The law prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization. Prior to computer-specific criminal laws, computer crimes were prosecuted as mail and wire fraud, but the applying law was often insufficient.
Master of Deception was one of the most notorious groups of hackers, founded in the late 1980s. It was founded by Acid Phreak, HAC, and Scorpion. Their initial hack was various minicomputers and mainframes that were used in the telephone network. This group included 14 members. They were also responsible for stealing thousands of credit card details and breaking into AT&T’s server.
The Computer Misuse Act (CMA) was drafted in 1990 as the law governing the way that individuals can lawfully access data on a machine. Crucially, it criminalised any unauthorised access to data or the practice of making modifications to stored information without the permission of the owner.
On January 24, 1990, Abene and other MOD members had their homes searched and property seized by the U.S. Secret Service largely based on government suspicions of having caused AT&T Corporation's network crash just over a week earlier on January 15.
In February 1991, Abene was arrested and charged with computer tampering and computer trespass in the first degree, New York state offenses. Laws at the time were considered a “gray area” concerning information security. Abene, who was a minor at the time, pleaded "not guilty" to the first two offenses and ultimately accepted a plea agreement to a lesser misdemeanor charge, and was sentenced to 35 hours of community service.
Abene and four other members of the Masters of Deception were also arrested in December 1991 and indicted by a Manhattan federal grand jury on July 8, 1992, on an 11-count charge. The indictment relied heavily on evidence collected by court-approved wiretapping of telephone conversations between MOD members. g.it was the "first investigative use of court-authorized wiretaps to obtain conversations and data transmissions of computer hackers" in the United States.
h.According to a July 9, 1992 newsletter from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the defendants faced a maximum term of 50 years in prison and fines of $2.5 million if found guilty on all counts. Despite the fact that Abene was a minor at the time the crimes were allegedly committed, was only involved in a small fraction of the sub-charges, and often in a passive way, a plea arrangement resulted in by far the harshest sentence: 12 months imprisonment, three years probation and 600 hours of community service.
In 2003, the Anonymous originated on the imageboard 4chan whereby making users anonymous their arguments would be judged on their own merits. users of 4chan's /b/ message boards were collectively referring to themselves as "Anonymous" whenever they organized internet pranks (the name comes from 4chan users posting anonymously on the site, as you don't have to register for an account.
a group of 4chan users calling themselves /b/lockers decided to raid social networking game Habbo Hotel by forming blockades around the entrances of popular hangouts, exploiting a technical issue that wouldn't allow avatars to walk through each other when entering and exiting premises. The "operation" was called "Pool's Closed" and featured an avatar horde of black men with afros wearing business suits gathering en masse in front of the game's pool area (and other popular areas) to prevent other users from entering.
a YouTube upload called "Message to Scientology" marked a turning point in the history of Anonymous, in which the activist Gregg Housh threatened the Church of Scientology, which they accused of attempting to censor the internet, using tactics like denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the church’s websites, prank phone calls and faxing the church black pages to waste their printer ink. It's the most prominent early instance of Anonymous' “hacktivism”. Scientology have generated considerable opposition and controversy, in some instances due to their illegal activities.
In late June 2008, users who identified themselves as Anonymous claimed responsibility for a series of attacks against the SOHH (Support Online Hip Hop) website. The attack was reported to have begun in retaliation for insults made by members of SOHH's "Just Bugging Out" forum against members of Anonymous.
members of Anonymous targeted South Pasadena, California teen McKay Hatch who runs the No Cussing Club, a website against profanity. As Hatch's home address, phone number, and other personal information were leaked on the internet, his family has received hate mail, obscene phone calls, and bogus pizza and pornography deliveries.
Operation Chanology opened the door in the hive mind's eye to more politically motivated global operations, like Anonymous' support of the green movement in Iran that year, too. Following allegations of vote rigging after the results of the June 2009 Iranian presidential election were announced, declaring Iran's incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner, thousands of Iranians participated in demonstrations. Anonymous, together with The Pirate Bay, established the Iranian Green Party Support Site Anonymous Iran during the protests, providing several tools to circumvent the Iranian regime's Internet censorship. The site provides resources and support to Iranians who are protesting.
