Posted by cyberpatrol in 4chan.org, Anonymous, cybercrime, Hacking.
Tags: 4chan.org, Anonymous, cyber crime, Hacking, SOHH
SOHH.com- defaced on 27 June 2008 (screenshots)
AllHipHop.com (WARNING! Graphic!)
Sources: EncyclopediaDramatica.com/SOHH and trillsouth.com
SOHH.com is is still down as of 30 June 08 and also Allhiphop.com could not be accessed all weekend.
Here is the official statement from Felicia Palmer, CEO of SOHH.com, about what happened:
As many of you are already aware, SOHH.com has been under attack by hackers this week. We noticed the first wave of attacks in our vBulletins forums and as of this morning the whole site was compromised.
It appears that hackers are specifically targeting Black, Hispanic, Asian and Jewish youth who ascribe to hip hop culture. Other websites, including AllHipHop and Da Piff forums, have also been compromised or threatened this week.
We are managing this situation on several fronts. We have taken down the server to patch the security breach and put in protections for future attacks. Also, as this is an international issue, it is being addressed by The FBI and the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group.
We realize the hackers attacked SOHH.com because of our stature in the hip hop space and the people we serve. Unfortunately, we did a poor job of protecting SOHH.com from imminent threats from people who hate our community simply because of our racial and ethnic makeup.
This has brought to light our vulnerabilities and those of the internet publisher and users as a whole. What’s possible now is for us to join together to identify and eliminate this threat.
If you are under attack and have any information about these attacks please submit a report to the FBI cyber crimes unit here: https://complaint.ic3.gov/
Posted by cyberpatrol in Cybercrime groups.
The Eagle Tribune, 29 June 2008
By Jim Patten
Staff Writer
From the comfort of his North Andover home, Richard Disler trolled the Internet chat rooms, trying to hook up with underage girls.
That’s where the 43-year-old accountant met a girl named “Sara.” They began chatting online, and she eventually suggested a place where they could meet.
But Disler was arrested before the meeting occurred. That’s when he learned that “Sara” was actually Medford police Lt. John J. McLean, commander of the North East Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council’s Computer Crime Unit.
The Computer Crime Unit was also called in several years ago when a Vermont man traveled to Haverhill to have sex with an underage local girl he had met online. While in Haverhill, the man took nude pictures of the girl. He was caught by police, and the Computer Crime Unit retrieved the pictures from his laptop.
Haverhill Detective Capt. Alan Ratte said as criminals become more adept with their use of technology, the Computer Crime Unit’s expertise is critical to local police departments.
“I think the value of the unit speaks for itself,” he said.
North Andover police Detective Lt. Paul Gallagher agreed, calling the unit an “invaluable asset” to local police.
NEMLEC and its various specialized units serve 48 police departments and two sheriff’s departments in Essex and Middlesex counties. Formed in 2001, the seven-member Computer Crime Unit has investigated 800 cases, averaging between 135 and 200 a year, McLean said. It is based out of Medford and Peabody.
“Seventy-four percent of our case load is child exploitation,” he said. The rest are financial crimes, fraud, threats, and other crimes.
Officers assigned to the unit are drawn from various Massachusetts police departments. They must have good computer and investigative skills, and are sent to a series of training courses to become certified.
Computer crime investigations involve both forensic work and cyber investigations.
In forensic work, investigators examine the contents of computers that have been seized, and contact internet service providers to determine what information the user had on the computer, McLean said. Cyber investigations involve actual online work, tracking offenders and making undercover approaches to them, as in the Disler case.
Since the formation of NEMLEC’s Computer Crime Unit, there has been an explosion in technology and its uses, McLean said. Now the unit is getting involved in homicides, rapes, and other crimes because of what criminals are putting online or sending via their cell phones.
“The days of old where we just did kiddie porn and electronic crime are long gone,” he said.
Middlesex County Deputy Sheriff Tim McGibbon, a three-year veteran of the unit, says the effort is definitely worthwhile.
