The hackers hacked: main Anonymous IRC servers seized

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/the-hackers-hacked-main-anonymous-irc-servers-seized.ars

by thornjm • 15 years ago

67 24 15 years ago

arstechnica.com

sc68cal• 15 years ago

I guess someone decided to ride the split?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat_takeover

thaumaturgy• 15 years ago

It's been many years since I was on IRC, but IIRC you couldn't use netsplits to get oper rights, just an @ for a channel takeover -- until services came back online and you got booted.

Man, netsplits and +++ATH0 CTCPs and really wicked channel bots ... those were rather a lot of fun. Almost 15 years ago.

woodall• 15 years ago

DCC SEND stealthKeyLogger

yurisagalov• 15 years ago

IRC operators and Channel operators are very different.

IRC servers have IRC operators. They are volunteers who make sure that the server remains connected to the network (They can split/reconnect leaf nodes and hubs to/from other servers based on pre-defined rules in the IRC daemon's configuration. This allows you to rebalance the network, and reconnect servers if a central hub goes down/becomes unresponsive). They are also in charge of "policing" the network, they have the ability to kill (ban) users who misbehave, re-assign control in channels which are "taken over", and so on.

I've never been on Anon's IRC network, but most IRC networks these days use a "network services" scheme to automate the policing of channels (e.g. ChanServ/NickServ on DALnet/Freenode/Other networks, X/W on Undernet. They are essentially sophisticated robots that have IRC-operator priviliges. They can make someone a channel moderator, automatically ban users by ip/hostname/etc, as well as numerous other functions... I believe EFnet is one of the few "major" networks that doesn't have a services scheme). In any case, a channel takeover, or what this wiki entry referrs to as internet relay chat takeover, can only happen temporarily. Most servers will reset the channel to pre-split conditions upon reconnection. Moreover, any IRCop can reset the channel's operators/moderators/numerous other settings.

The problem in this case was that an IRCop misbehaved, not a channel operator :)

(I grew up on IRC...can you tell? ;)

edit: I'm aware I'm not using proper terminology for most of these things; this is on purpose.

shii• 15 years ago

Definitely. Good ol EFnet has always been great about having lax rules.

getsat• 15 years ago

  SmilingDevil -> owen: :P we need a hidden irc server for the admins.

Why not run their network inside I2P or something similar?

marshray• 15 years ago

Probably some are, but the only ones we tend to hear about are those which are not. The more visible ones are also likely to have the most and loudest followers.

joshes• 15 years ago

The tl;dr of it all is that, according to at least one Anon, this "Ryan" fellow was a former moderator of the IRC and was the legal owner of the AnonOps.ru and AnonOps.net domains. Apparently, two others, "Nerdo" and "Owen" (whom you may remember from the HBGary fiasco), revoked his IRC credentials. Ryan somewhat predictably responded by DDOS'ing (with help from 808chan) and essentially taking his domains and going home. Some Anons responded by getting "Ryan"'s docs and now it's all just a bunch of circle jerking.

citricsquid• 15 years ago

It's as if you just described the entire "Anonymous" thing in one simple sentence fragment:

> it's all just a bunch of circle jerking.

GoodIntentions• 15 years ago

Reading that article brought to mind a sarcastic question I heard addressed from a skin to a young punk decades back:

"So who is in charge of this whole anarchy thing anyway?"

gcb2• 15 years ago

You can only hear that from someone that still mix up anarchy with chaos.

a good example to end this discussion quickly is to point that international law is anarchy, and is pointing to a pretty stable direction. And I do not see anyone claiming for a global earth goverment. just see how little UN has to say in anything.

udoprog3• 15 years ago

Well little is a relative term. UNs had a big impact on politics in my country. I also found the quote a pretty amusing and quite valid tidbit, given that Anarchy simply means a gov. without ruler.

udoprog3• 15 years ago

Indeed, It's not as if the anon community will be more fragmented after this, someone else is just gonna step up and be the next loudmouth.

wladimir• 15 years ago

It's funny to see the mainstream press completely fail in doing any reporting on Anon. Half of the time, it's just too chaotic, by the time you think you understand how it works and report on it it completely went the other way around.

The other half of the time, they just tell you nonsense, either because they don't know themselves or they want to fool you.

It's like herding cats. But it does give amusing reads.

jrockway2• 15 years ago

Lesson learned today: if you're going to commit crimes, you'd better trust your co-conspirators.

Follow-up lesson: turns out that random people on IRC are not automatically trustworthy.

Follow-up follow-up lesson: use Tor.

iwwr• 15 years ago

Tor is far from safe, especially if your opponent has the ability to intersperse a majority of treacherous nodes into the network.

jrockway2• 15 years ago

I don't know if that's something to be worried about or not, but it just seems like common sense to try and cover your tracks if you are doing something that The Authorities don't approve of.

Sure, Tor might be broken (though there is no evidence of anyone getting in trouble for doing something through Tor), but it might also not be broken. We don't know. We do know for sure that when your IP address is 1.2.3.4 in the logs, they are going to call your 1.2.0.0/16's ISP and be on your doorstep in hours.

To be honest, I guess it's good for society that criminals are so stupid. The downside for me is that I don't get to read anything interesting when the media covers these stories -- all I get is "we got a bunch of IPs and people using their real names to harrass Sony executives' kids".

yason• 15 years ago

Use I2P. Just connect your IRC client to a certain port on localhost and you'll be rerouted to the I2P IRC server. If some government seized the I2P IRC server, nobody would still have any idea of who you are.

BasDirks• 15 years ago

Am I the only one thinking this is all just smoke and mirrors?

pjscott• 15 years ago

I was going to go with "sound and fury, signifying nothing," but smoke and mirrors works, too.

Anonymous is chaotically aligned. Should it come as any surprise that their innards are equally tumultuous?

hm2k• 15 years ago

reading this is like "when news isn't news"

The hackers hacked: main Anonymous IRC servers seized

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