News - Symantec held to ransom as pcAnywhere souce code gets leaked

Quote:

---

Symantec refuses to pay Anonymous 50K. Source code goes on Pirate Bay.

---

Read more.

The irony...

made me :lol:

This application is the least of their worries considering the rest of the Symantec arsenal of blue prints the hackers have.

Hmmm, I'm not sure I really understand where Anonymous are coming from anymore. Maybe I'm too young or too old to understand.

Like, I get them exposing security flaws and highlighting where peoples data isn't as safe as companies would like you to think. There should always be a group like that, testing these things. People get laidback otherwise and start cutting corners, as has been happening I think. It has the potential to make the internet a safer and securer place.

But holding companies to ransom?!? It's moving into the realms of internet terrorism to me. How long is it going to be before, the next time they hack a big database, they start holding peoples credit card information to ransom or even worse just post them up online for all the world to see/steal from?

Allow me to anticipate an arguement here. Yes, the company who originally held the data holds *some* responsibility. But once you've stolen data you're then responsible for what happens to it. If I find a gun lieing, unsecured, on the street, pick it up and shoot someone - accidently or otherwise - who is to blame? Me, or the person who left the gun there? Arguably, if the gun had never been left open for anyone to take, then maybe no one would have got shot. Equally, the moment I picked up the gun, I became responsible for what happens with it. While companies should be held to account for their security failings leading to a hack, Anonymous should be held to account for what they do with the data they steal!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kirano

Hmmm, I'm not sure I really understand where Anonymous are coming from anymore. Maybe I'm too young or too old to understand.

Like, I get them exposing security flaws and highlighting where peoples data isn't as safe as companies would like you to think. There should always be a group like that, testing these things. People get laidback otherwise and start cutting corners, as has been happening I think. It has the potential to make the internet a safer and securer place.

But holding companies to ransom?!? It's moving into the realms of internet terrorism to me. How long is it going to be before, the next time they hack a big database, they start holding peoples credit card information to ransom or even worse just post them up online for all the world to see/steal from?

Allow me to anticipate an arguement here. Yes, the company who originally held the data holds *some* responsibility. But once you've stolen data you're then responsible for what happens to it. If I find a gun lieing, unsecured, on the street, pick it up and shoot someone - accidently or otherwise - who is to blame? Me, or the person who left the gun there? Arguably, if the gun had never been left open for anyone to take, then maybe no one would have got shot. Equally, the moment I picked up the gun, I became responsible for what happens with it. While companies should be held to account for their security failings leading to a hack, Anonymous should be held to account for what they do with the data they steal!

---

Well said. Couldn't agree more. Anonymous are now nothing more than a bunch of criminals.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kirano

But holding companies to ransom?!? It's moving into the realms of internet terrorism to me. How long is it going to be before, the next time they hack a big database, they start holding peoples credit card information to ransom or even worse just post them up online for all the world to see/steal from?

---

That was already done when PSN got hacked. Sony refused to pay up ($500k) and it cost them a lot more in the long run.

It seems that we may well be entering a time where you cannot trust anyone with your data :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kirano

Like, I get them exposing security flaws and highlighting where peoples data isn't as safe as companies would like you to think. There should always be a group like that, testing these things. People get laidback otherwise and start cutting corners, as has been happening I think. It has the potential to make the internet a safer and securer place.

But holding companies to ransom?!? It's moving into the realms of internet terrorism to me. How long is it going to be before, the next time they hack a big database, they start holding peoples credit card information to ransom or even worse just post them up online for all the world to see/steal from?

---

Couldn't agree more - Anonymous as a group to keep big business "honest" is something I'd welcome - perhaps truer to the image of "V" that they like to "borrow". However, the treatment of Sony and now this seems to show them as nothing more than a criminal organisation only interested in lining their own pockets. Is this the head of Anonymous? (Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bl...leasance67.jpg)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...leasance67.jpg

I realise that Anonymous is (or was) a "house of many rooms" as such perhaps there's quite a few folks who do want to be "white knights", and it's only a minority who have set themselves up as SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tickleonthetum

Well said. Couldn't agree more. Anonymous are now nothing more than a bunch of criminals.

