Anonymous Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond Pleads Guilty to Stratfor Attack

[alp227]

Source: Wired

At a time when the word “hacktivist” is routinely used to describe random brigands and petty vandals, Jeremy Hammond stands out as the real deal. In 2004 he urged DefCon attendees to target Republican National Convention delegates for “electronic civil disobedience.” In 2006 he was sentenced to two years federal for hacking the website of a right-wing group. In between he reportedly picked up a handful of minor arrests for real-world civil disobedience, including at least one drum-banging protest.

Today, the 28-year-old Chicagoan pleaded guilty to conspiring in the keystone attack of the short-lived Lulzsec/AntiSec era, a damaging December 2011 intrusion into the servers of the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc. The Stratfor hack compromised 60,000 credit card numbers, some of which were promptly loaded up with $700,000 in fraudulent charges. Also stolen were 5 million email messages, which have been trickling out of WikiLeaks ever since.

As with his previous adventures, Hammond’s motives in the Stratfor attack were purely non-profit.

“Now that I have pleaded guilty it is a relief to be able to say that I did work with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites,” Hammond writes in an unrepentant press release. “Those others included military and police equipment suppliers, private intelligence and information security firms, and law enforcement agencies.

Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/hammond-plea/

[pscot]

1. Hammond is a genuine hero

No fear!

[defacto7]

2. One brave man.

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Reminder that Judge Preska, residing over the Hammond Stratfor case, is married to a Stratfor Client

Anonymous ?@YourAnonNews

Reminder that @JudgePreska, who resided over the Hammond Stratfor case, is married to a Stratfor Client: http://bit.ly/12NlQGv #FreeHammond


http://www.salon.com/2012/11/28/judge_in_hacker_case_is_married_to_a_stratfor_client/

UPDATE Dec. 3rd: Jeremy Hammond’s lawyers plan to file a motion this week for Judge Preska’s recusal. Sparrow Media reported that Preska was made aware of the published connection between her husband and Stratfor and that her husband’s Stratfor-related information was published by Wikileaks, but “Preska indicated that this personal connection to the Hammond case ‘would not effect her ability to be impartial’.” A video from last week’s press conference featuring journalists, attorneys and civil liberties advocates is posted below.

Nov. 28th: Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond was told last week by federal judge Loretta Preska that he was being denied bail and could face life in jail for his alleged involvement with the Anonymous/LulzSec hack into the computers of the private intelligence firm Stratfor.

Civil liberties advocates have decried the state’s harsh treatment of the activist, who was reportedly held in solitary confinement for five days in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center and has so far been imprisoned for eight months without trial. Now, Hammond’s supporters believe they have an extra and important string to their bow: a release from Anonymous reported that the federal judge who denied Hammond bail is married to a client of Stratfor and was personally affected by the infamous hack.

“Judge Loretta Preska’s impartiality is compromised by her husband’s involvement with Stratfor and a clear prejudice against Hammond exists, as evidenced by her statements … Without justice being freely, fully and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights nor our property, can be protected,” the Anonymous release noted.

[struggle4progress]

8. Preska's husband, Thomas Kavaler, filed a sworn affidavit with the court, stating:

that he had never been "a client, a customer, a member, or a subscriber of Stratfor"; and that Stratfor had never been a client of his, nor of the firm for which he works.

http://freeanons.org/wp-content/uploads/kavaler.pdf

[delrem]

4. Problem with "hero": "The Stratfor hack compromised 60,000 credit card numbers,

some of which were promptly loaded up with $700,000 in fraudulent charges."

Too much money.

But more than that, I don't agree with anonymous "hacktivism". I think it's a cowardly way to play at "anarchism", and that it can easily morph into the terrorism of anonymous internet stalking and vindictiveness.

