Salon.com > Stratfor

Can you face charges for reposting a link?

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:26:00 +0000

Barrett Brown, the once self-appointed spokesman to hacker collective Anonymous, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury on 12 charges related to the infamous Stratfor hack. Unlike activist Jeremy Hammond, who could face life in prison for his alleged role hacking the private intelligence firm, Brown's charges specifically pertain to the sharing of information, a development that has perturbed journalists and bloggers who regularly report on hackers and hacked information.

Brown faces a host of charges, including a number relating to online threats made to an FBI agent unrelated to the Stratfor case. Within the newly announced grand jury indictment, however, Brown faces a charge for copying a link to a downloadable archive of compromised data -- specifically credit card information -- from one Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel and pasting it into another.

The indictment states:

Judge in hacker case is married to a Stratfor client

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:30:00 +0000

UPDATE Dec. 3rd: Jeremy Hammond's lawyers plan to file a motion this week for Judge Preska's recusal. Sparrow Media reported that Preska was made aware of the published connection between her husband and Stratfor and that her husband’s Stratfor-related information was published by Wikileaks, but "Preska indicated that this personal connection to the Hammond case 'would not effect her ability to be impartial'." A video from last week's press conference featuring journalists, attorneys and civil liberties advocates is posted below.

Nov. 28th: Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond was told last week by federal judge Loretta Preska that he was being denied bail and could face life in jail for his alleged involvement with the Anonymous/LulzSec hack into the computers of the private intelligence firm Stratfor.

Civil liberties advocates have decried the state's harsh treatment of the activist, who was reportedly held in solitary confinement for five days in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center and has so far been imprisoned for eight months without trial. Now, Hammond's supporters believe they have an extra and important string to their bow: a release from Anonymous reported that the federal judge who denied Hammond bail is married to a client of Stratfor and was personally affected by the infamous hack.

Anonymous “appalled” by WikiLeaks

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:49:00 +0000

As members of global hacking collective Anonymous have made clear, they "do not forgive" and "do not forget." Bad news for WikiLeaks, which has angered its once-close hacking allies.

On Wednesday, WikiLeaks began to leak a batch of documents relating to the presidential election. The organization invited supporters to browse the trove of emails provided to the secret-spilling site by Anonymous from its famed Statfor hack. In a move that Anonymous called a "betrayal," WikiLeaks put the documents behind a pay wall, which prompted readers for donations.

"This is a filthy and rotten, wholly unethical action - and Anonymous is enraged," stated a release from Anonymous Global. "We are aware that the donation pay wall can be circumvented by disabling Javascript. However, this is not the point. Neither is Anonymous concerned that WikiLeaks is asking for donations," the Anonymous release notes, explaining that most readers would not know how to avoid the pay wall.

WikiLeaks to begin election-related dump

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 22:01:00 +0000

According to a release Wednesday, WikiLeaks will begin publishing 200,000 files relating to the presidential election. The GI (Global Intelligence) files are emails obtained through a hack on private intelligence firm Stratfor, which were leaked to WikiLeaks by Anonymous. The release states:

These GI Files releases will shed insight into key U.S. federal election players... Through this release WikiLeaks aims to inform the U.S. electorate in an unbiased way through the release of source documents from one of the most oddly influential companies in the U.S. today.