Anonymous Now Attacking Corporate Fax Machines 410
An anonymous reader writes "Anonymous has claimed responsibility for distributed denial of service attacks against several anti-WikiLeaks websites this month. In a novel twist to the campaign, Mission Leakflood has started a new DDoS attack against fax numbers belonging to Amazon, MasterCard, Moneybookers, PayPal, Visa and Tableau Software. Some numbers have already stopped responding, and Twitter and PostFinance have since been added to the target list."
This is just going to get worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not Very Anonymous (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't matter... I'm not sure how much time you've spent with the police or in front of the judge, but it's really a pain. For most people, having to go through all of those things can be life impacting. It is hard enough for alot of thee people once corporations grab onto them (see DMCA, etc). It's a whole lot worse when you've pissed off the federal government and they latch on.
It will be interesting to see how this goes down... but I have a strong feeling that there will shortly be a large numbers of household raids w/ electronics confiscations. Good luck telling them that your machine was hacked. With that defense, you might see your computer again after a few years of courthouse battle.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not Very Anonymous (Score:0, Interesting)
are they going to fine/jail everyone?
No, but if teens keep doing crap like this, other teens dressed in military gear might not question orders when told to "neutralize the cyber-terrorist commie scum". When the authoritarian regime suspends democracy, I'll blame Anonymous for being a convenient local foil that the regime could use to arrest/kill anyone. If you want to change politics for the better, go arrange a sit in, suffer a little in person. Don't pass the suffering on to others while sitting at home in your footie pajamas.
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:2, Interesting)
You obviously don't know that much then since it can easily be hidden.
Fax hacking is low-tier hackery.
This hasn't even been the first time it has been done.
Of course, those who are idiots and just obey very basic instructions will get caught since most of them are script kiddies amongst a select bunch who abuse the large numbers of anonymous people on the web with time to spare.
They develop the techniques and software, post it somewhere, direct some board to it, bham.
I love how you also fell for such an obvious troll that "anon", AKA, generic 4chan user that you are obviously blaming for this, is underage. /b/ mainly)
A good bunch of users are in their 20s-30s, well under a quarter of the people who visit it are genuinely underage. (the ones who frequent
And you wonder how i know this when "anonymous" users on an anonymous board. That is one thing you shall never know.
Re:Okay that's some funny shit (Score:4, Interesting)
hahahahaha faxed goatse
Actually, the best method would be to use a Black Fax [wikipedia.org] rather than something like stick figures or Goatse. Better yet, not only a simple Black Fax, but one that is looped, so that it endlessly feeds itself through the fax - assuming the originator is a fax machine itself. Otherwise if the fax is originating from a computer or IP address of some sort, then multiple pages of plain monotone black - with the emphasis on MULTIPLE :)
Re:Okay that's some funny shit (Score:5, Interesting)
That hurts, but is pretty juvenile and easily dealt with.
The best way to do it is if they faxed all those cables that Wikileaks has released. Black pages can be recycled easily. Sensitive data? That has to be shredded. And people who aren't supposed to be looking at these things may end up seeing them.
Imagine all the banks and Paypal and Amazon having to now deal with printouts of all the cables themselves - do they shred them? Recycle them without shredding? Also imagine people who shouldn't be looking at them looking at them accidentally (like all those trying to apply for federal jobs).
DDoS the fax? Doesn't do much. But use the fax to DDoS the company is more interesting because someone has to handle the document in the end, and they have to look at the incoming fax to determine routing. They may have to read the cables whether they want to or not to figure out if it's something to can or forward. Black pages - canned easily (and since it's all electronic these days, costs disk space). But pages and pages of readable material...
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:5, Interesting)
the law states that i can't falsify who i am when faxing - and that at the receivers request i must stop sending unsolicited faxes.
problem is... if i'm always busy (dialing your fax number) you can't exactly call me to ask me to stop - nor can you fax me to ask me.. best they can do and is within the law is to call the bell and request either an operator override and block the number and have the bell send the request.
either way given the short window given for this DoS as long as people aren't trying to hide who they are when sending them then they aren't breaking the law.
Re:Junk faxes are against the law (Score:5, Interesting)
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and FCC rules generally prohibit most unsolicited fax advertisements. In addition, the Junk Fax Prevention Act, passed by Congress in 2005, directs the FCC to amend its rules adopted pursuant to the TCPA regarding fax advertising.
A Black Fax [wikipedia.org] doesn't advertise anything or solicit anything and therefore cannot be realistically prosecuted under either act. I did actually read the Junk Fax Prevention Act in quite a bit of detail. It specifically covers advertising of some sort, no matter how it is passed as "Savings, information, value to the customer etc..." it has to be an ad of some sort.