(9)the group reawakened "in order to protect civil rights" after several governments began to block access to its imageboards. Early in the evening of September 9, Anonymous took down the prime minister's website with a distributed denial-of-service attack. The site was taken offline for approximately one hour.
The first person to be sent to jail for participation in an Anonymous DDoS attack was Dmitriy Guzner, an American 19-year-old. He admitted role in attack on Church of Scientology's websites and pleaded guilty to "unauthorized impairment of a protected computer" in November 2009 and was sentenced to 366 days in U.S. federal prison.
Occurred from 10, 2010 as a protest against the Australian Government over the forthcoming internet filtering legislation and the perceived censorship in pornography of small-breasted women (who are perceived to be underage) and female ejaculation. Hours earlier, Anonymous uploaded a video message to YouTube, addressed to Kevin Rudd, and Seven News, presenting a list of demands and threats of further action if they were not met.
The plan for Operation Payback was initially made by the users of 4chan as a response to the DDoS attacks carried out by Indian company Aiplex Software, who were hired by major media companies to carry out the said DDoS attacks against music and movie torrent-sharing sites, most notably The Pirate Bay. Anonymous was seeking retaliation for the shutdown of The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing site, and against financial institutions that refused to process payments for the pro-transparency organization WikiLeaks, the indictment said. they opposed its "stated philosophy of making all information free for all, including information protected by copyright laws or national security considerations," according to the indictment filed in federal court in Virginia.
November 3rd, 2010, the gorup managed to bring Copyright.gov offline for about half an hour before the site began to respond again slowly. Shortly after the news of the attacks, F.B.I launched an investigation to track down the infiltrators.
Beginning on December 7th, 2010, a series of DDos assaults led by the Anonymous under Operation Avenge Assange successfully brought down PayPal, Visa and MasterCard's websites in retaliation against their decision to suspend all transactions with WikiLeaks, reportedly under political pressure from the U.S. State Department. Some of the other targeted sites included Amazon, Swiss Postal Finance as well as a number of U.S. government websites and various cybersecurity contractor firms.
British police arrested five young men following an investigation into Internet activists who carried out cyber-attacks against groups they viewed as enemies of the WikiLeaks website. “The arrests were related to recent ‘distributed denial of service’ (DDoS) attacks by an online group calling themselves Anonymous,” London police said in a statement.
The Arab Spring was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in response to corruption and economic stagnation and was first started in Tunisia. The websites of the government of Tunisia were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents and the Tunisian Revolution.
The website for the Irish political party, a centre right party in coalition government with the Labour Party, was hacked by Anonymous during the 2011 general election campaign according to TheJournal.ie. The site was replaced with a page showing the Anonymous logo along with the words "Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party, and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech, yet they censor your voice. WAKE UP! "
Anonymous was divided on the 2011 Libyan civil war, while they hacked into Libyan government websites, and persuaded the host of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's personal website to take it down, other members of the group sided with the dictator in what they called "Operation Reasonable Reaction".
During the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Egyptian government websites, along with the website of the ruling National Democratic Party, were hacked into and taken offline by Anonymous. The sites remained offline until President Hosni Mubarak stepped down.
On March 14, 2011, the group Anonymous began releasing emails it said were obtained from Bank of America. According to the group, the files show evidence of "corruption and fraud" and relate to the issue of improper foreclosures.
six members of Internet Feds (a group in rivalry with Anonymous) founded the group LulzSec. LulzSec drew its name from the neologism "lulz", (from lol), "laughing out loud", which represents laughter, and "Sec", short for "Security". The motto "Laughing at your security since 2011!". As its name suggests, LulzSec claims to be interested in mocking and embarrassing companies by exposing security flaws rather than stealing data for criminal purposes.
