Part 1 (2/2)
I am going to tell a few key leaders under my persona, that I have been given information that a so called cyber security expert named Aaron Barr will be briefing the power of social media a.n.a.lysis and as part of the talk with be dissecting the Anonymous group as well as some critical infrastructure and government organizations I will prepare a press sheet for Karen to give to Darkreading a few days after I tell these folks under persona to legitimize the accusation. This will generate a big discussion in Anonymous chat channels, which are attended by the press. This will then generate press about the talk, hopefully driving more people and more business to us.
Barr then contacted another security company that specializes in botnet research. He suspected that top Anonymous admins like CommanderX had access to serious Internet firepower, and that this probably came through control of bots on compromised computers around the world.
Barr asked if the researchers could ”search their database for specific targets (like the one below) during an operational window (date/time span) to see if any botnet(s) are partic.i.p.ating in attacks? Below is an attack which is currently ongoing.” (The attack in question was part of Anonymous' ”Operation Payback” campaign and was targeted at the government of Venezuela.) The report that came back focused on the Low Orbit Ion Cannon, a tool originally coded by a private security firm in order to test website defenses. The code was open-sourced and then abandoned, but someone later dusted it off and added ”hivemind mode” that let LOIC users ”opt in” to centralized control of the tool. With hundreds or thousands of machines running the stress-test tool at once, even major sites could be dropped quickly. (The company recorded only 1,200 machines going after MasterCard on December 11, for instance.) To boost the credibility of his online aliases, Barr then resorted to a ruse. He asked his coder to grab the LOIC source code. ”I want to add some code to it,” Barr said. ”I don't want to distribute that, it will be found and then my persona will be called out. I want to add it, distribute it under a persona to burn and then have my other persona call out the code.”
The code to be added was an HTTP beacon that linked to a free website Barr had set up on Blogspot. He wanted a copy of the altered source and a compiled executable. His programmer, fearing Anonymous, balked.
On January 20, the coder wrote back, ”I'm not compiling that s.h.i.+t on my box!” He even refused to grab a copy of the source code from message boards or other IRC users, because ”I ain't touchin' any of that s.h.i.+t as those are already monitored.”
”Dude,” responded Barr. ”Anonymous is a reckless organization. C'mon I know u and I both understand and believe generally in their principles but they are not a focused and considerate group, the[y] attack at will and do not care of their effects. Do u actually like this group?”
The coder said he didn't support all they did, but that Anonymous had its moments. Besides, ”I enjoy the LULZ.”
”Dude-who's evil?”
At one time, Barr supported WikiLeaks. When the site released its (edited) ”Collateral Murder” video of a US guns.h.i.+p killing Reuters photographers in Iraq, Barr was on board. But when WikiLeaks released its huge cache of US diplomatic cables, Barr came to believe ”they are a menace,” and that when Anonymous sprang to the defense of WikiLeaks, it wasn't merely out of principle. It was about power.
”When they took down MasterCard do u think they thought alright win one for the small guy!” he asked. ”The first thought through most of their malcontented minds was a rush of power. That's not ideals.”
He continued in this philosophical vein: But dude whos evil?
US Gov? Wikileaks? Anonymous?
Its all about power. The Wikileaks and Anonymous guys think they are doing the people justice by without much investigation or education exposing information or targeting organizations? BS. Its about trying to take power from others and give it to themeselves.
I follow one law.
Mine.
His coder asked Barr how he slept at night, ”you military industrial machine capitalist.”
”I sleep great,” Barr responded. ”Of course I do indoor [enjoy?] the money and some sense of purpose. But I canget purpose a lot of places, few of which pay this salary.”
The comments are over the top, of course. Elsewhere, Barr gets more serious. ”I really dislike corporations,” he says. ”They suck the lifeblood out of humanity. But they are also necessary and keep us moving, in what direction I don't know.
”Governments and corporations should have a right to protect secrets, senstive information that could be damage to their operations. I think these groups are also saying this should be free game as well and I disagree. Hence the 250,000 cables. WHich was bulls.h.i.+t... Society needs some people in the know and some people not. These folks, these sheep believe that all information should be accessible. BS. And if they truly believe it then they should have no problem with me gathering information for public distribution.”
But Anonymous had a bit of a problem with that.
The hunter and the hunted As Barr wrapped up his research and wrote his conference presentation, he believed he had unmasked 80-90 percent of the Anonymous leaders.h.i.+p-and he had done it all using publicly available information.
”They are relying on IP for anonymity,” he wrote in a draft of his presentation. ”That is irrelevant with social media users. U use IRC and FB and Twitter and Forums and Blogs regularly... hiding UR IP doesn't matter.”
Barr would do things like correlate timestamps; a user in IRC would post something, and then a Twitter post on the same topic might appear a second later. Find a few of these links and you might conclude that the IRC user and the Twitter user were the same person.
Even if the content differed, what if you could correlate the times that someone was on IRC with the times a Facebook user was posting to his wall? ”If you friend enough people you might be able to correlate people logging into chat with people logging into Facebook,” Barr wrote.
The doc.u.ment contained a list of key IRC chatrooms and Twitter accounts. Facebook groups were included, as were websites. But then Barr started naming names. His notes are full of comments on Anonymous members. ”Switch” is a ”real a.s.shole but knows what he's talking about,” while ”unbeliever” might be ”alexander [last name redacted].”
In the end, Barr determined that three people were most important. A figure called Q was the ”founder and runs the IRC. He is indead in California, as are many of the senior leaders.h.i.+p of the group.” Another person called Owen is ”almost a co-founder, lives in NY with family that are also active in the group, including slenaid and rabbit (nicks).” Finally, CommanderX can ”manage some significant firepower.” Barr believed he had matched real names to each of these three individuals.