So, Junk Fax Advertising is indeed against the law, but it is NOT against the law to send a fax to someone without prior dealings, or without their permission or without an "Opt out" clause.
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to think that the US == the entire world.
You seem to think geography matters when the big dogs want to put you behind bars. Just ask Julian.
Re:Mommy won't be happy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems unlikely anyone will go after dozens of kids behind international proxies.
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:4, Interesting)
Easily traced until you get to the POP of the Voip call. Or it's not out of a company's compromised phone system.
Sorry but prank calling phone numbers is 100% untraceable and easy to do in the world of Voip and tons of companies with outbound services that are not protected as well as they should be.
Phone calls are the easiest to hide behind, because they can't do the CSI trace the call crap. Your education in the matter is from TV and is very flawed.
Re:Yeah - Why not add a Federal Perjury Charge... (Score:0, Interesting)
The FBI could give a fuck - they're too busy sending operatives into mosques to try to gin up some terrorism arrests. For that matter, they had to admit publicly after 9/11 that they wouldn't bother chasing bank robbers who didn't get at least $50k and/or hurt somebody.
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:4, Interesting)
either way given the short window given for this DoS as long as people aren't trying to hide who they are when sending them then they aren't breaking the law.
Yes, yes they are. Read up on "harassment" for starters, and that's just the one I know off the top of my head.
Re:A life lived in fear is a life half lived. (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, what he is saying is pretty smart.
You see, when people get busted for smuggling drugs across the country, they generally get hit not because the cop said, he might have drugs, lets search him, but because they are speeding or sampling the merchandise and weaving or driving erratic or something. They failed to make themselves a small target.
The same goes with a concealed weapon. It's the people who show it to everyone who get busted for carrying it. Well, that unless they get busted for something else. In either case, they failed to make themselves a small target.
What he is saying is that if you don't want to get into trouble, don't do anything wrong. And if you do, do as little as noticeable so you don't become a big target on their radar.
Re:A what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Faxes aren't going anywhere any time soon. It is still more convenient for many tasks, and software hasn't done a great job when it comes to standardization of attachments. I still get email attachments from people who just installed the newest version of Microsoft Office, and when I tell them to save it in an older format, they have no fucking clue what that means. They just save in the default format, which is always the "new" format, and we don't run MS Office in our office, on purpose. We run OpenOffice (which is now LibreOffice) but I digress. So I tell them "Then fax it to me" because I don't have the time to explain why they are a 'tard for not knowing how to save a file as a "word 95" file.
And of course, what they end up sending me is nothing more than plain text anyway, which could have been done using Notepad, but they have no idea what that is. Sometimes they use a fancy font, usually one that is barely readable. We avoid this by simply having a "print to PDF" feature in our office, so we just send everyone a PDF when we email, unless of course we are just sending text, in which case we type it. Unless it is a page from an old owners manual, in which case we just copy it then fax it.
Have I made myself clear? No? Good. Because most people in the biz world are too busy trying to get business done to care how they get it, and faxing is easy, cheap and fast.
As for checks/cheques, they will also be around for a long time as they are handy for a creating paper trail and delaying payment for a couple days. And you can fax them to the other party to show them that the check is in the mail, which doesn't make much sense as technically, it is in a fax machine, but it makes them feel good if you are a week behind on the payment for some reason. Then you wait another week, send the check, and blame the post office. I times are really hard, you can just seal an empty envelope, then use a letter opener to open the empty envelope, then mail that, then when the receiving party says the envelope was open and empty, tell them that someone must have stolen the check, so it isn't your fault, and that you will send another check TODAY, which you then fax a copy of, wait one week, then mail.
So in short, the reason that faxes and cheques exist is that they are simple and efficient.
Re:Not Very Anonymous (Score:5, Interesting)
You may never see your computer again period.
Innocence is truly not a factor in these cases. They will come down on your hard enough to "put the fear of God" in you, so that you never make the mistake of even thinking of being an activist. That is if you are truly innocent, too.
Regardless, your computer is now evidence in another case, one that they will be building against the person that hacked your machine. Of course, that investigation could go on for years, then the inevitable court cases, multiple jurisdictions, possibly multiple countries involved, etc.
By the time you get your computer back from the evidence room everything will be on the Internet (translation Google) and accomplished by omni-present holographic interfaces in your whole house, including the shitter. More than likely you will get a form first asking if you want to donate it to the Smithsonian.