Wikileaks's symbol for the Stratfor email leak

Wikileaks dropped a bomb on Texas-based "global intelligence company" Stratfor late Sunday with "The Global Intelligence Files," a dump of over 5 million hacked emails containing confidential information about Stratfor's informers, psych ops, pay-offs and the methods they use to make the payments. Anonymous has proudly taken credit for the hack via @YourAnonNews:

To clarify to all journalists - YES, #Anonymous gave the STRATFOR emails obtained in the 2011 LulzXmas hack to WikiLeaks. #GIFiles

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 27, 2012

Considering the confidential nature of Stratfor's business, this may truly be a devastating blow:

Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS : "What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like". The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff : "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012.

The email dump apparently reveals Stratfor-paid moles in the press. Describing Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, employed by the newspaper Haaretz, as "an information mule," Wikileaks states that Mr. Melman "conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel."

Other media organizations are name-checked in the emails as well, according to Wikileaks's release. Wikileaks states that Stratfor made "secret" arrangements with outlets "from Reuters to the Kiev Post."

"While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media organisations," writes Wikileaks, "because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation [...] these relationships are corrupt or corrupting."

The Wikileaks release makes it clear that some of the motivation for dumping the intelligence firm's dirty business into the ether is, for lack of a better word, personal:

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.

A quick review of some of the emails in the early release seemed to confirm many of Wikileaks's introductory claims regarding their content. Review also revealed that an article regarding the "Ground Zero Mosque," written for the New York Observer by Mark Ames in September, 2010 drew the interest of Stratfor staffers, who considered it "very conspiratorial, but interesting."

UPDATE: Stratfor has responded to the leak with a press release. The company refers to the stolen emails as "a deplorable, unfortunate — and illegal — breach of privacy" and addresses the nebulous nature of "stolen" digital data--how it can be easily altered:

Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic. We will not validate either. Nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them.

Stratfor's statement goes on to call the release of the emails "a direct attack" and "another attempt to silence and intimidate the company, and one we reject."

More about one of Stratfor's potentially embarrassing internal documents here. Also, Stratfor's Facebook page may not be available much longer, given the tenor of some of the most recent comments.

Image via AnonNCarolina2, Twitter

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun implementing a $1 billion face recognition program that will probably scare everyone outside of law enforcement.  NewScientist reports that the Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will lump iris scans, biometrics, DNA and even voice prints into one formidable profiling tool and some states are already using the program in a limited fashion. The whole thing will be in effect across the country in about 2 years. NewScientist addresses the privacy problem:

Ideally, such technological advancements will allow law enforcement to identify criminals more accurately and lead to quicker arrests. But privacy advocates are worried by the broad scope of the FBI's plans. They are concerned that people with no criminal record who are caught on camera alongside a person of interest could end up in a federal database, or be subject to unwarranted surveillance.

While NewScientist notes the FBI won't disclose anything about the algorithms used in the program, they report the "technology could be very accurate if applied to photographs taken in controlled situations such as passport photos or police shots."

NGI may light a new fire under Anonymous. The hacktivist collective has for some time been sounding the death knell for privacy online as well as in public, citing both the TrapWire surveillance system brought to light by hacked Stratfor emails and Europe's similar INDECT surveillance system. To Anonymous, NGI may just be the most concrete evidence yet that they have a point, and more people need to pay attention.

On Friday Anonymous announced #OpBigBrother and issued a call for worldwide protests by privacy advocates on October 20, 2012. NGI may be the thing they need to ensure the October protest is just the first of many to come.

No, seriously, you should expect this.

Anonymous has pretty much had all it can take of The New York Times’s bullshit and it's not going to take it anymore. That's the upshot of this "Anonymous Declaration of #OpNYT” posted on Pastebin sometime late yesterday. #OpNYT certainly sounds ominous, but as Gawker's Adrian Chen noted in a tweet, "Anonymous' press releases get somehow get longer-winded every time."

This long-windedness makes it tough to parse what the eternally seething hacktivist collective is trying to say. In this instance Wikileaks, Stratfor and HBGary are all name-checked before the declaration segues into, inevitably, the Orwellian global surveillance system currently loathed by privacy activists everywhere, TrapWire. The Times’s minimal coverage of TrapWire (a system apparently controlled by the Cubic Corporation, which is referenced below) appears to have pushed Anonymous's "epic invective" button:

The facts on Trapwire have since been confirmed by a series of other outlets ranging from The Daily Caller to Pravda to The New American to NBC.com to Cryptome, and by six Australian outlets that were promptly forced to delete the assertion via Cubic's powerful lawyers - but these facts have yet to be acknowledged by the NYT nor by those other outlets that still think highly of the Grey Lady despite her being a filthy, poorly-composed whore - Thomas Friedman's syphilitic dominatrix.

