FBI Raids Texas Company in Hunt for Anonymous

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
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FBI Raids Texas Company in Hunt for Anonymous

The search spanned the Atlantic, but federal agents are zeroing in on what they think might be the Anonymous members that attacked PayPal.

The FBI has raided a Texan hosting company and seized equipment believed to have been used in the distributed denial of service attacks that targeted supposed "enemies" of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, which included the likes of PayPal and MasterCard.

It was actually PayPal that set the wheels in motion, as investigators working for the company supplied the FBI with eight IP addresses that had hosted an IRC chat of Anonymous members. Agents operating out of the Bureau's San Francisco office then began to trace at least two of the IPs, with help from law enforcement organizations in Europe.

The first IP was traced back to a company called Host Europe, which is based in Germany. The German Federal Criminal Police investigated further and discovered that the server in question belonged to a man in France, but that it had been compromised by a third party. The IP of this third party put the ball back in the FBI's court, as it originated from a dedicated server hosting company based in Dallas, Texas. Agents copied the contents of two hard drives from inside the server on December 16th, but the Bureau not revealed what - if anything - it has discovered.

The second IP that PayPal handed over was traced to a server held by a Californian hosting company. It's not known at this time if the FBI has also seized data from this second site, but it seems a reasonably safe assumption that it did.

Source: The Smoking Gun [http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/internet/affidavit-details-fbi-operation-payback-probe] via Game Politics [http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/12/30/fbi-raids-texas-business-operation-payback-leads]



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Bek359

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Feb 23, 2010
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I'd say Anonymous is about to learn that none of them are truly untraceable.
 

Actual

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Jun 24, 2008
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I'm always in favour of the authorities showing that they have a good handle on modern crime but can't really get behind them on this one.

The Paypal DDoS attacks were made in retaliation for the American government putting unlawful pressure on PayPal and other financial institutions and for those organisations bowing to the government pressure.

While two wrongs don't make a right are we really expecting a third wrong, arresting the leaders of the cyber attack, to make the whole sordid affair better?
 

Ldude893

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Apr 2, 2010
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So much for the anonymity of "Anonymous".

Three cheers for the FBI and their bureaucratic crusade against freedom.
 

Palademon

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Mar 20, 2010
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This sounds like a cool detective novel. One I'd actually read. I'd find the resourcefulness of everyday people such as the anonymous to be interesting.
 
Aug 25, 2009
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Man, it's like Anonymous thought they were invincible and untraceable or something.


I look forward to the Feebies bringing out the gigantic novelty vats of liquid nitrogen.

And besides, to everyone saying justified etc, they still attacked and brought down PayPal, the FBI website... These things aren't legal! In fact they come pretty close to constituting cyber-terrorism.
 

Sevre

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Apr 6, 2009
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This is a real '7 proxies' moment. I doubt they'll catch anyone though.
 

Azaraxzealot

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Dec 1, 2009
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Ldude893 said:
So much for the anonymity of "Anonymous".

Three cheers for the FBI and their bureaucratic crusade against freedom.
would you rather anonymous grow out of control and get so sucked up in its own power that it will eventually take over our governments? (i really think that if one controls the internet, they can control the world)
well hell no, this should teach those little cunts a lesson.
don't
fuck
with the government.
 

Veloxe

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Oct 5, 2010
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Clearly anonymous only has one option, take down the FBI.

As interesting as that would be I'm with Serve, I doubt they'll catch anyone and probably end up throwing blame at some random farm owner who doesn't even own a computer or something ridiculous like that.
 

njsykora

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Sep 11, 2007
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*grabs popcorn*

If the net is closing on Anonymous of all groups, this is going to go from a light poop rain to a full s***storm very quickly.
 

Carnagath

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Apr 18, 2009
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Sevre said:
This is a real '7 proxies' moment. I doubt they'll catch anyone though.
What would be awesome is if behind the 7 proxies there was some 70 year old grandma's unlocked Wi-Fi connection and she got vanned. Just sayin'.
 

WilliamRLBaker

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Jan 8, 2010
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Ldude893 said:
So much for the anonymity of "Anonymous".

Three cheers for the FBI and their bureaucratic crusade against freedom.
YEAH! the crusade against freedom...where people in the government can just go ahead and sell secrets.
Whistle blowing you say? you mean the Person that sold the documents felt that a wrong was being commited and just had to get it out there? oh you mean that person didn't they just wanted to make a quick buck by selling the files they had copied onto a usb stick?

So many people are in support of Wikileaks yet I don't see those same people giving up all their secrets, The freedom of information is a silly idea some things in the world must be secret, I certainly as I said don't see the wikileaks folks posting all their secrets but thats the nature of people that support such causes they are all raring when it comes to other people but when their own secrets are in the open then its no longer freedom of information.
 

Kuala BangoDango

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Mar 19, 2009
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Sad thing is, once the FBI find the people who did it, they'll just turn around and hire them to work for them as well paid "consultants" to help stop other hackers.
 

Baradiel

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Mar 4, 2009
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While I don't usually support Anonymous, I find it hard to get behind the FBI on this. I support Assange and Wikileaks, simply for what he/it stands for. Anonymous sortof stands for the same thing, but usually makes things alot worse. What they did to PayPal and the rest of them may not have been the best thing to do, but the reason for doing these things is honourable. Assange may have the 'might' of the US government after him, and I respect him for standing up to the bureaucratic, politically motivated bullshit.

Governments should always to held accountable. They have the responsibility to 'govern' and protect those under their care. Assange showed up arguably the most powerful government in the world, and I support him for that.
 

AngelOfBlueRoses

The Cerulean Prince
Nov 5, 2008
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Actual said:
I'm always in favour of the authorities showing that they have a good handle on modern crime but can't really get behind them on this one.

The Paypal DDoS attacks were made in retaliation for the American government putting unlawful pressure on PayPal and other financial institutions and for those organisations bowing to the government pressure.

While two wrongs don't make a right are we really expecting a third wrong, arresting the leaders of the cyber attack, to make the whole sordid affair better?
Exactly my sentiments, good sir. I have a high opinion of Assange for his work in journalistic freedom and was pretty pissed that the American government would pressure PayPal and Mastercard like that and was even more pissed at people calling for his execution.
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Sevre said:
This is a real '7 proxies' moment. I doubt they'll catch anyone though.
What concerns me is that the FBI will catch "those hackers", whether they are real hackers, or even people who own a computer.
 

Burst6

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Mar 16, 2009
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Azaraxzealot said:
Ldude893 said:
So much for the anonymity of "Anonymous".

Three cheers for the FBI and their bureaucratic crusade against freedom.
would you rather anonymous grow out of control and get so sucked up in its own power that it will eventually take over our governments? (i really think that if one controls the internet, they can control the world)
well hell no, this should teach those little cunts a lesson.
don't
fuck
with the government.
Yeah, don't do anything while they slowly take away freedom. Learn your place like a good little citizen.

Remember, the government is a group of people that are chosen to help organize the people who live in the country. They're supposed to work for you, not the other way around.

Besides, Anonymous members are mostly decent people in real life. Sure they are little cunts, but all their actions are actually a relief to me. It means the internet still has a bit of freedom left.