#lulzsecurity

‘Hacktivist groups’ Anonymous and Lulz Security have grabbed headlines lately for bold and sophisticated hacks into websites controlled by the US Senate, CIA and MasterCard.  Governments around the world have responded. Spanish authorities arrested three alleged members of Anonymous on June 10.  Three days later, Turkish authorities picked up thirty two alleged members of the same group.

Little is known for sure about Anonymous or Lulz, but what is clear is the immense technical and creative skill the groups possess.  In this sense, Anonymous and Lulz Security are in good company.  From as early on as the June 2010 attack on Google, cyber security experts like Dmitri Alperovitch of McAfee have warned of the increasing sophistication of attempted hacks.  Lou Hughes, the CEO of InZero Security, told The Economist last year that hacking capabilities are approaching a point that hacking poses an “existential threat” to corporations and governments. Private security firms and corporations, as well as government cybersecurity divisions, are struggling to keep up. 

Why the seemingly sudden acceleration of hacker skills vis-à-vis security firm and government skills?  Perhaps it has something to do with the rise in government-sponsored cybercrime.  It’s a well known secret that the Chinese, American, French, Israeli and Russian governments hire gifted hackers to hack competitor nations and corporations for valuable intelligence and information.  These ‘hired guns’ would, in the process of learning how to attack other government systems and defend their own government’s systems, garner a lot of valuable information about government cyber-vulnerabilities.  Call it the “Man Who Knew Too Much” of the internet age—the hacker who knew too much.

In the western world we have corporate governance with feigned democracy. The corporate world has a mantra and that is high profits, low taxes for the select few - that's it. Corporations are legally recognised as having the same rights as a human being however, they have the ability to amass wealth that would not be possible, if they were not corporatised.  Why?  Because they get the general public to give them money for a piece of paper called a 'share'.  The general public do get a pittance back in dividends and can sell the share but the control of the company and it's assets remain with the 'select few'.  The allotment of shares to the general public is effectively to steal their money, so that they can make a lot more money for themselves (the CEOs, Directors, & Major shareholders). 

In order to fulfil the Corporation's mantra, several things need to be undertaken:

1. control the people

2. control the government

3. use any means available/necessary to retain power over 1 & 2 

The West's media are also Corporations which is a necessary component of all three points above.  Information is paramount to Corporate control, that is the filtering and restriction of 'certain' information but continuous flow of other 'corporate' approved information - commonly entitled 'indoctrination' and 'propaganda'.  These corporations wield an insidious amount of wealth and power that is used without restraint.  Wars are fought under their banner (eg Iraq Afghanistan Libya) for which huge profits are made with the cost of these wars (both money & blood) being sustained by 'the people'. 

It would seem that nothing could stop the power of these immense corporations but they made one mistake. This one mistake was the Internet.  A system of communication which was thought would reap huge financial gains to The Corporations because of the concept of 'user pays'.  However, this concept was stymied by Google who provided products 'free' to the general public.  The general public who utilised Googles services, then became a huge pool of consumers for which businesses were willing to pay hugely to gain access to.

We then were provided with completely free services such as wikipedia (brilliant); ebooks (eg.Project Gutenberg); emusic (eg International Music Score Library Project -IMSLP) and many others.

Finally, we were introduced to what is now termed 'social media' with the main contemporaries being Twitter and Facebook.

The Corporations, in their monolithic style did not keep up with these innovations and now realise the difficulties in controlling information that has become available to 'the people'. Now the Corporate controlled governments are introducing restrictions and filters upon information access, including draconic and harsh penalties, plus legislation to allow unlimited access to private information.  Additionally, they are undertaking other aspects of control by infiltrating 'social media' through government agencies and wreaking havoc for political (which equates to Corporate wealth) reasons. One of the 'social media' corporations has simply handed full access of their system to government/corporate agencies, whilst others try and fight this illegal creep.

We then had the incredibly courageous organisations/people such as Wikileaks; Julian Assange; John Pilger which has caused the unprecedented counter response from Corporate controlled governments.  Wikileaks was initially taken offline, funds frozen and the ability to receive further funds closed down - all either unethical or illegal. Julian Assange has been pursued by trumped up sexual assault claims (can't say charges because no charges have been laid), the UK legal system has dumped the "Rule of Law" in order to be able to grant an extradition to Sweden to face….? enquiry, no simply questioning?…and then they will take him to the US (who dumped their Rule of Law some time ago). John Pilger, an investigative journalist, has been extensively ostracised and ridiculed where ever possible - his recent film has been banned from US cinemas.

Then we come to the title of this article Anonymous and Lulz Security these are groups of people who have dedicated their time to the internet and are therefore extremely clever and best of all, very difficult to trace.  They are the faceless persons who hack and extract information, not for personal gain but for us 'the people'.  Unlike the Corporations, they have a standard that they maintain, a code of ethics. They expose corruption, reveal 'sensitive' information and sometimes illegal activities. They show The Corporations that their systems are vulnerable and that they are not untouchable.

One of the result of the flaying around of these Monoliths is the following: Pentagon to the world: hacking is an act of war.

Of course you must disregard the fact that the US hack and infiltrate other countries including US and other countries citizens' private and confidential information.

The final line of defence we have against these Corporate assaults is the dedicated, clever, courageous and ethical people who make up groups such as:

Anonymous

Lulz Security