Posts tagged Arrested
Alleged Leader Of Hacker Group LulzSec Arrested In Australia
Apr 23rd
Investigators in Australia have arrested the self-proclaimed leader of LulzSec, the hacker group and Anonymous offshoot that previously claimed responsibility for a slew of major hacks in 2011 including attacks on Sony Pictures, the UK tabloid The Sun, and the CIA’s public website. All “just for the Lulz [that is, laughs] of it.”
On Tuesday night, police in Sydney took into custody Matt Flannery, a 24-year-old Australian IT professional who goes by the online moniker Aush0k. The alleged hacker faces up to 12 years behind bars for two counts of unauthorized modification of data to cause impairment and one count of unauthorized access to a restricted computer system.
Australian Federal Police say their investigation began only two weeks ago when they discovered a government website had been compromised. Police apparently made the connection between Flannery and the recently targeted website because the multinational Tenable Network Security, where Flannery was allegedly employed, had access to specific Australian government information (a quick search on Google revealed a LinkedIn profile of Flannery claiming employment there).
If Flannery indeed did work at Tenable Network Security — or even for an Australian partner of the U.S. firm, as suggested in this Australian Financial Review article — it could explain just how he had access to such sensitive material. Tenable’s Nessus software is used by clients such as the U.S. Department of Defense, Amazon and the American Red Cross for checking network security vulnerabilities. And determining weaknesses in networks is exactly what allowed LulzSec and similar hackers to pick their targets.
Flannery’s work computer has been seized by police, who reportedly say Tenable has been very cooperative in the investigation thus far.
Authorities claim Flannery asserted his LulzSec leadership in online forums monitored by police and visited by LulzSec members. They also claims Flannery admitted his leading role in the group directly to police. Some discussions in the hacker material stored at the online locker Pastebin also seems to support authorities’ claims.
“This man is known to international law enforcement and police will allege he was in a position of trust within the company with access to information from clients including government agencies,” explained Glen McEwen, the AFP’s federal police commander.
Flannery isn’t the first alleged member of LulzSec to face the wraith of law enforcement. Another repued leader, Sabu, aka Hector Xavier Monsegur, turned states evidence and became an FBI informant after his 2011 arrest. Sabu may have been the hacker who ratted out former Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys, who was indicted for his role in the Anonymous infiltration of the Los Angeles Times website. Just 2 weeks ago, another former LulzSec member, Ryan Ackroyd, pleaded guilty to several cyberattacks in the UK. The 26 year-old Ackroyd faces sentencing next month.
Flannery has already been released on bail, and now faces a May 15 court date.
Photo courtesy of Twitter
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Augmented Reality Game Gets Player Arrested: The First Of Many?
Dec 11th
Ingress, the Alternate/Augmented Reality (AR) game from Google’s Niantic Labs, is a major evolution of mobile gaming. Apparently, it’s also a good way to get arrested.
According to a post on Reddit (I know, I know – but stay with me on this), an Ingress player in Ohio was detained by police for his in-game actions. Specifically, he was “hacking a portal” near a police station. His phone had technical difficulties, which led him to linger by the portal/police station for a bit, catching the eye of local law enforcement and leading to the detention.
After the original post, other Ingress players responded with similar stories. One aroused suspicions by wandering around an empty parking lot at night. Another, trying to hack a portal next to an air traffic control station, had to run from the local sheriff. A third was called in for questioning after hacking a portal outside of a “high-traffic drug area.”
It’s In The Game
As Dan Rowinski mentioned in his earlier post, there’s plenty of “creep” factor built into the game. In fact, much like geocaching (Ingress’ non-digital ancestor), lurking in strange and hard-to-get-to places at odd hours is kind of the point.
Getting detained (as many Redditors pointed out, the poster wasn’t technically arrested) probably adds to the intrigue, and certainly gives a player a certain amount of street cred. It could also call into question the boundary between the First Amendment and public safety.
