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FBI Spying Uses Hacker Tricks: WSJ

The FBI is using tactics more commonly used by hackers to spy on suspects, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

According to the WSJ, modern criminals are increasingly communicating online, making them impossible to wiretap. So, the FBI is using tools to monitor things like chat rooms and encrypted programs. For example, agents can secretly activate the microphone on Android phones as well as laptops.

For more on the revelations, head over to WSJ.

The news comes as U.S. surveillance techniques make news on multiple fronts. Earlier in the week, news broke that the U.S. had been helping New Zealand spy on journalist Jon Stephenson.

The story, first reported by New Zealand’s Sunday Star Times, claimed that New Zealand had gotten access to Stephenson’s phone records with U.S. assistance. According to the Star Times, the New Zealand government had been unhappy with some of Stephenson’s coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden, who first broke news that the NSA has been spying on millions of Americans daily, was granted temporary asylum in Russia on Thursday. After weeks of sleeping at the Moscow airport, he finally left.

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LulzSec Leader ‘Sabu’ Speaks About Life On the Run

LulzSec Leader ‘Sabu’ Speaks About Life On the Run
technewsdaily.com | October 10 05:53 PM
One of the reclusive leaders of the infamous and disbanded LulzSec hacking group gave an online interview in which he spoke candidly about life as a wanted online criminal, the achievements and future of his former group and his fears that one of his colleagues will eventually bring him down.

In the interview, part of an ongoing “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit, Sabu revealed that he is married, speaks three languages fluently English, Spanish and German and began as a self-taught hacker in 2000. Although his answers are not necessarily the truth, it appears Sabu is Puerto Rican, 30 years old and lives in New York City.

In fact, Sabu may not fit the stereotypical “hacker” mold. He said he enjoys working on cars, playing music and spending time with his family. “I’m loving life a lot this year,” he said. “I barely have time for ops [hacker operations] like I used to.”

So what keeps a 30-year-old happily married man dedicated to the shadowy underground world of hacktivism? Sabu said he’s driven by one all-encompassing idea. “Revolution runs through my veins and it’s thicker than blood,” he said.

It was that same idea that lit the fire under LulzSec and led to its notable hacks against everyone from the U.S. Senate, the CIA and Nintendo to PBS, Fox.com and government websites in Brazil and Britain.

LulzSec, Sabu said, succeeded in exposing “the sad state of security across the media, social, government online environments.” Although it officially disbanded in late June the group returned a month later to hack The Sun’s website and leak employee names in retaliation for Rupert Murdoch’s sanctioned voicemail hacking Sabu said LulzSec still has a cache of sensitive documents from major corporations, including more emails from The Sun it is storing on Chinese servers, as well as information stolen from HSBC and “a few other banks.”

LulzSec has “lots of interesting dumps we’re sitting on due to timing,” Sabu said.

Though he admitted he’s “on the run,” Sabu is less worried about law enforcement finding him than he is of one of his former LulzSec colleagues ratting him out.

“The ironic twist will be that my own friends will take me down, and not these idiots who hide behind the patriot veil,” he said, referring to the The Jester, a pro-American hacker who constantly goads Sabu and other Anonymous members on Twitter.

If he manages to evade detection and arrest, Sabu said he plans to turn his efforts to education and hopes to one day “publish a couple of books.” As far as Anonymous, Sabu doesn’t see the group or its ideology ending.

“I see it spawning many organizations and political parties,” he said. “This movement is real . No longer an Internet meme. We are a Legion.”

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LulzSec Leader ‘Sabu’ Flips on Friends for FBI

For at least the past eight months, the notorious, elusive hacker known as “Sabu,” the de facto leader of the LulzSec prankster cell, has been working for the FBI, helping law enforcement around the world gather evidence to arrest his former associates.

Last August, Hector Xavier Monsegur, 28, an unemployed father of two and legal guardian of underage siblings living in a housing project in New York City, pleaded guilty to 12 charges, including aggravated identity theft. Some of his crimes were related to his part in attacks against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal after those companies stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.

Facing a two-year prison sentence and the threat of losing his children, Monsegur, who may have been the most influential member of the small LulzSec hacking group, flipped and began working for the FBI. He gave agents with a crucial inside source to help arrest still-active members of LulzSec and the larger Anonymous movement.

Monsegur’s indictment, which was unsealed in federal court today (March 6), can be viewed here. It links him to attacks on numerous governmental and corporate websites, says he stole, used and sold other people’s credit-card numbers and even hacked into an online auto-parts retailer to have engine components shipped to himself.

Last night and early this morning, raids in Chicago, London and Ireland netted five more alleged hackers, three of them affiliated with LulzSec.

One of them, 29-year-old Jake Davis aka “Topiary,” was previously arrested last summer at his home in the Shetland Islands of far northern Scotland. (His age was then given as 19.) The Justice Department’s press release says Davis, Monsegur, Ryan Ackroyd, 23, of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, aka “Kayla,” and Darren Martyn, 25, of Galway, Ireland, aka “pwnsauce,” were the core members of LulzSec.

Two others were charged in unrelated incidents. Jeremy Hammond, 27, of Chicago, aka “Anarchaos,” was allegedly a member of AntiSec, a different Anonymous spinoff group, and the main perpetrator behind the December hack into the email servers of Texas consulting group Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (StratFor).

Donncha O’Cearrbhail, 19, of Birr, in central Ireland, aka “Palladium,” was allegedly responsible for Anonymous’ eavedropping on a Jan. 17 conference call between Scotland Yard and the FBI regarding Anonymous. He allegedly had found the access information for the conference call in the personal email account of an Irish police officer. The recording of the conference call was posted on YouTube on Feb. 3.

Monsegur’s own indictment also details the numerous exploits of LulzSec, the group that fascinated the media and stymied authorities for 50 days last summer, harrassing everyone from the CIA and the U.S. Senate to the government of Brazil, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Fox.com, PBS and Sony Pictures.

To help ensnare his former criminal colleagues, Monsegur disseminated false information in online interviews and from his popular AnonymousSabu Twitter account. Working out of FBI offices, and then at home on a continuously monitored FBI laptop, Monsegur also protected several government websites from hacks and at times urged his former minions to back off from attacking certain targets.

An FBI spokesperson told Fox News that with Monsegur’s help, the FBI notified 300 government, financial and corporate entities around the world to vulnerabilities in their networks, allowing the organizations to protect themselves.

The impact of Sabu’s unveiling has already been felt in the hacktivist world. Barrett Brown, an unofficial Anonymous spokesman, wrote on Twitter this morning that the FBI has raided his apartment. He ended his tweet with, “Sabu is a traitor.”