“More and more search warrants are including standard language to grab computers, cell phones, and PDAs,” he said. “Everybody knows everything is stored on computers.”
For all of their hard work, McLean said, he is concerned about the future of the Computer Crime Unit because it doesn’t have a steady source of funding.
“Without sustained funding, I don’t know what the future holds,” he said.
McLean said the unit depends on contributions from NEMLEC member communities and corporate donations for support. He said the costs for hardware, software, training and upgrades can reach about $75,000 a year, and that does not include the salaries of unit members, which are paid by their respective departments.
“That is a reasonable figure, but on the low end for the size of the unit and the number of jurisdictions we cover,” he said.
Posted by cyberpatrol in 4chan.org, Anonymous, Hacking.
Tags: 4chan.org, Anonymous, cyber crime, Hacking, SOHH
MTV News 27 June 2008
Hip-hop Web sites SOHH.com and AllHipHop.com were forced to temporarily suspend access to their sites on Friday (June 27) after being targeted this week by an apparent hate group.
Both companies’ sites were hacked, and instead of the usual hip-hop related news articles and feature stories, readers were shocked to find fake headlines and obviously photoshopped pictures saturated with racial slurs and other offensive terms; the hackers also stole personal information about employees of SOHH.com. A group or individual going by the name “Anonymous” has claimed responsibility.
SOHH was first infiltrated earlier this week on its forum pages and shut itself down on Friday; AllHipHop.com also had its forums compromised. AllHipHop was back up on Friday evening.
SOHH CEO Felicia Palmer, who was attacked with derogatory comments by the hackers, released a statement Friday saying that she and the company were working diligently to solve the problem and have been in contact with authorities.
“It appears that hackers are specifically targeting Black, Hispanic, Asian and Jewish youth who ascribe to hip-hop culture,” the statement read. “Other websites, including AllHipHop and DatPiff[.com’s] forums have also been compromised or threatened this week. … Also, as this is an international issue, it is being addressed by the FBI and the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group.”
In a statement released late Friday afternoon, AllHipHop co-founders Chuck Creekmur and Greg Watkings said: “Urban culture and lifestyle has come under attack by a group of cyber terrorists. AllHipHop and SOHH, two pioneering Web sites that have been in the industry for over 10 years, are appalled by the unprovoked racist attacks of these cyber terrorists. With all the social strides that we have seen for several years, it is sad to see that this sort of blatant, hateful racism still exists in 2008 — a time of tremendous possibility. Together, AllHipHop and SOHH are committed to relentlessly pursuing these attackers, using every resource available, to ensure the capture of these criminals and prevention of repeat offenses.”
SOHH and AllHipHop say they have joined forces to resolve the issue and have involved the proper authorities. Further comment is expected. Datpiff.com, which is dedicated to mixtapes, is still functioning as usual.
Posted by cyberpatrol in cybercrime.
The Inquirer, 26 June 2008
Jack Conway, who created a special unit to fight cybercrime, has become the victim of identity theft.
Conway tried to buy some music on Itunes but the glorious Apple empire declared that he didn’t live at his home any more.
After an investigation, Conway discovered someone had stolen his credit card number and charged thousands of dollars worth of computers, Vonage phone service and postal service charges to it. The ID thieves also changed his billing address.
Unfortunately for the thieves, they might have picked the wrong bloke to hack off.
The cybercrime unit he created will almost certainly make it a top priority to arrest someone. Anyone they catch will almost certainly never be able to cop a plea to anything short of a long stretch in the worst prison in the State. µ
Posted by cyberpatrol in Cybercrime groups.
Webwire, 24 June 2008
VANCOUVER, CANADA, A new initiative to ease tensions between law enforcers and internet security experts was launched here today at the 20th annual conference of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.
During a session which heard warnings that the war against cyber crime was in danger of being lost, members were told that computer emergency response teams from the finance industry were moving to find an answer to one of security experts’ key complaints: that national law enforcement agencies refuse to investigate cyber criminals when the value of their thefts is below a certain threshold.