Anonymous also cries "Death to this horrid paper" before essentially saying we shouldn't get out the popcorn in preparation for an epic hack.  Anons are asked to spread "these and other failures of the New York Times by attaching the info to those deeds to come, and by encouraging all Anons to assist in this brief engagement" in conjunction with other ops, including #OpTrapWire.

After this call to arms, Anonymous mentions an interesting nugget of information--someone may have recently changed The New York Times’s website administrator's password. Anonymous, however, does not approve, writing that such a prank is "amusing" but not part of the "generally-accepted Anonymous tradition of non-aggression via hacking or DOS towards publications not run (officially) by the state. Gawker has been only exception, lol Kayla."

The #OpNYT announcement closes with, "Don't wait. Retaliate. We do not forget."

We did not expect that.

No, seriously, you should expect this.

Hacktivist collective Anonymous has teamed with a group called The Peoples Liberation Front (PLF) to begin a unified assault against a new nemesis: all-seeing Orwell-approved surveillance system TrapWire. In a press release published today, they explain why TrapWire should make everyone nervous:

"The more we learn about TrapWire and similar systems, it becomes absolutely clear that we must at all costs shut this system down and render it useless. A giant AI electronic brain able to monitor us through a combination of access to all the CCTV cameras as well as all the online social media feeds is monstrous and Orwellian in it's implications and possibilities. The Peoples Liberation Front and Anonymous will now put forth a call to arms, and initiate the doom of this evil and misbegotten program."

The PLF and Anonymous say they plan to spread as much information as possible "about TrapWire and it's (sic) related technologies and programs." They've also issued an "ACTION ALERT" (capslock theirs) for "Smash A Cam Saturday," which sounds like a great lead-in to "Call Mom to Bail You Out Sunday."

Linking to a map of known/possible TrapWire-affiliated cameras across the U.S., the groups suggest protesters "sabotage at least one CCTV per week." They also provide a link to an online guide that purports to give instruction in best methods for CCTV camera destruction.

The operation also seeks to disable "fake personas on social media" allegedly associated with TrapWire's vast network by "creating thousands of phony accounts and use them to produce a deluge of false triggers for the TrapWire program." Which might make Twitter and Facebook even more interesting than usual in the coming days.

TrapWire burst breathlessly into public consciousness nearly a week ago after mentions of it in hacked Stratfor emails were promoted as evidence of a creepily far-reaching effort to create the ultimate surveillance state. While some treated the revelation as a new and world-changing leak, the truth is TrapWire has been a known quantity to some degree for years. In his 2008 Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, Tim Shorrock discussed TrapWire's creator, Abraxas Corporation, and described the software clearly as a system of "algorithms that allow digital surveillance systems to detect patterns of suspicious behavior." Shorrock also reported TrapWire was "being tested by police departments in New York and Los Angeles" at the time.

It may have taken interested parties like the PLF and Anonymous four years to notice TrapWire and that may discount some of the hype, but it doesn't change the fact they're sinking their teeth in now and probably won't stop till they think they've struck bone.

Secret startup in Mississippi, Twin Creeks, has developed technology they claim can cut the cost of solar cells in half [Technology Review]

Social transparency investment platform eToro raises $15 million in a venture round led by Spark Capital [TechCrunch]

Hacker group "The Consortium" breaks into porn site Digital Playground and steals the data of 70,000 customers including names, email addresses and credit card information [Adult Video News]

A New York man is suing Apple for misrepresenting Siri's performance in TV ads [The Register]

FBI: $700 thousand dollars of unauthorized charges were made on credit cards compromised during the Stratfor hack [CNET]

Yahoo sues Facebook for patent infringement [AllThingsD]

via Fox News

This morning, officials on two continents raided top members of the hacker group LulzSec, an offshoot of Anonymous. According to a Fox News exclusive, the evidence used against them had been gathered by Hector Xavier Monsegur or “Sabu,” who was outed as LulzSec's leader last June. Sources told Fox that Sabu had been working with the government for months.

Under the alias "Sabu," Mr. Monsegur, an unemployed, 28-year-old father of two, "allegedly commanded a loosely organized, international team of perhaps thousands hackers from his nerve center in a public housing project on New York’s Lower East Side."