He wasn't doing it to actually expose the names, though. ”My intent is not to do this work to put people in jail,” Barr wrote to others in the company. ”My intent is to clearly demonstrate how this can be effectively used to gather significant intelligence and potentially exploit targets of interest (the other customers will read between the lines).”
He then revealed himself on Facebook to the person he believed was CommanderX. ”I am not going to release names,” Barr said on February 5, using the alias Julian Goodspeak. ”I am merely doing security research to prove the vulnerability of social media.” He asked for Anonymous to call off its DDoS attack on HBGary Federal, an attack that had begun earlier that day.
Some of the responses from CommanderX were a bit chilling. Late in the conversation, CommanderX warned Barr ”that your vulnerabilities are far more material. One look at your website locates all of your facilities. You might want to do something about that. Just being friendly. I hope you are being paid well.”
Then came an IRC log that Barr sent around, in which a user named Topiary tried to recruit him (under the name CogAnon) for ”a new operation in the Was.h.i.+ngton area” where HBGary Federal has its headquarters. The target is ”a security company.”
By late afternoon on the 5th, Barr was angry and perhaps a little scared, and he asked his PR person to ”help moderate me because I am getting angry. I am planning on releasing a few names of folks that were already arrested.” It's not clear that Barr ever did this, however; he admitted in another e-mail that he could get a bit ”hot” in private, though he would generally cool down before going public.
Hours later, the attack escalated from some odd DDoS traffic to a full-scale break-in of HBGary Federal systems, one that showed tremendous skill. ”What amazes me is, for a security company - you had such a basic SQL vulnerability on your website,” wrote one Anonymous member later.
Days afterward, the company has still not managed to restore its complete website.
”Danger, Will Robinson!”
Throughout Barr's research, though, the coder he worked with worried about the relevance of what was being revealed. Barr talked up the superiority of his ”a.n.a.lysis” work, but doubts remained. An email exchange between the two on January 19 is instructive: Barr: [I want to] check a persons friends list against the people that have liked or joined a particular group. [I want to] check a persons friends list against the people that have liked or joined a particular group.
Coder: No it won't. It will tell you how mindless their friends are at clicking stupid s.h.i.+t that comes up on a friends page. especially when they first join facebook. No it won't. It will tell you how mindless their friends are at clicking stupid s.h.i.+t that comes up on a friends page. especially when they first join facebook.
Barr: What? Yes it will. I am running throug a.n.a.lysis on the anonymous group right now and it definately would. What? Yes it will. I am running throug a.n.a.lysis on the anonymous group right now and it definately would.
Coder: You keep a.s.suming you're right, and basing that a.s.sumption off of guilt by a.s.sociation. You keep a.s.suming you're right, and basing that a.s.sumption off of guilt by a.s.sociation.
Barr: Noooo....its about probabilty based on frequency...c'mon ur way smarter at math than me. Noooo....its about probabilty based on frequency...c'mon ur way smarter at math than me.
Coder: Right, which is why i know your numbers are too small to draw the conclusion but you don't want to accept it. Your probability based on frequency right now is a gut feeling. Gut feelings are usually wrong. Right, which is why i know your numbers are too small to draw the conclusion but you don't want to accept it. Your probability based on frequency right now is a gut feeling. Gut feelings are usually wrong.
Barr: [redacted] [redacted]
Coder: [some information redacted] Yeah, your gut feelings are awesome! Plus, scientifically proven that gut feelings are wrong by real scientist types. [some information redacted] Yeah, your gut feelings are awesome! Plus, scientifically proven that gut feelings are wrong by real scientist types.
Barr: [some information redacted] On the gut feeling thing...dude I don't just go by gut feeling...I spend hours doing a.n.a.lysis and come to conclusions that I know can be automated...so put the taco down and get to work! [some information redacted] On the gut feeling thing...dude I don't just go by gut feeling...I spend hours doing a.n.a.lysis and come to conclusions that I know can be automated...so put the taco down and get to work!
Coder: I'm not doubting that you're doing a.n.a.lysis. I'm doubting that statistically that a.n.a.lysis has any mathematical weight to back it. I put it at less than .1% chance that it's right. You're still working off of the idea that the data is accurate. mmmm.....taco! I'm not doubting that you're doing a.n.a.lysis. I'm doubting that statistically that a.n.a.lysis has any mathematical weight to back it. I put it at less than .1% chance that it's right. You're still working off of the idea that the data is accurate. mmmm.....taco!
Later, when Barr talks about some ”advanced a.n.a.lytical techniques” he's been pondering for use on the Anonymous data, the coder replies with apparent frustration, ”You keep saying things about statistics and a.n.a.lytics but you haven't given me one algorithm or SQL query statement.”
Privately, the coder then went to another company official with a warning. ”He's on a bad path. He's talking about his a.n.a.lytics and that he can prove things statistically but he hasn't proven anything mathematically nor has he had any of his data vetted for accuracy, yet he keeps briefing people and giving interviews. It's irresponsible to make claims/accusations based off of a guess from his best gut feeling when he has even told me that he believes his gut, but more often than not it's been proven wrong. I feel his arrogance is catching up to him again and that has never ended well...for any of us.”
Others made similar dark warnings. ”I don't really want to get DDOS'd, so a.s.suming we do get DDOS'd then what? How do we make lemonade from that?” one executive asked Barr. The public relations exec warned Barr not to start dropping real names: ”Take the emotion out of it -> focus on the purpose. I don't see benefit to you or company to tell them you have their real names -- published or not.”
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