.

    The hackers are playing a role as V like they're trying to bring down the government sites with DDoS attack while the protesters watch as they are getting closer to victory. The government is making a lot of restrictions on the internet which affects the world society & the cyber heroes Anonymous are there to put a stop to it & bring freedom to the internet.

The mask is being sold all over the world & people use it not only to protest against the government but to hide their identity from the public. I hear whenever they're interviewed over the internet, they disguise their voice for further concealment. Being a hacker is all about experience in programming & how are you gonna use that skill. You can work as an individual or a team if you know someone who is part of Anonymous.

3. The Shutdown of Megaupload

       

       Everyone's favorite site for sharing videos, music, photos & other files has come to an end because people have been suspected of sharing copyrighted materials. The founder "Kim Dotcom" was arrested for this matter along with 3 other Megaupload executive in a leased $30 million mansion at Coastville near Auckland on Friday, 20 January 2012. You can watch an official YouTube footage of the raid here.

              After the US Government has seized the site, Anonymous supporters attacked the websites of the Department of Justice, the FBI and Universal Music Group, among others. The hacktivists used a technique called a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) to overload their targets servers with web traffic and effectively force them offline.

“We sincerely hope you like your own medicine!,” it said in a comment directed at the FBI. This was written in an article "Anonymous attacks FBI websites over Megaupload raids" by Christopher Williams.

There are two types of program that promotes DDoS attack: LOIC & HOIC. What it does that the user 1st input the url which will automatically display the IP of it then a simple push of a button will flood that url servers with packets that lead to temporary shutdown. Depending on the number of servers, more people will need to target the same IP in order to shut it down. The site can come back up once the attacker decides to stop the DDoS.

     

The Anonymous decided to shutdown various US government sites after they seized Megaupload.

"We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. Lulz. The FBI didn't think they would get away with this did they? They should have expected us," they wrote on website Pastebin.

Speaking of music industry sites, when I payed a visit to those sources, I sometimes get a funny looking banner & a weird music playing in the background with nothing to click on. Whenever a source is hacked, you'll get an update on either facebook or tweeter from @AnonOps saying, "Anonymous Victory!", with a link of the hacked source.

New Zealand’s police website police.govt.nz has also allegedly been targeted by the group after as Dotcom, Batato and two others were arrested in Auckland by the authorities carrying out warrants on behalf of the US for pirate material. The website will give a common error "The server is not responding"

"Megaupload was taken down w/out SOPA being law. Now imagine what will happen if it passes. The Internet as we know it will end. FIGHT BACK," wrote @YourAnonNews on Twitter in a reference to the ongoing battle in Congress over the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This caught the protesters attention and those who were hackers decided to shutdown the government. Megaupload had a premium service so that members can download files with no restrictions compared those who are freebies. Now members couldn't get a refund from their account since it was seized.

There is another article regarding the Anti-piracy laws, "What are SOPA & PIPA? Why all the fuss?" by Larry Magid where he describes & explains it. To summarize the whole thing, the 2 laws are used to put an end to online piracy just like ACTA. People were creating a lot of fuss about it because they fear about the heavy online surveillance & what will happen to the freedom of internet. If your website causes a minor violation of the law then it could lead to censorship or even banned. 

Google & Wikipedia was blacked out for 24 hours to get everyone's attention of the protest against these laws & they have to sign a petition to stop this law from going into effect. Ask yourself! What will happen to our privacy? Internet won't be safe anymore while the governor is watching our every move.

2. ACTA Protest in Europe

It was 26 January 2012 in Poland, and the kids had been protesting in the streets against an intellectual property treaty in sub-freezing temperatures.

