Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy

by Gabriella Coleman

  30.Parmy Olson, “Congressman Probing HBGary Scandal Fears ‘Domestic Surveillance,’” forbes.com, March 23, 2011.

  31.Barrett Brown, “The Cyber-Intelligence Complex and Its Useful Idiots,” theguardian.com, July 1, 2013.

  32.Tim Shorrock, “US Intelligence & Oursourcing,” last accessed June 17, 2014, available at http://timshorrock.com/?page_id=141.

  33.Tim Shorrock, “Put the Spies Back Under One Roof,” nytimes.com, June 17, 2013.

  8. LulzSec

  1.Steve Ragan of the Tech Herald also communicated with LulzSec members while reporting on a technical accounting of the hacks.

  2.2600, Twitter post, July 22, 2013, 10:22 am, http://twitter.com/2600/status/76931363755925504.

  3.“A Little FAQ About Me vs. Anonymous,” Asherah Research Group, May 24, 2012, last accessed June 24, 2014, available at http://www.back-trace-security.com/blog/844473-a-little-faq-about-me-vs-anonymous.

  4.“Anonymous Message to Sony about Taking Down Playstation Network,” YouTube video, posted by Johnny John, April 22, 2011, last accessed June 24, 2014, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTbLA_1nkgU.

  5.“The Light It Up Contest—Geohot,” YouTube video, posted by geohot, Feb. 12, 2011, last accessed July 7, 2014, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iUvuaChDEg.

  6.Cory Doctorow, “Embattled PS3 Hacker Raises Big Bank to Fight Sony,” boingboing.net, Feb. 22, 2011.

  7.Quoted in Jason Mick, “Anonymous Engages in Sony DDoS Attacks over GeoHot PS3 Lawsuit,” dailytech.com, April 4, 2011.

  8.Patrick Seybold, “Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity,” PlayStation.com, Apr. 26, 2011, last accessed, July 11, 2014.

  9.Colin Milburn, “Long Live Play: The PlayStation Network and Technogenic Life,” in Attractive Objects: The Furniture of the Technoscientific World, edited by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Sacha Loeve, Alfred Nordmann, and Astrid Schwartz (Pittsburgh: PA, University of Pittsburgh Press, forthcoming).

  10.Owen Good, “Welcome Back PSN: The Winners,” kotaku.com, May 21, 2011.

  11.Paul Tassi, “Sony Pegs PSN Attack Costs at $170 Million, $3.1B Total Loss for 2011,” forbes.com, May 23, 2011.

  12.“Sony Fined £250,000 After Millions of UK Gamers’ Details Compromised,” Information Commissioner’s Office, Jan. 24, 2013, last accessed June 24, 2014, available at http://www.ico.org.uk/news/latest_news/2013/ico-news-release-2013.

  13.“Outro,” HTP Zine 5 (2013), last accessed June 24, 2014, available at http://www.exploit-db.com/papers/25306.

  14.LulzSec, Twitter post, May 10, 2011, 7:52 am, http://twitter.com/LulzSec/status/68116303004708864.

  15.Picture taken by Alexander Sotirov. Republished with permission.

  16.For an excellent account covering the many threats plaguing Internet security, see Ron Deibert, Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet (Toronto: Signal, 2013).

  17.“Hackers Testifying at the United States Senate, May 19, 1998 (L0pht Heavy Industries),” YouTube video, posted by Joe Grand, March 14, 2011, last accessed June 24, 2014, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJldn_MmMY.

  18.In fact, in 2013, one security report estimated that there was a 30 percent increase in the total number of infiltrations compared to 2012. These numbers are not bulletproof, but they do give a sense of the depth and extent of infiltrations for a given year. See “ITRC 2013 Breach List Tops 600 in 2013,” Identity Theft Resource Center, Feb. 20, 2014, last accessed June 24, 2014, available at http://www.idtheftcenter.org/ITRC-Surveys-Studies/2013-data-breaches.html.

  19.Patrick Gray, “Why We Secretly Love LulzSec,” Risky Business, June 8, 2011, last accessed June 24, 2014, available at http://risky.biz/lulzsec.

  20.Michael Taussig, Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 5.

  21.See the TTI/Vanguard homepage at http://www.ttivanguard.com. Last accessed June 24, 2014.

  22.Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Routledge, 1979).

  23.A major Hollywood producer has recently purchased the film rights to a Rolling Stone story covering Operation Steubenville, an Anonymous operation concerning a rape case in Ohio. Until the movie is released, it is impossible to say whether the film will distort and tame Anonymous’ countercultural message.

  24.For a detailed discussion about the role aesthetics and hyperbole play in Nietzsche’s thought and writing, see Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).

  25.Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” (1891), available at http://philosophy.eserver.org/nietzsche-zarathustra.txt (last accessed July 7, 2014).