Mr. Monsegur apparently started working as a cooperating witness when he was identified by the FBI and pleaded guilty to "hacking-related charges" in August, in a case that will be unsealed today.

Officials believe LulzSec is responsible for billions of dollars in damage for malwebolence against the CIA, FBI, defense contractors, Fox, and Sony, among other corporations, international banks, and government entities.

As part of the raid, three men were arrested and two were charged with conspiracy. The indictment was filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York and is expected to be unsealed this morning. Of the five suspects, two men were from Great Britiain, two were from Ireland, and one was from Chicago.

Among those expected to be identified in the indictment, says Fox, are Jeremy Hammond aka “Anarchaos,” of Chicago, Jake Davis, aka “Topiary,” and Ryan Ackroyd, aka “Kayla” of London. Mr. Hammond, reportedly also a member of Anonymous, was allegedly behind the hack on Stratford, the U.S. security firm. Last July, the UK police arrested a 19-year-old believed to be "Topiary," who was once called LulzSec's "No. 2." Mr. Ackroyd, Sabu's "top deputy," according to Fox, allegedly found vulnerabilities in the U.S. Senate's computer systems and sent the intel to Sabu.

“This is devastating to the organization,” said an FBIofficial involved with the investigation. “We’re chopping off the head of LulzSec.”

In sharing theories on why LulzSec, the tech-smart "rocker hackers" disbanded last June, The Week quipped, 'Why quit while you're ahead" Reason number one? Getting caught.

In June, LulzSec announced its retirement (after "50 days of lulz") with the tweet, "What a coincidence. George Orwell was born on this day. (25 June 1903)." Shortly after that, the group jumped back to the Anonymous bandwagon to continue hacking governments under "Operation Anti-Sec."

In his remarks at the R.S.A. Conference Thursday, the A.P. reports Mr. Mueller listed losses to cyber-criminals: "We are losing data, we are losing money, we are losing ideas and we are losing innovation," he said. Mr. Mueller also told attendees that together they "must find a way to stop the bleeding."

Mr. Mueller may have had an ideal audience for his remarks--this year's R.S.A. Conference also has an eye toward companies concerned about possibly falling prey to the Anonymous DDoS or email hack:

Protecting yourself and your company against cyber attacks and those who launch them is a full-time job. You need up-to-the-minute information, the latest technology, insight into techniques and trends, and so much more. And you'll get all of it at RSA® Conference 2012.

Mr. Mueller tried to calm businesses worried about the P.R. crises that sometimes follow a major cyber-attack, stating that the F.B.I. does "not want you to feel victimized a second time by one of our investigations."

Tumblr hires over two dozen employees a year after opening its first office outside of NYC [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

Wikileaks begins publishing over five million internal emails from security company Stratfor [Pastebin]

Adobe Photoshop Touch is now available on the iPad for $9.99 [Engadget]

ZenCash, a new online payment system, takes the hassle out of going after debtors by reminding them to pay up [VentureBeat]

Nokia introduces a new entry-level smart phone [TechCrunch]

They didn't want to actually be headless.

Corporate execs and governments with secrets to hide may lay awake at night fretting about the possibility that Anonymous will hack their systems and expose their secrets.

But there are things that keep Anonymous up at night as well . . . Like, say, Los Zeta, the powerful Mexican drug cartel.

According to Forbes, a Mexican newspaper called Milenio, says that Anon has cancelled "OpCartel": its plan to expose a cache of information about Los Zeta.

A YouTube video a month earlier from a hacker in a Guy Fawkes mask claimed Anon had intel on taxi drivers, police officers and journalists who worked with the cartel.

In Milenio, however, Anon supporters said the operation was cancelled because of the risks. One claimed, "They continue other operations but for now we hope to make clear that the cartel operation is false.”

That may not be the full story as  @Sm0k34n0n, a Twitter account that has been sending out OpCartel updates, claimed that backing down would make them complicit with Zetas, tweeting, “the #OpCartel plan will follow.”

Forbes says:

Whether it goes ahead or not, this could be the first Anonymous operation with real potential to lead to a loss of life. The security company Stratfor claims Los Zetas has already deployed teams of computer experts to “track those individuals involved in the online anti-cartel campaign.”

That’s bad news for anyone that, correctly or incorrectly, gets tracked down. Last August and September, for instance, Mexicans with connections to separate blogs and websites campaigning against cartels were killed.

Things that scare Betabeat: this op.