Already, Anonymous hackers had taken Polish government servers offline for more than 36 hours to protest against the signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

I read the title, "Protests erupt across Europe against web piracy treaty" by Erik Kirschbaum and Irina Ivanova; I have to say, people all over Europe including Paris, Poland, Berlin, Germany etc., were protesting outside in extreme low temperatures like -10 C or worse for the sake of stopping ACTA, SOPA & PIPA because once those laws become active then imagine torrent & various file sharing sites being shutdown, we'll be forced to purchase songs, movies & games online where it isn't available locally. There will also be heavy internet surveillance where if you are caught exchanging pirated files with another user then you will either be sentenced to prison or be fined.

In Poland, the government has decided to postpone the ratification of the controversial anti-copyright agreement that has provoked widespread anger and protest, saying it needed further “consultation”.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that country needed more time to see if the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA as it is better known, was compatible with Polish law.

Opponents of the ACTA, which aims to crack down at online piracy, argue that it will infringe upon the freedom of information and free speech. Venting their spleen, anti-ACTA demonstrations have occurred across the country since the government inked the agreement last month, and hackers even managed to take down the prime minister’s website, among others, in a demonstration of cyber-opposition.

Lack of freedom of speech might affect online education. We won't be able to get general information about any topic.

    People all over the world might lose control over the government if he/she succeed this law. I myself would protest against this because I might lose fun over the internet. This all started ever since the shutdown of "Megaupload", a very popular file sharing site due to copyright infringement which I will talk about it in the next post. 

    Government from eight nations, signed an agreement to pursue ACTA which angered people not only in Europe but all over the world. I just can't imagine that people can tolerate that cold temperature. It's more like survival of the fittest or fight for the sake of "Internet Freedom". Anonymous who were also involved in the protest, stole some valuable information from the Polish government site & threaten to expose it to the public.

    The government also published a list of “commitments” that it requires to be met before the ratification process can go ahead. Top of this list is the commitment to publish all documents related to the ACTA that the state has, and all the material it can get out of the EU. This, the government hopes, should allow the greater scrutiny the agreement apparently deserves, and help calm fears that it has no secret or unknown aspects which would undermine internet freedoms.

1. Who are the Anonymous?

                             Some people think that they are a group of hackers or an organization who disrupt webpages & steal valuable information while others think they are doing what is best for the society. I personally think that anonymous are the people, neither a group nor an organization. They are everywhere & no one knows exactly their true identity, which explains their logo.

                      They have no leader & they are always aware of what's happening in the society since they are dispersed around the world. I watched a couple of YouTube videos & discovered an unfamiliar plan called "Operation Facebook" which is the temporary shutdown of Facebook by anonymous but it never happened. There were other related videos concerning about the attack & 1 of them said, "The anonymous user who posted this information was not true. You should understand that we represent the people & we are everywhere." That user who posted the fake video; his/her location was traced & people started commenting on the video regarding it. Those who commented were blocked by the user, although no one bothered catching this person since no harm was done.

           In the article, "Beware! Anonymous has become the Hello Kitty of hacktivism" by Stilgherrian, I see that they are generally also known as hacktivists & they have a variety of tools at their disposal according to the quote by Stilgherrian, written on March 4th, 2013 at the site zdnet.com, "The tools are becoming increasingly easy to use, and the hacktivists increasingly stupid — making everyone a target." In my opinion, the hackers can either be good or bad & since the tools are easy to use, they can also be misused which could put nearly everyone at risk. The hacktivists have included various anonymous groups on Facebook & tweeter where everyone can stay up to date with hackers who are performing various operations. You may wonder why the government didn't take action on those posted groups because they are just news reports about anonymous operations (media).

                   Heroes or villains, the government has doubled its efforts to stop Anonymous’ activities, but it seems that the hacktivists are multiplying and Anonymous is growing every day. Anonymous has millions of followers on the Internet. Their Youtube videos have millions of views and they have become a type of cyber heroes.The anonymous main quote is, "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us." I personally think it means they are everywhere, they do not forgive the actions you commit, they'll never forget for what you did, beware of their expectations because they can hack you anytime in surprise.