Friday, February 10, 2012
Anonymous took down cia.gov
Traditionally known as FuckFBIFriday, this weekend’s eve turned into FuckCIAFriday, as hacktivists downed the official website for the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States cia.gov.
At approximately 3:10 p.m. Eastern time one of twitter accounts related to the hackers’ group announced “cia.gov DOWN. #UMAD?#Anonymous.”
The CIA website became the latest victim in a series of attacks conducted by the elusive group of hackers against US law enforcement agencies and copyright holders. As RT reported earlier, Anonymous took credit for crashing the websites of the US Department of Homeland Security, which was quickly revived, and the FBI.
The CIA seems to be less prepared for fighting Anonymous than other agencies. If the work of dhs.gov was revived in mere minutes, the CIA’s site was still down even hours after the attack. One of the twitter accounts affiliated with Anonymous explained the reasons of the attack: “We do it for the lulz,” referring to the popular online abbreviation “for laughs.”
In previous occasions Anonymous has orchestrated humiliating assaults with massive distributed denial of services attacks.
The technique also known as a DDoS, is a concentrated effort by multiple individuals to make a network busy to its intended users. The end results in a server overload
Even though DDoS attacks are a violation of the Internet Architecture Boards’s proper use policy, it has become an effective tool for Anonymous to spread online mayhem.
Two weeks ago, the online group also released the audio of a conference call between the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Britain’s Scotland Yard counterpart targeting members of the largely untraceable group. It was done as part of the FuckFBIFriday campaign.
Along with the secret audio leak, numerous sites fell prey to Anonymous’ crippling assault including several entertainment industry giants and government sites.
The websites for the US Department of Justice and Universal Music Group were among the first to go, with the sites for US Copyright Office, Warner Music, BMI, and RIAA following suit shortly after.
These attacks were in retaliation for a raid on Megaupload, where the feds raided the file sharing service site which led to more than 20 warrants being served and several arrests internationally.
This is not the first time Anonymous takes down cia.gov. In June, as part of a 51-day-long hacking spree, the Anonymous affiliated group LulzSec took down the CIA’s site for a few hours. The reason was the same as today: “For the lulz.”
Iran cuts off Internet access
Iran has cut off access to the Internet, leaving millions of people without access to e-mail and social networks.
An individual inside the country confirmed this morning that Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo email are no longer available. Ditto for Facebook. So far, the government has not made any announcement about the service interruption.
But cyber-sophisticated Iranians are still able to circumvent the government by using proxy servers over VPN connections.
Toxic Artificial Sweetener ‘Neotame’ May Be Lurking in Your Organic Food
Often marketed as Equal and Nutrasweet, aspartame is a well-known neurotoxic sweetener used in many food products.
This cancer-causing artificial sweetener is threatening the health of populations worldwide, and has even been found to be created using genetically modified bacteria.
While most individuals know about aspartame and its dangers, there is another, lesser known sweetener in the food supply that many people don’t know about – Neotame.
Neotame: An Unknown Artificial Sweetener Lurking in Your Food
Introduced by biotech giant Monsanto, Neotame was created as a new sweetener and flavor enhancer to be used in food products. On July 9, 2002, the United States Food and Drug Administration decided that Neotame’s safety and functionality made it available for consumption, thus resulting in its approval. What’s concerning is, while Neotame has a similar structure to aspartame, the chemicals used in its manufacturing process seem to make the sweetener even more toxic than aspartame.
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