Foy Shiver [FOY SHIVER] Deputy Secretary-General of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, announced that a forum was being established which would allow different teams to pool and analyse intelligence from individual attacks that so disparate crimes by the same criminal gangs could be aggregated and presented to law enforcers in a single body of evidence.
Mr Shiver said: “There are issues like privacy which will need to be sorted out, but we’re confident we can resolve them”
Delegates had complained that, particularly in commercial enterprises, it was hard to sustain a business case for security teams if law enforcers failed to follow up evidence – one said that in his territory, police wouldn’t investigate a cyber crime that had a haul of less than $50,000.
FIRST’s law enforcement special interest group decided to launch a website to provide both sides with useful and instructional materials.
Opening the session, Chris Painter [PAINTER], of the US Department of Justice, who chairs the G8 High Tech Crime Group, said that Internet crime gangs were increasingly more organised, and often masterminded their operations simultaneously in different countries.
John Pignataro, [PIGNATARO] director of Security Incident Response Team Investigations at Citigroup reported that the number of new phishing sites encountered by his bank had quadrupled in five years from 15 each week to nearer 60, and Tom Mullen [MULLEN], Head of Investigations for BT, the British telecommunications giant, revealed a 35 per cent per annum increase in reported incidents over four years.
Levi Gundert [LEVI GUNDERT], who moved from working for the US Secret Service in Los Angeles to join Team Cymru, the Internet security research firm, called for collaboration between law enforcers and security teams to be more structured, and for the two sides to teach and help each other.
“I thought things were bad when I worked for the Secret Service,” he said. “But now I am at Team Cymru I understand how bad it really is. We are losing the war against cyber crime badly.
“There is frustration on both sides – on the law enforcers’ side, about lack of resources and perceived lack of results, and about information overload, and on the security teams’ side, about the information they supply seeming to go into a black hole and the law enforcers not appearing to respond.”
Two speakers from the host country – Robert Pitcher of the Canadian Cyber Crime Incident Response Centre, and Dan Howard of the RCMP Integrated Technological Crime Unit – described how collaboration was achieved in Canada.
More than 400 delegates are attending the FIRST conference. Founded in 1990, FIRST is a non-profit body which consists of internet emergency response teams from 194 corporations, government bodies, universities and other institutions from across the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. It leads the world’s fight-back against cyber-crime, sabotage and terrorism, and promotes co-operation between IERT’s and law enforcement agencies.
More information about the conference at: www.first.org/conference/2008
And about FIRST:
http://www.first.org/
http://www.first.org/about/
- Contact Information
- Frank Wintle
- Communications Officer
- FIRST
- +44 7850 102194
- frankwintle@panmedia.co.uk
Posted by cyberpatrol in 4chan.org, cyberterrorism.
Tags: jake brahm
Tom’s Guide, 16 June 2008
Jake J. Brahm, a 22 year old grocery store clerk from Wisconsin has been sentenced to six months in jail and a further six months of house arrest following several bomb threats he posted on the internet 2 years ago.
Brahm posted the threats on 4chan 40 times in September and October of 2006. He said that on Oct. 22, 2006, seven “dirty” explosive devices would be detonated during NFL games at stadiums in Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland, Cleveland and New York City.
The young man detailed that trucks would deliver the bombs and that thousands would die as a result of the blasts. He also claimed Osama Bin Laden would refer to it as “America’s Hiroshima”.
“the death toll will approach 100,000 from the initial blasts and countless other fatalities will later occur as result from radioactive fallout.”
The threats Brahm had posted on 4chan quickly made their way around the web and caused a great deal of concern during the period of time when they were believed to be genuine. A warrant for Brahm’s arrest was issued in October and he turned himself in on the 20th of that month, just two days before the day the bombs were supposed to be detonated.
