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FBI Executes Warrants, Allegedly Arrests Members of Anonymous in US

Drew Wilson — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:30:43 +0000

Reports are surfacing that suggests that the FBI has executed a massive sweep across the United States, allegedly arresting members of hacking group "Anonymous". While one name was released so far, it's unclear exactly which members were arrested.

Slashdot is pointing to an article on CNN which says that 12 arrests were made across the United States. The arrests were made in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio. Numerous articles around the web point to similar sources that all say it also includes raids on peoples homes by the FBI. The real question is, did these raids make a dent in these hacking groups? We decided to check out some of the hackers that we monitor - namely those making very high profile hacks. Sabu is still tweeting. AnonymousIRC is still tweeting. Connexion is still tweeting. F1Esc is still tweeting. Abhaxas is stil tweeting. P0keu hasn't tweeted in 23 hours as of this writing. So, at best, 1 out of six hasn't tweeted since these high profile raids. If P0keu offers an indication that he's still around, I would say that the FBI struck out completely in these raids. So who exactly did the FBI arrest in these high profile raids? Speculation has been abound that they failed to catch anyone important. In one report, the speculation is that the FBI may have nabbed nothing more than over a dozen script kiddies. In other words, low on the totem poll hackers in the hacking world. So the question we return to is, what has the FBI accomplished in all of this? It may have been more about a PR move rather than actually busting these people. For months, the hackers have been all about being in control. Anonymous has already told authorities that the internet is their world, not the governments world. The FBI may be trying to counter that by showing that anyone of these people can be caught. At this point, the FBI should hope that they can get some leads out of the script kiddies. Otherwise, I'm quite sure they'll be back to square one all over again. I can see Anonymous gearing up for another round of hacking against the US government. I would even not at all be surprised if the FBI has their website hacked by the end of the week. Anonymous, LulzSec and similar like-minded hackers are going to be far more motivated to re-establish the fact that the internet is their turf and not the governments. The FBI has struck the hornets nest and all most of us can do is sit by and watch the results. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Police Raid Spanish Performing Rights Organization Headquarters – Assets Seized

Drew Wilson — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:53:48 +0000

News is circulating that the Spanish anti-corruption police have raided the SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores) headquarters recently, seizing computers, company laptops and other pieces of property on the premises. Amid the allegations are embezzlement of royalties that were suppose to go to performers.

One of the media outlets reporting on the news is Thereader.es which has in-depth coverage. The head of the organization has insisted that no arrests have been made, though police have sealed off the building to the public while they investigate, posting two officers at the buildings entrance. From the report:

Early in the morning, officers sealed the building to the public. At 12 o'clock, they permitted some workers to leave the building to go home. For now, the Civil Guard has seized all computers and company owed mobile phones in the building, and issued instructions to workers to hand over their company laptops. According to sources, the investigation is looking into how the SGAE was raising money by way of copyright among those artists residing outside of Spain. These artists did not receive their fair share of the money, and it is alleged that those involved were diverting the money to personal accounts in Switzerland.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor has filed in the High Court a complaint directed against the SGAE for alleged misappropriation of funds in their activities, according to Europa Press legal sources. The brief of the Public Ministry, which was presented a few weeks ago to Dean of the High Court, requested the opening of a preliminary investigation by the department following a complaint filed in November 2007 by the Association of Internet Users, the Spanish Association of Small Business Computing and New Technologies (APEMIT) and the Spanish Association of Innkeepers Victims of the Canon (VACHE). The complaint, which was seen by Europa Press, was based on the appearance in various media of several "alleged illegalities committed in the economic management of the resources of the SGAE."

This is far from the first time large organizations related to the entertainment industry have been in legal hot water. It was only yesterday that the IFPI boss and a CEO in Germany was accused of tax evasion. In 2009, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) was sued got $6 billion for commercial music piracy (some considered that as potentially the biggest copyright infringement lawsuit in Canadian history) to which CRIA was forced to settle for $45 million in 2011. Also in 2009, Sony was accused of music piracy, having assets seized by police in Mexico. In 2008, Sony BMG was sued for software piracy in France - assets were seized by bailiffs. Also in France, HADOPI (effectively, France's law that enforces their three strikes law there) was busted for copyright infringement in 2010. In 2006, the MPAA was busted for making pirate copies of "This Film is Not Yet Rated". In 2007, BASCAP, an anti-piracy organization, was accused of piracy in 2007. In 2004, the music industry was forced to settle a case when they were accused of price fixing. What this appears to be is just another story in a saga of entertainment industry organizations not having a picture perfect record with the law. This might very well be just another black eye that the entertainment industry has to deal with for the time being. [Hat Tip] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Websites Seized By ICE Already Coming Back Online

Drew Wilson — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 03:38:46 +0000

Earlier today, we reported on the raids conducted by ICE which seized over 70 domains online. Just hours after the seizure though, it appears that some of the websites that were seized are already coming back online.

“ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names,” said Cori W. Bassett, a spokeswoman for ICE, in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time.” It's strong words without giving away many details, but clearly, it's meant to show that authorities can shut down websites they deem to be illegal. What exactly does ICE mean by seizing a domain? Effectively, typing in a URL is really just a name easy to remember. What the domain does is point users to a server which is typically an IP address. Now, if users type in a specific URL that was seized by ICE, they are forwarded to a different server. The site itself is still in-tact. What these seizures really means for some of these website owners is a minor nuisance more than anything else. In one particular case, RMX4U, a website that brands itself as a site devoted to black music, has already come back online as remix-blog.com. That's right, just hours after the domain was seized, some are already coming back online. So the question arises, what has really been accomplished with these seizures? Lets use the metaphor of a party. These partiers want more people to come join that party. So, they put a sign on the highway saying that there is a party going on (the domain name). Authorities eventually caught wind of this party and considers that party illegal. So they send a few police officers down and seize the sign pointing to the party and call it a day. Meanwhile, the people at the party discover that their sign was ripped down and replaced with a sign that says that such a party is bad as suggested by authorities. So, these organizers walk a few hundred meters down the highway and plant another sign next to the highway (which is a lot like what RMX4U has done in this case) and the party basically continues on as usual. It's hard to say if any further action will be taken, but so far, these seizures are not doing a good job at trying to crack down on piracy. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

‘Pirate Bay server raid was legit but, irregular.’

Jared Moya — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:45:56 +0000

The Swedish Justice Ombudsman’s (JO) investigation of the the Pirate Bay server raid has been completed, and although it hasn’t found any evidence of wrongdoing, they do find a few “irregularities.”

The Justice Ombudsman (JO) found that overall the raid was lawful, that despite rumors that the MPAA, IFPI, and the American embassy had unduly pressured Swedish authorities to act against the Pirate Bay, no evidence could be found that authorities acted unlawfully.

The report does confirm however, that the IFPI, MPAA and the American embassy had contacted the current Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström and the Secretary of State Dan Eliasson about doing something in regards to the Pirate Bay’s blatant disregard for copyright infringement. But, it also concluded that the lobbying carried out by the organization was “an accepted part of the political decision-making process”.

Secretary of State Dan Eliasson replied to their requests by noting:

(a)ccording to the Swedish constitution, it is not possible for the Government or the Ministry to intervene in a specific case. I can however assure you that I follow closely the actions taken by the police and the prosecutors in respect of copyrights infringements on the Internet and I will not, if necessary, hesitate to initiate further measures to improve their effectiveness.

The real “irregularities” it turns out, are not because of undue pressure by the US govt or media lobbying corporations but, concern the actual server confiscations by the police.

When the web hotel PRQ and The Pirate Bay were raided almost every server in the place was confiscated. There were total of 186 servers that were confiscated from PRQ’s server rooms, causing a large number of companies unrelated to the Pirate Bay to be shut down and essentially locked out from their livelihood.

The Justice Ombudsman found that in this aspect the police could’ve returned the confiscated servers that were unrelated to the Pirate Bay much sooner than the week it took them to do so.

The police and the prosecutor were charged for official misconduct, but none of the charges led to an investigation. The judge came to the conclusion that during the circumstances it was justified to confiscate all of the servers.

The Swedish Pirate Party’s leader, Rickard Falkvinge, takes umbrage with the report’s conclusions and says that “I find it astonishing that the JO’s investigation leaves out everything that was a flagrant violation of the constitution.”

Unsatisfied with the report’s conclusions, the Pirate Party is apparently considering taking the case to the European Court of Justice.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Pirate_Bay_server_raid_was_legit_but_irregular’;

SOULXTC: “walkin’ the streets of P2P”

The Pirate Bay Raided by Swedish police

Wed, 31 May 2006 17:53:24 +0000

Today it has been reported that the swedish bittorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay, was raided and shutdown by swedish police.

ThePirateBay.org had become one of the premier BitTorrent trackers, filling the void the ensured after the demise of SuprNova.org.

Details are still sketchy but sometime this morning ThePirateBay.org was raided by police, and the servers seized, meaning that the PirateBays tracker is offline and will remain offline for the time being. Whether this will keep ThePirateBay.org offline indefinitely is another matter. The Police also arrested 3 people, aged 22, 24 and 28, who were directly involved with ThePirateBay.org

The Swedish police also seized the “Pirate Party” servers, a swedish political party created to represent the file-sharing community politically (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party)

Up-to-date details are being posted on the “current event” page on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay

More News:
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3955&date=20060531
http://wiredfire.org/index.php?q=node/63