Erstellt am: 17. 2. 2011 - 16:24 Uhr

Today's Webtip: Interesting Times II

The HBGary saga would make a really good cypherpunk novel.

Imagine if you will. Well connected wannabe cybersecurity firms, hungry for contracts with three letter agencies. Ambitious individuals with an ambivalent attitude toward cyber rights and freedom of speech. Nervous corporations that might (or might not) have something to hide. Anonymous sympathisers connected with all of the above...

And a really messy showdown between an Anonymous hunter and his prey.

You might be able to guess how it turned out. If you were able to make any sense out of all of it.

The story has been slowly unfolding over the last couple of months, but in the last week it has exploded, with multiple articles coming out across the net in both mainstream and alternative media. The result isn't just interesting reading, it's a look at what the future of investigative journalism might look like. A loose collaboration of bloggers, journalists, hackers, security experts, and part-time analysts bouncing their work off of one another until the story grows in detail and complexity.

ARSTechnica has a great place to start it all off. It's fairly recent, but gives a very interesting picture of Aaron Barr, the man who kicked the hornets nest known as Anonymous. Despite sympathizing with some of the basic ideas of Wikileaks and Anon, he knows what side his bread is buttered on:
arstechnica.com

Barr's attack on Anonymous, and the ensuing counter attack, resulted in the leak of some rather interesting plans to discredit Wikileaks and it's supporters, including the suggestion that sympathetic journalists be blackmailed into submission. One of the journalists mentioned, Glenn Greenwald, shared his reaction., which was quickly followed up with a supporting article by another journalist from Salon.

One of the interesting aspects of the whole mess, is that companies specializing in online securtiy don't seem to practice what they preach. Well, that's what I took away from "Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack" The result of that poor security was a massive leak of internal emails. Emails that paint a very interesting picture of just what lengths some groups will go to to stifle dissent.

Another site has been doing a lot of work on putting together the pieces of the puzzle that resulted from the Barr-Anonymous spat. firedoglake.com

There is most likely much more to come, and there is certainly more available out there, but if I don't wrap this up now, you'll never get a chance to read anything.