---

Some 'members' have always been into crime. That's why they're in the news. Although of course, the debate here is what should be classed as 'illegal'. Also, you do realise it's a collective that anyone can assume the mantle of member, a revolving door? It's a bit ridiculous to claim they are all criminals. And the assumption that being a criminal; no matter what for, is a negative thing. I'm not endorsing the theft and ransom by the way. Not at all!

On Saturday, I discovered a fairly large security hole in a website that I often use. The breach gave me the ability to access *any* of the site's 30,000+ members' Inboxes and view all of their messages. I discovered it while I was simply researching methods of coding similar website systems myself - a kind of "I wonder if they protected correctly against *this*" experiment.

Naturally, I informed the website developer with a polite email and informative re-pro steps, for which he was extremely thankful and we had a civilized exchange about his other plans for the website. I didn't do it because I'm some kind of hero, I did it because I'm a half-decent human being with a passion for writing code myself.

"White-hat hacking" is very, very cool. Anonymous' attitude to this particular incident, however, is plain disgusting, downright criminal, and really saddens me to see. I hope whoever responsible is brought to justice.

After doing a 10k report on hacking and network security... this just takes the biscuit!

Symantec was the company everyone hated, it was the tech guys inside joke so to speak :D. This is to far, i had a small amount of respect for these groups as "Grey" hat hackers(hacking without permission but not malicious intent and inform website of issues etc) but as soon as the playstation network incident they have been nothing but "black" hat hackers i.e fracking criminals doing malicious stuff. Im sorry but you can call yourself a group for the public when you steal public credit information etc (regardless if sony was being shoddy at keeping it!) and then releasing it in the wild, its pathetic and hurts the public not protecting them.

Now this, holding companies to ransom? Seriously these people (most likely kids?) are a piss take, if i EVER find a member near me, they will be swiftly in hospital for being a general ****.

Gets me so angry that they think this is acceptable... hopefully we have some actual good (white hat) hackers that will turn this on them, like a good few years back a guy(Name escapes me..) helped the fbi etc find out where this "hacker" was and got him arrested, need that to happen to this shoddy bunch of crooks!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hicks12

Gets me so angry that they think this is acceptable... hopefully we have some actual good (white hat) hackers that will turn this on them, like a good few years back a guy(Name escapes me..) helped the fbi etc find out where this "hacker" was and got him arrested, need that to happen to this shoddy bunch of crooks!

---

Wasn't that Die Hard 4? :p

hahaha! No it was older than die hard 4 but that was an epic film :P

Totally agree with Kirano. Nicely put.

Symantec claim it was part of a sting meanwhilst Anonymousirc over on twitter is claiming that the $50,000 was to go to a charity and the code was always going too be leaked. Spin and counter spin.

I will admit that anonymous has appealed to me. Even the very name, the V mask all appealed to my long past teen sense of rebellion. The anonymous that ddos's RIAA et al websites, the anonymous that helped release wikileaks, the anonymous that helped with the Arab spring. The lulzsec that went after the NOW websites. All this as a form of protest. All this I believe we need. This may be a new form of protest, a cyber protest but it enables people who have long been apathetic to vent/ protest.

But Anonymou$ that steals and extorts! This I can do without. This is terrorism plain and simple.

Also I hadn't realised that anyone had claimed the playstation hack.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TaintedShirt

I will admit that anonymous has appealed to me. Even the very name, the V mask all appealed to my long past teen sense of rebellion. The anonymous that ddos's RIAA et al websites, the anonymous that helped release wikileaks, the anonymous that helped with the Arab spring. The lulzsec that went after the NOW websites. All this as a form of protest. All this I believe we need. This may be a new form of protest, a cyber protest but it enables people who have long been apathetic to vent/ protest. But Anonymou$ that steals and extorts! This I can do without. This is terrorism plain and simple.

---

:thumbsup: like the distinction you make: "Anonymous" = "cyber protest movement" whereas "Anonymou$" = "cyber terrorist/extortionists"

Maybe I'm just easily led, but I always suspected that the "Elliot Carver" character in "Tomorrow Never Dies" was loosely based on the Murdoch empire, in which case Anonymous' targetting of NOW was okay in my book.

The Money was to go to charity not themselves. More like Robin Hood to me so i can agree with that.