LulzSec hacks into the databases of TV show X-Factor, releasing contestant information including personal details. Fox’s databases, LinkedIn profiles and Twitter accounts were also compromised. The hackers proclaimed the attack was in defense of the rapper Common, who had been allegedly called “vile” on the Fox News Channel.
LulzSec infiltrates UK ATM transaction logs, stealing individual bank account details from 3100 ATMs.
LulzSec publishes the “innards” of a Sony database, part of a long running campaign against the electronics and technology giant, stating on their Twitter that they “just want to embarrass Sony some more.”
In May 2011, members of Lulz Security gained international attention for hacking the American Public Broadcasting System (PBS) website. They stole user data and posted a fake story on the site which claimed that Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls were still alive and living in New Zealand. Lulz Security claimed that some of its hacks, including its attack on PBS, were motivated by a desire to defend WikiLeaks and Chelsea Manning.
In June 2011, members of the group claimed responsibility for an attack against Sony Pictures that took data that included "names, passwords, e-mail addresses, home addresses and dates of birth for thousands of people." The group claimed that it used a SQL injection attack and was motivated by Sony's legal action against George Hotz for jailbreaking the PlayStation 3. The group claimed it would launch an attack that would be the "beginning of the end" for Sony. “Everything we have will be published in multiple ways to ensure maximum embarrassment and exposure for Sony and their security flaws,” the group tweeted. Some of the compromised user information was subsequently used in scams. The group claimed to have compromised over 1,000,000 accounts, though Sony claimed the real number was around 37,500.
LulzSec emails the British NHS, informing them of a security vulnerability discovered by hackers. In the email, LulzSec states that they do not intend to exploit the flaw: “we mean you no harm and only want to help you fix your tech issues.”
They obtained and published around 26,000 e-mail addresses and passwords. The reason? For “mild fun.” Following the breach, Facebook locked the accounts of all users who had used the published e-mail addresses, and also blocked new Facebook accounts opened using the leaked e-mail addresses, fearing that users of the site would get hacked after LulzSec encouraged people to try and see if these people used identical username and password combinations on Facebook as well.
On June 12, 2011, there was a DDoS attack on the website of the Spanish Police, starting at 21:30 GMT. Anonymous claimed responsibility the following day, stating that the attack was a "direct response to the Friday arrests of three individuals alleged to be associated with acts of cyber civil disobedience attributed to Anonymous." The site was down for approximately an hour as a result of their efforts.
LulzSec hacked into the Bethesda Game Studios network and posted information taken from the network onto the Internet, though they refrained from publishing 200,000 compromised accounts. LulzSec posted to Twitter regarding the attack, "Bethesda, we broke into your site over two months ago. We've had all of your Brink users for weeks, please fix your junk, thanks!" "We're going to release lots of Bethesda/ZeniMax data today—however we might not release their 200,000+ users as we love Call of Cthulhu," another Twitter message from the group stated. Then the group began the threats. "Bethesda, give everyone more info on Skyrim and we'll keep the user database to ourselves. However, we are going to embarrass you anyway," the group wrote. They then asked for a LulzSec top hat to be added to Skyrim.
On 13 June, LulzSec released the e-mails and passwords of a number of users of senate.gov, the website of the United States Senate.[76] The information released also included the root directory of parts of the website. LulzSec stated, "This is a small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data from senate.gov – is this an act of war, gentlemen? Problem?"
On 14 June 2011, LulzSec took down four websites by request of fans as part of their "Titanic Take-down Tuesday". These websites were Minecraft, League of Legends, The Escapist, and IT security company FinFisher. Most of the takedowns were performed with distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS). On 15 June, LulzSec took down the main server of S2 Games' Heroes of Newerth as another phone request. They claimed, "Heroes of Newerth master login server is down. They need some treatment. Also, DotA is better."
On June 15, 2011, the group launched attacks on ninety-one websites of the Malaysian government in response to the blocking of websites like WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay within the country, which the group labels censorship of a basic human right to information.
On 15 June, LulzSec launched an attack on the public website of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, taking the website offline with a distributed denial-of-service attack.
