Anonymous collects, publishes IP addresses of alleged pedophiles
By Sean Gallagher
Following up on its takedown of a Tor-based child pornography host, a group within the Anonymous “hacktivist” group has published the Internet addresses of 190 alleged pedophiles. To do so, they allegedly collaborated with members of the Mozilla Foundation to create a modified Tor browser plugin which collected forensic data about the users. Members of the group also claim that a member of Tor’s developer team is the operator of the hosting service that serves up several child pornography sites.
The Tor privacy network uses a set of special protocols that can be used to allow anonymous browsing of the Internet and access to hidden “.onion” sites—a “darknet” of webpages, collaborative spaces and other Internet resources hidden from the view of the wider Internet. The Tor network conceals the location of these services, though attacks within the network can “fingerprint” them to gain information about them and use other methods to get a general idea of their location.
More via Ars Technica via Anonymous collects, publishes IP addresses of alleged pedophiles.
Tag Archives: privacy
Reading Room: U.S. Requests for Google User Data Spikes 29 Percent in Six Months
The number of U.S. government requests for data on Google users for use in criminal investigations rose 29 percent in the last six months, according to data released by the search giant Monday.
U.S. government agencies sent Google 5,590 criminal investigation requests for data on Google users and services from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2011, an average of 31 a day. That’s compared to 4,601 requests from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2010, the company reported Tuesday in an update to its unique transparency tool.
Google says it complied in whole or part with 93% of such requests, which can include court orders, grand jury subpoenas and other legal instruments.
For the first time, Google’s transparency report includes the number of users and accounts affected by such requests — in this case, 11,057.
Read more via U.S. Requests for Google User Data Spikes 29 Percent in Six Months | Threat Level | Wired.com.
NSA’s surveillance facility construction advances
A set of congressional budget documents reveals that the NSA plans to spend almost $1.8 billion over the next few years building a massive datacenter at Fort Williams in Utah. The docs describe the first part of a multi-phase construction project, which is slated to start next year. This first phase [PDF] involves developing infrastructure for the one million square foot center, infrastructure that includes 65MW of electrical power distribution, basic plumbing and drainage, and security and access control.
Power is apparently one of the key reasons that the NSA is looking to branch out from its massive Fort Meade facility and set up datacenters in other locations. The Salt Lake Tribune, which appears to have been first to the story, reports that there are two large power corridors that pass through Camp Williams, so the NSA will focus on hooking into those in the first phase of the project.
The Baltimore Sun ran a story in 2006, well before work started on this new facility, about the strain placed by the Fort Meade facility on Baltimore's power grid. The Sun link is broken, but this Slashdot link still works. The NSA was allegedly in danger of overloading the grid, so it was taking various measures to reduce datacenter power consumption.
Design work on the new center apparently started in November 2008, according to one document, and the NSA is targeting June 2010 to actually start work on the new facility.
There's also a massive, multiphase “campus development project” that's starting up at Fort Meade, and will eventually expand the facility to 5.8 million square feet. Cryptome has the details, and it looks like the NSA may be expanding its Fort Meade datacenter capacity as well with the addition of some on-site generators.
read more via Ars Technica.