Legal, But Risky
All of Ingress’ portals are on public land. There’s no law against walking past a police station, post office or airport. There are, however, very legitimate safety concerns held by the people charged with protecting those facilities and keeping an eye out for potential risks.
As one law enforcement professional joked, “I hope they don’t put one of those in front of the White House.” In fact, there are apparently a bunch of portals in front of the White House, embassies and other sites that could be high-interest targets for vandalism or worse.
At least Ingress doesn’t require players to dig up or bury physical objects, a phenomenon that has caused some high-profile problems in the geocaching community. Still, as similar games take off (and they will), we’re going to see more friction between gamers and law enforcement, particularly in full AR environments that use cameras. In addition to trespassing and loitering violations, there’s greatly increased potential for distraction, perhaps leading gamers to injure themselves or others. It’s all the danger of texting – plus headphones – with the added possibility of being labeled a terrorist by overzealous cops.
The Future
By all accounts, Niantic labs has been responsible about these issues. The game doesn’t encourage trespassing or dangerous behavior, like using your phone in a car. Other developers may not feel the same sense of duty, or their goals may encourage “creative” players to take unnecessary risks.
If enough negligence, trespassing, and pubic nuisance suits (and maybe some claims of police harassment) hit the courts, we’ll eventually wind up with legislation governing the balance between gameplay and public safety. We might see an increase of no-device buffer zones around sensitive areas, or certain games limiting accounts to only users of age to accept legal responsibility for their actions. There could even be outright bans on AR games in certain areas.
Until then, it’s up to game developers to police themselves and players to stay smart. One dumb move could lead to a ton of regulation that could really spoil everyone’s fun.
Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Baidu Employees Arrested for Taking Bribes to Delete Posts
Aug 6th
Three employees of Chinese search engine Baidu have been arrested for taking bribes to delete posts. It is still not known what type of content was deleted from search postings. Baidu reportedly sacked four employees following an investigation.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
“I’m Getting Arrested” App for Immigrants
Mar 21st
Arizona’s passage of SB 1070, a law that made it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant, has heightened the state’s culture of fear, especially among immigrants. A Department of Justice investigation into racial profiling of Latinos by Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office found that Latinos are now four to nine times as likely to be stopped in traffic than non-Latinos. Often times, pre- and now post-SBN 1070, immigrant rights activists have heard complaints that family members detained would often times disappear without notice. App developers are trying to fix that with “eAPP,” the Emergency Alert and Personal Protection App.
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The New American Media‘s Valeria Fernandez writes that this app will “allow users to notify family, friends, attorneys and even their consulate when they get pulled over by law enforcement or when they are facing an emergency situation that puts their safety or civil rights at risk.” Not only will the app send a pre-set list of people information about the user’s location, it also records the date and time of the incident and can record audio or video. It can also store that data in a Web interface.
The app also informs the user of their civil rights if they are arrested. It could provide assistance in that moment of decision-making, and help immigrant advocates search for undocumented immigrants who have disappeared into the detention system.
eAPP is currently in development. Take a look at it here.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Iranian Med Student Blogger Arrested
Nov 25th
Eurasia Review reports that Rojin Mohammadi has been arrested. Mohammadi is a medical student, currently studying at the University of Manila in the Philippines. The Human Rights Reporters Committee reported that she was arrested initially on November 14 when she returned to the country to visit her family, but was released 24 hours later.
She was rearrested yesterday in her home province of Kermanshah.
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According to the Green Voice of Freedom blog:
“Five days later, security forces raided her father’s home in Kermanshah province in an attempt to detain her, however she was absent at the time. Authorities summoned Mohammadi…for questioning on 21 November and after three days of interrogation, they finally transferred her to Evin prison on Wednesday.”
Evin prison is notorious for its brutality and dreadful conditions. Political prisoners are mixed with hardened criminals. It was in Evin that Omid Reza Misayafi became the first blogger to die in custody.
The charges against Mohammadi are unknown.
