December 3, 2023

Vice: Trolls Tricked the QAnon Queen’s Followers Into Volunteering to Kill

Vice: Trolls Tricked the QAnon Queen’s Followers Into Volunteering to Kill. “[Romana] Didulo is a QAnon influencer who has convinced a group of people that she’s the true Queen of Canada, as well as a spiritual leader here to save the world. … Didulo, who has traveled across Canada in a convoy with her closest followers, has largely been unwelcome everywhere she goes. And so she’s gained many detractors and enemies who want to take her down. So, when Didulo deploys a new tool as she did this week they can’t help but target it.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
December 2, 2023

Engadget: Inside the ‘arms race’ between YouTube and ad blockers

Engadget: Inside the ‘arms race’ between YouTube and ad blockers. “For many users, the battle between YouTube and ad blockers has largely been invisible, or at least ignorable, until now. The new wall dramatically changes this dynamic, forcing users to adapt their behavior if they want to access YouTube videos at all. Still, the ad blocking companies suggest it’s more of a policy change than a technical breakthrough — a sign of a new willingness on YouTube’s part to risk alienating its users.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
October 11, 2023

IANS: Hackers launch a cyberattack on Israeli websites

IANS: Hackers launch a cyberattack on Israeli websites. “As Hamas-Israel violence escalates, groups of hacktivists have targeted Israeli websites with floods of malicious traffic. Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post posted on X that its website was down ‘due to a series of cyberattacks initiated against us’ since Saturday morning when Hamas launched a surprise land, sea and air attack against Israel.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
May 17, 2023

Ukraine War: Vast hacker ‘militias’ do little damage – but can rally mass support, says study (Breaking Defense)

Breaking Defense: Ukraine War: Vast hacker ‘militias’ do little damage – but can rally mass support, says study . “‘Hacktivist’ groups like the IT Army of Ukraine claim hundreds of thousands of members, but their cyber attacks are less about tangible results than online agitprop, says a forthcoming study from CSIS exclusively previewed by Breaking Defense.”

Research & Opinion 0
July 20, 2022

Motherboard: Inside Ukraine’s Decentralized Cyber Army

Motherboard: Inside Ukraine’s Decentralized Cyber Army. “Ever since it was launched just two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the IT Army has claimed several victims, including Mvideo, a large Russian consumer electronics chain; QIWI, a popular Russian payment service provider; Asna, a network of more than 10,000 pharmacies in Russia; and EGAIS, the Russian government’s unified state automated alcohol accounting information system. The group has been a central figure in the fight that Ukraine and Russia are waging in cyberspace, and it’s breaking new ground in terms of what a volunteer, quasi-hacktivist group can do in the context of a war.”

Ukraine 0
May 24, 2022

WIRED: Open Source Intelligence May Be Changing Old-School War

WIRED: Open Source Intelligence May Be Changing Old-School War. “Open source intelligence is information that can be readily and legally accessed by the general public. It was used in war and diplomacy long before the internet—alongside information stolen or otherwise secretly obtained and closely held. But its prevalence today means what was once cost-prohibitive to many is now affordable to myriad actors, whether North Korea, the CIA, journalists, terrorists, or cybercriminals.”

Ukraine 0
May 18, 2022

The Quint World: Anonymous Attempts To Help Sri Lankans but Instead Leaks Data of Thousands

The Quint World: Anonymous Attempts To Help Sri Lankans but Instead Leaks Data of Thousands. “Accounts connected with the group have since claimed to have targeted the websites of the Sri Lanka Police, the Ceylon Electricity Board, and the Health Ministry, primarily using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. While their campaign against the government has largely been ineffective, they have released data of thousands of ordinary Sri Lankan citizens that could leave them vulnerable to cybercrimes.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
March 24, 2022

Interview: The Role of Hacktivism in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict (InfoSecurity Magazine)

InfoSecurity Magazine: Interview: The Role of Hacktivism in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict. “Hacktivism has played a significant role in cyberspace for several years, with a range of high-profile entities targeted by hackers for political reasons. These range from governments and various other political groups for policies they disagree with to exposing privacy issues relating to manufacturers’ products. Recently, a range of individual hackers and hacktivist groups have been attracted to the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, effectively taking sides and targeting government agencies and other important organizations.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
October 11, 2021

Washington Post: Hacktivists are back

Washington Post: Hacktivists are back. “Hacktivists are back in the public spotlight, nearly a decade after groups like Anonymous and LulzSec tore through the Internet and wreaked havoc on everyone from Sony to the U.S. Senate. In places including the United States, Iran and Belarus, hackers aiming to further political goals have gone after companies and organizations perceived as right-wing, the surveillance industry and even authoritarian governments.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
January 19, 2019

Slate: Practice Hacktivism at Your Own Risk

Slate: Practice Hacktivism at Your Own Risk. “People launch cyberattacks for all sorts of different reasons—to steal money, to steal secrets, to show off their skills, to wreak havoc, but also for (what they consider to be) altruistic reasons. Martin Gottesfeld did it to draw attention to the case of Justina Pelletier, a Connecticut teenager who was admitted to Boston Children’s Hospital in 2013 and kept in a psychiatric ward there, against her parents’ wishes, for more than a year. Pelletier was ultimately returned to her family, but before that, Gottesfeld launched distributed denial-of-service attacks on two Massachusetts medical facilities involved in Pelletier’s care.”

Uncategorized 0
December 18, 2018

Digital Trends: These activists are hacking housing problems in NYC using apps and data

Digital Trends: These activists are hacking housing problems in NYC using apps and data . “These do-gooders informally identify as the Housing Data Coalition and consist of a variety of principled hacktivists who are building easy-to-use, intuitive tools that employ data as a weapon to combat illicit and unethical housing practices in a city that houses nearly 9 million people. They call their tools ‘civic technology’ and employ their skills in service of the people, not the landlords who prey on vulnerable populations.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0

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