Despite the fact that Brahm had turned himself in before the date the incident was supposed to occur, significant amounts of money had already been spent on increased security at the stadiums in question. U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares ordered Brahm to pay restitution totaling $26,750, an amount which represents $18,000 to the Cleveland Browns and $8,750 to the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which operates Giants Stadium in East Rutherford (the target of the New York attack). The fine is to cover the cost of expanded public- and privately-funded security, including sniffing dogs, extra cops and extra stadium security.
Jake Brahm was indicted on the 28th of February 2008 for posting fake terrorist threats online however, there have been times when threats posted online have been carried out. In November of last year, an 18 year old high school student in Finland posted a video on YouTube YouTube detailing plans for a school shooting. Titled “Jokela High School Massacre”, the video showed images of the school and clips on the young man who committed the crime holding a semiautomatic weapon. Nine people were killed including the gunman himself.
Posted by cyberpatrol in 4chan.org, cyberterrorism.
Tags: jeremie dalin
Daily Herald, 12 June 2008
A Lake County jury deliberated about two hours Wednesday before deciding a posting on a Web site constituted a threat against Stevenson High School.
Jeremie Dalin, 17, was convicted of falsely making a terrorist threat for an item he admits he put on a message board that features off-beat discussions. He faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced July 17.
Dalin showed no reaction when the verdict was read, but his parents, who were seated behind him in the courtroom, both began to weep.
Dalin, a former Barrington High School student, testified Wednesday that the message, which said that “many will die on 10/31” at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, was a work of fiction designed specifically for the message board.
Dalin said the site features discussions of violence, rape, inflicting injury and racial slurs that are viewed as humorous.
He said his goal when he posted the message Oct. 29 was to create something so outrageous that it would spark a multitude of responses.
By doing so, Dalin said, he hoped his posting would stay on the “top page” of the site, showing that it was the most popular item of the current discussion.
He said he had no idea there was a Adlai E. Stevenson High School less than 15 miles from his home in Fox River Grove and simply took the name from a list of schools he found on the Web.
However, a Stevenson student saw the posting and informed school officials, while the FBI and Lincolnshire police also investigated the incident.
Dalin admitted he had posted the message of concern but said he never intended for it to be taken seriously.
“We all know that after the fact he said it was a joke,” Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Stanton said in her closing argument.
“Ladies and gentlemen, guess what: There is no ‘just kidding’ defense.”
But defense attorney Michael Levinsohn argued that the eight women and four men on the jury needed to consider the fact that by posting on that particular message board, Dalin was speaking to a particular group.
“It appears the people who go to this Web site think these things are funny,” Levinsohn said. “That is Jeremie’s audience.”
He said messages such as the one Dalin posted are part and parcel of the discussions at the site and that similar messages are posted and discussed there daily.
Levinsohn told the jurors that his client could have been much more to the point if he was interested in making a threat.
“He did not post this at the school, he did not write it on the bathroom wall,” Levinsohn said. “If someone was making a threat, they would send it to the school or send it to an administrator.”
But Stanton told the jurors they should look at the posting in the light of the times in which we live.
“In today’s world, you have to consider the context of what Jeremie Dalin typed up,” Stanton said. “These words have meaning, they have very real meaning.”
Posted by cyberpatrol in cyberbullying, cybercrime, stalking.
Tags: Jeff Johnston
News Press, 11 June 2008
“Jeff’s Law,” a tough anti-bullying measure named after a Cape Coral teen who killed himself after enduring more than two years of Internet harassment, is finally a reality.
Gov. Charlie Crist signed the “Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up For All Students Act” into law Tuesday afternoon.
That signature officially ended a three-year battle by Jeff’s mother, Debbie Johnston, a first-grade teacher at Hector A. Cafferata Jr. Elementary in Cape Coral, to extend protection against bullying off school grounds to areas such as computers, cell phones and other telecommunications devices.