  26.Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 1: 1913–1926, eds. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 239.

  9. AntiSec

  1.Chris Hedges, “The Revolutionaries in Our Midst,” truthdig.com, Nov. 10, 2013.

  2.Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown.

  3.Ibid. The list of philes is a partial rendition of a longer one in Sterling’s account.

  4.hacktivists of the world, unite, “Philippine Hackers Target National Police, Demanding the Release of the Sagada 11!,” Indybay, March 22, 2006, last accessed June 25, 2014, available at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/03/22/18099531.php. See also “Electronic Civil Disobedience Journal,” Hack This Site, 2007, last accessed July 9, 2014, available at http://mirror.hackthissite.org/hackthiszine/hackthiszine5.txt

  5.Stuart Luman, “The Hacktivist,” chicagomag.com, June 25, 2007.

  6.“Operation Anti-Security,” June 19, 2011, last accessed June 25, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/9KyA0E5v.

  7.“Anti-Security: Save a Bug, Save a Life,” last accessed June 25, 2014, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20010301215117/http://anti.security.is.

  8.The Lulz Boat, Twitter post, June 4, 2011, 5:34 am, http://twitter.com/LulzSec/status/76960035145650177.

  9.Stephen Chapman, “Operation Anti-Security: LulzSec and Anonymous Target Banks and Governments,” zdnet.com, June 20, 2011.

  10.“Chinga La Migra Bulletin #1,” June 6 23, 2011, last accessed July 9, 2104, available at http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6490796/Chinga_La_Migra.

  11.“50 Days of Lulz,” June 25, 2011, last accessed June 25, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/1znEGmHa.

  12.Samantha Murphy, “Exclusive First Interview with Key LulzSec Hacker,” New Scientist, no. 2820 (July 9, 2011). Available at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20649-exclusive-first-interview-with-key-lulzsec-hacker.html#.U6bPdB_7Gi0. (Last accessed June 26, 2014.)

  13.Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, (Chicago: Dee, 2000 [1934]), 526.

  14.Topiary, Twitter post, July 21, 2011, 9:02 pm, https://twitter.com/atopiary/status/94225773896015872.

  15.Mark Schone et al., “Exclusive: Snowden Docs Show UK Spies Attacked Anonymous, Hackers,” nbcnews.com, Feb. 4, 2014.

  16.Chris Weatherhead, Twitter post, Feb. 5, 2014, 8:39 am, http://twitter.com/CJFWeatherhead/status/431059633071878144.

  17.Transcript, CNN Newsroom, Aug. 15, 2011, last accessed June 25, 2014, available at http://quiz.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1108/15/cnr.08.html.

  18.See Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism (London: Pluto Press, 2012).

  19.Available at http://bartlulz.weebly.com. (Last accessed June 25, 2014.)

  20.“Disguised Member of Hacktivist Group ‘Anonymous’ Defends Retaliatory Action Against BART,” democracynow.org, Aug. 16, 2011.

  21.“Untitled,” Aug. 19, 2011, last accessed June 25, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/zug52JVA.

  22.“Anonymous Is Not Unanimous,” Aug. 17, 2011, last accessed June 25, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/4vprKdXH.

  23.See Chantal Mouffe, “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?” Social Research, vol. 66, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 745–58.

  24.Brick Squad, vol. 1, last accessed June 25, 2014, ava
ilable at http://download.adamas.ai/dlbase/ezines/Br1ck_Squ4d/br1ck_squ4d_vol.1.txt.

  10. The Desire of a Secret Is to Be Told

  1.The Real Sabu, Twitter post, Aug. 17, 2011, 4:43 am, http://twitter.com/anonymouSabu/status/103763961064865792.

  2.The Real Sabu, Twitter post, Sep. 17, 2011, 1:43 pm, http://twitter.com/anonymousabu/status/115133670213435393.

  3.The Real Sabu, Twitter post, Sep. 17, 2011, 1:52 pm, http://twitter.com/anonymouSabu/status/115136117925347328.

  4.“USA v. Hector ‘Sabu’ Monsegur Transcript August 15, 2011,” last accessed June 27, 2014, available at http://cryptome.org/2013/02/usa-v-monsegur-11-0815.htm.

  5.Available at http://pastie.org/private/om3mrqvbdbmg8esddkcmw#2-3,347,353,365,376. (Last accessed June 27, 2014.)

  6.Nathan Schneider, Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 28.

  7.Drew Grant, “Hacker Hero ‘Weev’ Stops by Occupy Wall Street [Video],” observer.com, Oct. 21, 2011.

  8.Graham Jones, Tricks of the Trade: Inside the Magician’s Craft (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 94.

  9.Jeanne Mansfield, “Why I Was Maced at the Wall Street Protests,” Sept. 26, 2011, last accessed June 27, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/Wkckd9bR.