The FBI arrested 21-year-old Lance Moore in Las Cruces, New Mexico, accusing him of stealing thousands of documents and applications from AT&T that LulzSec published as part of their so called "final release".
Lulzsec releases a statement announcing that it is teaming up with hacker group Anonymous, encouraging supporters to hack into, steal, and publish classified government information, essentially a declaration of cyberwarfare against big government and corporations. The announcement was followed by a series of attacks, first targeting the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), a national law enforcement agency of the United Kingdom and then a Chinese government website, jhq.gov.cn.
On June 20, 2011, members of the group took down the websites of the Orlando, Florida Chamber of Commerce and inserted a message into the website of the Universal Orlando Resort requesting that users "boycott Orlando". The group did so in response to the arrests of members of Food Not Bombs for feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park against city ordinances.
On 21 June 2011, the London Metropolitan Police announced that they had arrested a 19-year-old man from Wickford, Essex, named by LulzSec and locally as Ryan Cleary, as part of an operation carried out in cooperation with the FBI. The suspect was arrested on charges of computer misuse and fraud, and later charged with five counts of computer hacking under the Criminal Law Act and the Computer Misuse Act. Although LulzSec denied the man arrested was a member, a member of LulzSec claimed that the suspect was not part of the group but did host one of its IRC channels on his server.
LulzSec attack the Arizona Department of Public Safety, releasing email addresses and passwords, as well as hundreds of documents marked "sensitive" or "for official use only". Arizona police have complained that the release of officer identities and the method used to combat gangs could endanger the lives of police officers.
On 25 June 2011, LulzSec released what they described as their last data dump. The release contained an enormous amount of information from various sources. The files contained a half gigabyte of internal information from telecommunication company AT&T, username and password combinations from several websites, and an internal manual for AOL engineering staff and a screencapture of a vandalized page from navy.mil, the website of the United States Navy.
CNN reported at least 14 people were arrested in New York, New Jersey, Florida and San Francisco Bay Area as part of an ongoing FBI investigation of the notorious “Anonymous” collective, citing a senior federal law enforcement official. It was later reported by Wired that the first 14 arrestees were charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The Police Central E-Crime Unit arrested an 18-year-old man "Jake Davis" from Shetland on 27 July 2011 suspected of being LulzSec member Topiary. He was charged with unauthorized access of a computer under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, encouraging or assisting criminal activity under the Serious Crime Act 2007, conspiracy to launch a denial-of-service attack against the Serious Organised Crime Unit contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977, and criminal conspiracy also under the Criminal Law Act 1977. His lawyer Gideon Cammerman stated that, while his client did help publicize LulzSec and Anonymous attacks, he lacked the technical skills to have been anything but a sympathizer.
On July 3, 2011, two officers of the BART Police shot and killed Charles Hill at Civic Center Station in San Francisco. Hill was allegedly carrying a knife. On August 12, 2011, BART shut down cellphone services on the network for three hours in an effort to hamper possible protests against the shooting and to keep communications away from protesters at the Civic Center station in San Francisco. In response to Bay Area Rapid Transit's shutdown of cell phone service in an attempt to disconnect protesters from assembling in response to a police shooting, as well as the shooting itself, Anonymous sent out a mass email/fax bomb to BART personnel and organized multiple mass physical protests at the network's Civic Center station. Anonymous also hacked the BART website, releasing the personal information of 102 BART police officers, as well as account information for about 2,000 customers.
Chris Doyon (alias "Commander X"), a self-described leader of Anonymous, was arrested in September 2011 for a cyberattack on the website of Santa Cruz County, California.[252][253] He jumped bail in February 2012 and fled across the border into Canada.
On 22 September 2011, the FBI arrested Cody Kretsinger, a 23-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona who was indicted on charges of conspiracy and the unauthorized impairment of a protected computer. On 19 April 2013, Kretsinger was sentenced for the "unauthorized impairment of protected computers" to one year in federal prison, one year of home detention following the completion of his prison sentence, a fine of $605,663 in restitution to Sony Pictures and 1000 hours of community service.
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