That it plays on this small-minded shit is so obvious it comes down *of course* to lines like this:
"Hammond and other hackers were betrayed by Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka “Sabu,” a former computer security consultant and the ersatz leader of the Lulzsec hacking team. Monsegur secretly turned informant after the FBI easily tracked him down in May 2011, and he became an agent provocateur, publicly cheerleading for hack attacks against private security contractors and law enforcement agencies. In this way he ensnared the Stratfor hackers, and even got them to transfer their stolen material to an FBI-controlled server."

OK????

[Roland99]

5. He's a criminal...nothing less

[LiberalLovinLug]

6. Hardly "cowardly"

Risking perhaps life in prison? What would you do for that risk?

Even if you think its wrong, its not cowardice. That reminds me of how Bill Maher was smeared and lost his ABC show simply for disputing all the MSM and politicians talking points that the terrorists were "cowards". Anyone who flies a plane deliberately into buildings is not a coward, even though they may be brainwashed extremists.

I look at it like this, if it were a different world, and for the most part governments were working for the people instead of the corporate class, with public financing of elections. And where no company was "too big to fail" and CEOs were prosecuted along with war criminals like Bush and Cheney.....etc etc...and some hacking group was constantly trying to ruin the progress by disrupting these processes...I would be against them as well.

But as you know its the complete opposite and the fact is Anonymous are tiny tiny David's going after a huge out-of-control too-big-to-fail corrupt ruling elite Goliath that owns the media (message) and has billions at its disposal for propaganda. Its hardly a fair fight so any small victory should be celebrated.

[delrem]

7. cowardly

"Risking perhaps life in prison? What would you do for that risk?"

It takes pre-planning to extract $700,000 from stolen credit card numbers before the spigot is turned off.
Of course, this guy did it as "anonymous", mentored by "Lulzsec", so thought there was minimum or no risk.

This guy wasn't flying a plane into a building. He didn't expect to get caught.

What makes you so sure anonymous hackers are on your side, the side of making a perfect world? This guy was being run by the FBI, and now he's being made example of. How do you know when "anonymous", touting itself in videos with ominous voiceovers and people in that ubiquitous mask, are "good", "bad", "the CIA", "your neighbors kid", "a foreign intelligence agency", "just a common criminal" or "just a malicious beavis"? You don't. Rather, you prefer to apply a Robin Hood type mythology to it, ignoring the fact that Robin Hood wasn't anonymous. You prefer to imagine that "anonymous" are all "good guys", kinda like a lot of people liked to imagine that the Libyan "rebels" were a "rag tag pro-democracy pro-freedom army", not a collage of mercenaries and fanatics taking advantage of Saudi/US wealth to their pockets and a rather shallow agenda. Libyan good guys existed, but they were totally run over by that war. As they are being totally run over by the war in Syria.

[LiberalLovinLug]

9. No risk?

Of course he knew there'd be a risk.

I don't know that anonymous hackers are on my side. But so far Anonymous has been. Whether it be exposing child porn sites, hacking Westboro Baptist, stopping KKKarl Rove from stealing an election, or prodding the police to do their job against small town football "hero" rapists by threatening to expose them, so far they HAVE been on "my side". And even if some splinter group abuse that trust, I will not smear the whole movement because if it.

And in this increasingly secretive government, whether D or R, where whistleblowers are sent to prison and new laws set up to punish future ones, where Monsanto execs are appointed heads of food safety, and Goldman Sachs are appointed as financial overseers...etc etc...the cards are stacked against anyone that believes in open democracy and justice for all. So yes, they are highly needed in this world and I have nothing but the greatest respect for their bravery.

[delrem]

11. That explains the $700,000, all right. How do I get a cut?

[Fire Walk With Me]

12. Yep. Was Jeremy involved with the credit card aspect? Has not been proven, is not on trial

so far as I know. FUCK Sabu.

[24601]

10. So let him off easy - perhaps only one day in jail for each stolen email messages.

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. Why aren't any upset that the FBI created this entire situation in the first place?

Traitor sabu was given the keys to the kingdom. This was entirely manufactured to entrap and punish people who might have otherwise not been involved.