  10.“BadCop d0x,” Sept. 26, 2011, last accessed June 27, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/nC4f5uca.

  11.“Anthony Bologna, Pepper Spray NYPD Officer, Transferred to Work in Staten Island,” huffingtonpost.com, Oct. 26, 2011.

  12.Karen McVeigh, “Occupy Wall Street: ‘Pepper-Spray’ Officer Named in Bush Protest Claim,” theguardian.com, Sept. 27, 2011.

  13.“DoITT – Frequently Asked Questions – Public Pay Telephones,” NYC.gov, last accessed June 27, 2014, available at http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/html/faq/payphone.shtml.

  14.“Sabu / LulzSec leader,” June 7, 2011, last accessed June 27, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/TVnGwSmG. Some of the details of this event also came from Steve Fishman’s fascinating profile of Sabu, “‘Hello, I Am Sabu…,’” nymag.com, June 3, 2012.

  15.For thoughtful critiques of gender dynamics in geek communities, see geekfeminism.org.

  16.The role of weirdness is thoughtfully explored by hacker Meredith Patterson in her essay “When Nerds Collide,” medium.com, March 23, 2014.

  17.Quinn Norton, “How Antisec Died,” medium.com, Nov. 21, 2013.

  18.Schneider, Thank You, Anarchy, 76.

  19.“FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring,” Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, Dec. 22, 2012, last accessed June 27, 2014, available at http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/fbi-files-ows.html.

  20.Colin Moynihan, “Officials Cast Wide Net in Monitoring Occupy Protests,” nytimes.com, May 23, 2014.

  21.David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, eds. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 204.

  11. The Sabutage

  1.http://ulrikbrask.dk/operation-m4yh3m, last accessed July 5, 2014.

  2.Ibid.

  3.The Real Sabu, Twitter post, Dec. 24, 2011, 2:49 pm, http://twitter.com/anonymouSabu/status/150664330763964416.

  4.The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection (2007), last accessed July 9, 2014, available at http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/.

  5.“Operation m4yh3m,” last accessed July 9, 2104, available at http://ulrikbrask.dk/operation-m4yh3m.

  6.Ibid., Dec. 25, 2011, 3:54 pm, http://twitter.com/anonymouSabu/status/151043065501593601.

  7.Ibid., Dec. 25, 2011, 4:57 pm, http://twitter.com/anonymouSabu/status/151059108353683456.

  8.“Press Release: Stratfor Hack NOT Anonymous,” Dec. 25, 2011, last accessed June 30, 2014, available at http://pastebin.com/8yrwyNkt.

  9.Kevin Poulsen, “WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI,” wired.com, June 27, 2013.

  10.For a full list of participating sites see sopastrike.com.

  11.Chenda Ngak, “SOPA and PIPA Internet Blackout Aftermath, Staggering Numbers,” cbsnews.com, Dec. 19, 2012.

  12.Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra, and Howard Schmidt, “Combating Online Piracy While Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet,” We the People: Your Voice in Our Government, last accessed July 1, 2014, available at http://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet.

  13.Greg Sandoval, “New Zealand PM Apologizes to Kim Dotcom; Case Unraveling,” cnet.com, Sept. 27, 2012.

  14.Max Fisher, “Stratfor Is a Joke and So Is Wikileaks for Taking It Seriously,” theatlantic.com, Feb. 27, 2012.

  15.“Re: Wiki Hackers Talk to The Economist,” Global Intelligence Files, March 28, 2013, last accessed July 1, 2014, available at http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/10/1075390_re-wiki-hackers-talk-to-the-economist-.html.

  16.Steve Horn, “How to Win the Media War Against Grassroots Activists: Stratfor’s Strategies,” mintpressnews.com, July 29, 2013.

  17.Email communication with the author.

  18.Gary Ruskin, Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations, Center for Corporate Policy, 34. Available at http://www.corporatepolicy.org/spookybusiness.pdf.

  19.“Stratfor Statement on Wikileaks,” digitaljournal.com, Feb. 27, 2012.

  20.The Real Sabu, Twitter post, Feb. 3, 2012, 10:22 pm, http://twitter.com/anonymouSabu/status/165636278770077697.

  21.Jana Winter, “EXCLUSIVE: Inside LulzSec, a Mastermind Turns on His Minions,” foxnews.com, March 6, 2012.

  22.The Real Sabu, Twitter post, Aug. 16, 2011, 8:22 am, http://twitter.com/anonymousabu/status/103456479964700672.

  23.Nigel Parry, “Sacrificing Stratfor: How the FBI Waited Three Weeks to Close the Stable Door,” NigelParry.com, March 25, 2012, last accessed July 2, 2014, available at http://www.nigelparry.com/news/sacrificing-stratfor.shtml.