Rojin photo via Oye! Times
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#FreeMona: Prominent Blogger, Filmmaker, Others Arrested in Tahrir
Nov 25th
Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-American journalist, blogger and frequent source of information for ReadWriteWeb Egypt coverage, was arrested at the Ministry of the Interior in Cairo on Wednesday. She was beaten and assaulted by police, interrogated by military intelligence and finally freed 12 hours later.
She borrowed the Blackberry of another protester arrested and detained with her to tweet, “Beaten arrested in interior ministry.”
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Between the time she was arrested and the time she was released (tweeting, “I AM FREE“), the hashtag #freemona had become a worldwide trending topic, sparked, in part, by New York Times columnist Nick Kristof. In fact, it only took 20 minutes to trend.
The State Department responded on their Twitter account, saying, “Reports of @monaeltahawy and @pangeaworld detention very concerning. @USEmbassyCairo engaging authorities.”
@pangeaworld referred to Jehane Noujaim, the Egyptian-American filmmaker best known for her 2004 documentary “Control Room” about Al Jazeera. She was later let go, as was activist Maged Butter, who was released with 28 other detainees yesterday.
While in custoday, Eltahawy was beaten savagely, her arm and hand were broken and are now in casts, and she was sexually assaulted by the police, who surrounded her and groped and grabbed at her breasts and genitals. She has commented that her notoriety and American citizenship protected her against worse treatment.
One of the trends in comments on Twitter was how very badly the military had erred in arresting someone so vocal and relentless in pressing her case in the media. Well, she puts it best:
Still in military custody, between 12,000 and 13,000 citizens, the best known of whom are probably long-time Egyptian blogger and gadfly Alaa Abdel Fattah, and Maikel Nabil Sanad. Nabil was the first blogger to be arrested and sentenced in post-Mubarak Egypt, and the “indicator species” that the people and the military were not, contrary to earlier Tahrir chants, the same hand.
Maikel was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by a military tribunal. His case has inspired a great deal less outrage than others, possibly because he is both Coptic Christian, an often beset minority in the country, and has blogged positively about Israel. After an attention-raising hunger strike (he survives, barely, on milk and juices), the military transferred him to a mental hospital, where he awaits a November 27 retrail.
Psychiatric detention is one of the weapons the Egyptian authorities use, along with beatings, torture, imprisonment and sexual assault, to enforce their will.
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The Weekly Online Video News Round Up – Arrested Development Edition – ReelSEO Online Video News
Nov 20th
 ReelSEO Online Video News |
The Weekly Online Video News Round Up – Arrested Development Edition
ReelSEO Online Video News He is also founder of The Viral Orchard (http://www.viralorchard.com), an Internet marketing firm offering content writing and development services, viral marketing consulting, and SEO services. Jeremy writes constantly, loves online video, … |
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Netflix Snags New Arrested Development Episodes – ReelSEO Online Video News
Nov 19th
 ReelSEO Online Video News |
Netflix Snags New Arrested Development Episodes
ReelSEO Online Video News This week's look at the Reel Web covers tips for YouTube SEO and several news stories from the… We've seen a lot of research pointing to how effectively video helps increase conversion, sales and… In today's podcast episode, I interview Earle … |
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Getting Arrested? Now There’s An App For That
Nov 9th
So Occupy Wall Street has inspired some action – the creation of the “I’m Getting Arrested” app for Android.
“Alert your lawyer, loved ones, etc … that you are being arrested with a click. I’m Getting Arrested enables anyone, with one click, t…
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Netflix To Partner On New Arrested Development Episodes Ahead Of Feature Film? – ReelSEO Online Video News
Oct 3rd
 ReelSEO Online Video News |
Netflix To Partner On New Arrested Development Episodes Ahead Of Feature Film?
ReelSEO Online Video News He is also founder of The Viral Orchard (http://www.viralorchard.com), an Internet marketing firm offering content writing and development services, viral marketing consulting, and SEO services. Jeremy writes constantly, loves online video, … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