“I’m just really thrilled,” she said. “I feel like (Jeff is) happy, saying, ‘Job well done.’ It couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Crist spokesman Thomas Philpot said the governor is considering conducting ceremonies for several bills this summer, including Jeff’s Law.
Statements posted on Web sites frequented by Jeff’s friends accusing him of being “gay” and “a stalker of many sorts,” among other things, tormented Jeff long after they were written.
He wrote in a note his mother found on his computer that he would “never get over eighth grade.” He killed himself in June 2005, after finishing his freshman year at Ida S. Baker High.
The law requires all Florida school districts to develop anti-bullying policies and empower them to provide counseling both to the student being targeted and the bully, including cyberbullying.
All three years, the measure easily passed the Florida House, but it languished in a Senate committee in 2006 and 2007. The Senate finally passed the bill April 30, just two days before the legislative session ended.
Posted by cyberpatrol in 4chan.org, cyberterrorism.
Tags: jake brahm
Security Pro News, 6 June 2008
“4chan is a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images. 4chan’s collaborative-community format is copied from one of the most popular forums in Japan, Futaba Channel,” reads the description of 4Chan. Twenty-two year old Jake Brahm claimed to be a little too immersed in the community when he posted threats against several NFL stadiums in 2006.
Fox News said Brahm pleaded guilty in February to willfully conveying false information that the stadiums would be attacked by terrorists with weapons of mass destruction and “radiological dispersal devices.”
Brahm claimed it was a joke, but the NFL wasn’t laughing at the notion of truck bombs leveling stadiums and leaving thousands dead on the ground.
Prosecutors also alleged Brahm celebrated when police arrived to arrest him, and that he bragged about the stadium threats being picked up in the mainstream media.
At the time of Brahm’s arrest, an FBI agent in the Milwaukee office said Brahm believed there was no way anyone would believe this was anything other than a hoax, Fox News said in October 2006.
“As I understand it, Mr. Brahm had put out this threat thinking it was so preposterous that no one would take it seriously,” the FBI’s Richard Ruminski said in the report. “Unfortunately, he was wrong.”
Posted by cyberpatrol in cyberbullying, myspace.
Tags: lori drew, megan meier
St. Louis Post Dispatch, 6 June 2008
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles today returned an indictment against Lori Drew of O’Fallon, Mo., in the MySpace case that ended in the suicide of Megan Meier.
Drew, 49, was named in a four-count indictment that charges one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on Meier, who was referred to in the indictment only as M.T.M.
According to a news release from U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien, the indictment alleges that Drew and others registered as a member of MySpace under the name of Josh Evans, then began corresponding with Meier in what the girl believed was an online romance. After the “romance” ended, Meier hanged herself in her room.
By doing so, the indictment says, Drew and her co-conspirators violated MySpace’s “terms of service” that prohibit users from making use of fraudulent registration information, using accounts to obtain personal information about members who are juveniles and using MySpace services to harass, abuse or harm other members.
“This adult woman allegedly used the Internet to target a young teenage girl, with horrendous ramifications,” O’Brien said.
“Any adult who uses the Internet or a social gathering website to bully or harass another person, particularly a young teenage girl, needs to realize that their actions can have serious consequences.”
Ron Meier, Megan’s father, watched television newscasts announcing the indictment and was overcome with emotion
“It’s a a good day,” he said. “It’s an awesome feeling.”
He said now he expects the Drews to feel some of the pain and suffering “that I’m going to feel for the rest of my life, not having Megan here.”
Drew declined to comment, referring questions to her lawyer. She will be summoned to appear for arraignment in federal court in Los Angeles in June; she is expected to surrender to authorities in St. Louis. The conspiracy count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison; each count of accessing protected computers also carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.
St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas said that despite the federal indictment, his position on possible charges in the Meier has not changed. He decided not to file charges after an investigation into Megan’s death, and he said today his position remains the same.
“I couldn’t charge it then, and I couldn’t charge it now,” Banas said. “It’s not a violation of state law.”
Read the indictment
Cyber Crimes 