  24.Jana Winter, “EXCLUSIVE: Inside LulzSec, a Mastermind Turns on His Minions.”

  25.George Friedman, “The Hack on Stratfor,” Stratfor.com, Jan. 11, 2012, last accessed July 1, 2014, available at http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/hack-stratfor.

  26.Nicole Perlroth, “Inside the Stratfor Attack,” nytimes.com, March 12, 2012.

  27.Dell Cameron, “How an FBI Informant Orchestrated the Stratfor Hack,” dailydot.com, June 5, 2014.

  28.“Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison, Jeremy Hammond Uses Allocution to Give Consequential Statement Highlighting Global Criminal Exploits by FBI Handlers,” sparrowmedia.net, Nov. 15, 2013.

  29.Mark Mazzetti, “F.B.I. Informant Is Tied to Cyberattacks Abroad,” nytimes, April 23, 2014.

  30.Daniel Stuckey and Andrew Blake, “Exclusive: How FBI Informant Sabu Helped Anonymous Hack Brazil,” motherboard.vice.com, June 5, 2014.

  31.Alexandra Natapoff, Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice (New York: NYU Press, 2011), 44.

  32.Lee Romney, “Pressured to Name Names,” latimes.com, Aug. 7, 2006.

  33.Adam Goldman, “Lawsuit Alleges FBI Is Using No-Fly List to Force Muslims to Become Informants,” washingtonpost.com, April 22, 2014.

  34.“Notes on Sabu Arrest,” Errata Security, March 6, 2013, last accessed July 1, 2014, available at http://blog.erratasec.com/2012/03/notes-on-sabu-arrest.html#.U64Kjx_7Gb8.

  35.Parmy Olson, We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency (New York: Back Bay Books, 2013), 400.

  36.John Leyden, “Sabu Wasn’t the Only FBI Mole in LulzSec, Suggest Leaked Docs,” theregister.co.uk, Jan. 10, 2014.

  37.Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America, Revised Edition (New York: Penguin, 2006), 281.

  38.Brian Todd and Kevin Bohn, “Computers of Obama, McCain Campaigns Hacked,” cnn.com, Nov. 6, 2008.

  39.Online interview with the author.

  40.“Quebec Human Rights Commission Slams Bill 78,” cbc.ca, July 19, 2012, last accessed July 2, 2014, available at
cbc.ca, July 19, 2012.

  41.AnonOpsIndia, Twitter post, May 17, 2012, 6:08 am, http://twitter.com/opindia_revenge/status/203079500983050240.

  42.“Official Statement from Family and Partner of Aaron Swartz,” RememberAaronSw.com, Jan. 12, 2013, last accessed July 2, 2014, available at rememberaaronsw.com/memories.

  43.“Anonymous Operation Last Resort,” YouTube video, posted by Aarons ArkAngel, Jan. 26, 2013, last accessed July 7, 2014, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPni5O2YyI&feature=youtu.be.

  44.Jason Howerton, “Disturbing Video Leaked of Ohio High School Students Joking About Alleged Gang Rape,” theblaze.com, Jan. 2, 2013.

  45.David Kushner, “Anonymous vs. Steubenville,” rollingstone.com, Nov. 27, 2013.

  46.Trip Gabriel, “Inquiry in Cover-Up of Ohio Rape Yields Indictment of Four Adults,” nytimes.com, Nov. 25, 2013.

  47.“#OpJustice4Rehtaeh,” YouTube video, posted by Anonymous Canada, last accessed July 9, 2014, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_D_zvizzKA.

  48.Cited in Emily Bazelon, “Non-Consensual Sexting Leads to Child Pornography Charges for Two Men in Rehtaeh Parsons Case,” salon.com, Aug. 8, 2013.

  49.Ibid.

  50.Peggy Lowe and Monica Sandreczki, “Why Was the Maryville Rape Case Dropped?” kcur.org, July 11, 2013.

  51.Ariel Levy, “Trial by Twitter,” newyorker.com, Aug. 5, 2013.

  52.“Is Maryville the Next Steubenville?” Huffington Post Live, Oct. 16, 2013, last accessed July 1, 2014, available at http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/is-maryville-the-next-steubenville/525d71012b8c2a4a3d0000d2.

  53.Emily Bazelon, “The Online Avengers,” nytimes.com, Jan. 15, 2014.

  54.The discussion was prompted by Larisa Mann’s published commentary on a similar topic. Mann, “What Can Feminism Learn from New Media?,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (Summer, 2014): 1–5.

  55.Stephen Duncombe, Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy (New York: New Press, 2007).

  Conclusion: Daybreak

  1.Lauren Cornell, “Primary Documents” (interview with Laura Poitras), Mouse Magazine, Issue 40, last accessed July 7, 2014, available at http://www.moussemagazine.it/articolo.mm?id=1020.