HBGary Federal Spied On Families And Children Of US Chamber Of Commerce Opponents
from the lovely-folks dept
The story of HBGary Federal keeps getting worse and worse. After threatening to reveal the "leaders" of the leaderless group Anonymous, the company's servers were hacked and emails released, exposing a bizarre plan to intimidate Wikileaks critics to get them to stop supporting the site, and to plant false information. A few days later, it came out that HBGary Federal (along with partners Palantir and Berico) also had proposed a similar campaign to help the US Chamber of Commerce silence critics. New reports show that HBGary Federal boss Aaron Barr apparently went so far as to "demonstrate" his ability to intimidate people by using social networking info to dig up information and photos on people's families.In fact, in a bit of bravado, he even used the same tactics to reveal info he was able to glean about the family of one of the lawyers, Richard Wyatt, who had contacted HBGary Federal from the law firm/lobbying firm of Huntoon and Williams, in looking to secure their services for both the Bank of America anti-Wikileaks campaign and the US Chamber of Commerce anti-critics campaign:
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Filed Under: families, spying
Companies: berico tecnologies, hbgary federal, huntoon and williams, palantir technologies, us chamber of commerce
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Spying?
Not saying that Aaron Barr is awesome, but he appears to basically just be selling the idea that he can profile someone based on public information, which is nothing new. I wouldn't give him the glory of being called a "spy" . . . his "spying" is a little too inane for that.
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Re: Spying?
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Re: Spying?
Personally the potential of exploiting the children is the greatest, and most (i'm kinda hesitant to use this term, because it is over used) but _evil_ thing you can do to a parent.
I dare you to try and do this to a Federal Judge, Congressman... and see what happens to you. (Hell I would say someone from Anon... but we know what happens then)
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Re: Re: Spying?
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Re: Spying?
He went beyond gathering personal information on someone's family and into how that information could be used to intimidate:
To dramatize his firm�s intimidation tactics, Barr sent an email to Hunton & Williams attorney John Woods that contained personal details about fellow Hunton attorney Richard Wyatt, who was representing the Chamber. The email was intended to show Woods and Wyatt how �vulnerable� they are:
Even if you accept that "spying" on a business or political rival's family is perfectly fine, intimidating them certainly is not.
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Re: Re: Spying?
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I know that's pretty pervasive throughout all of humanity, but this guy has it in droves.
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nice outro
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Re: nice outro
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Re: nice outro
That's a little creepy since it's a typo... but it's not showing up in the admin. In the admin, it's right... hmm...
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spying..
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No investigation
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Amusing
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/synagogue
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Could very well have been firefox not playing well with others.
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The discussion should end there. Hacking to reveal this is no better than the supposed torture that Manning is "suffering" in order to get some sort of confession. You are either for or against illegal means.
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Re:
Hacking is not the moral equivalent of torture.
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Re: Re:
Black or white, right or wrong. Is hacking illegal? Yup. Is Torture illegal? Yup. They are, therefore, the same in that regard.
If you are against whatever is produced via torture (confessions or information), you should be equally against what is produced by hacking (information).
It's not hard. It's the sort of choice that is presented every day around here.
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To reiterate:
Jaywalking is illegal.
Murder is illegal.
Jaywalking is not murder.
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But anyway, hacking is not always illegal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat_(computer_security)
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;-)
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This is like saying human blood = kool aid because they are both red.
If you want to attack the illegal actions of Anon, go ahead. but if you try to compare those actions with torture, you're going to get laughed out of every room (the conference room of HBGary excepted).
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All laws are equal? All laws are presumed to be just? All laws must always be obeyed, merely because they are laws?
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You have to base it on the actual act.
Torture- putting a human being through life altering traumatic physical pain, holding them hostage, their family fearing for their safety
vs.
exposing a companies wrong doing and embarrassing them.
Not the same. Not even like within a million miles of each other in fact.
Get a grip.
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right or wrong
It may be nice to think that way, but unfortunately the world is not that black and white. Is hacking illegal: Yes. However to say that hacking is equivalent to torture shows a profound lack empathy for a fellow human being. You may as well say rape is the same as jay walking.
I think in this case, the ends absolutely HAVE justified the means, and showing that these are the types of people our government is actively using to do their dirty work should be worrisome to us all.
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Re: right or wrong
It is justifiable to commit the illegal act of jaywalking to prevent someone from vandalizing a mailbox.
It is not justifiable to commit the illegal act of murder to prevent someone from vandalizing a mailbox.
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Re: right or wrong
My favorite to date because people seem to ignore it ad-nauseam is climate gate but people are still stuck on green because there is no red.
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Re: Re: right or wrong
For a modern example, Bradley Manning is in hot water legally for allegedly leaking the Wikileaks troves. However, Wikileaks, the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, et al did not break any laws by publishing the (until then) classified information.
In summary, a whistle-blower, or altruistic hacker, is not the same as a journalist, although the two overlap in many ways. "Deep Throat" was the leaker, not the publisher.
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Just a thought
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Re: Just a thought
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One time, i visited Wikileaks and poked my head through a door marked "Employees Only", and what i saw was amazing!
The entire site was all made of cardboard and plywood and little bits of tape! Sure, they painted a nice site on the front, but if you start wiggling it at the edge you see where the 'roof' starts to flop around. Maybe it is a fake site, and all the residents of the real site are up the hill waiting for Taggart and his posse to whup and holler their way in before blowin' the whole thing down!
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I hate redactions
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If an average citizen did this, he'd spend the rest of his life in prison. Probably get branded a 'terrorist' so he can get the death penalty.
In fact, I suspect the Justice Department will go after Anonymous now, while completely ignoring Barr. How dare someone stand up to our corporate masters...
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Sounds like
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