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Category — Aaron Swartz
British Hacker Wins Legal Battle Over Encryption Keys

British Hacker Wins Legal Battle Over Encryption Keys

May 11, 2016
In Brief Britain's top crime fighting force has failed in a legal attempt to force alleged hacker Lauri Love to hand over his hard disk's encryption keys. In a landmark case, District Judge Nina Tempia said the investigative agency should have used the normal police powers rather than a civil action to obtain the evidence. Lauri Love, a 31-year-old hacker, has been accused of aiding cyber-attacks against U.S. targets, including NASA, FBI, US Army and US Federal Reserve networks. The National Crime Agency (NCA) has failed in a legal attempt to force the British citizen and political hacktivist Lauri Love to hand over the keys to encrypted data that has been seized from his home two years ago. At a Tuesday hearing in Court Seven at Westminster Magistrates' Court, the NCA's application to make Love disclose his encrypted computer passwords was refused by the judge. Hacker Fighting Extradition to U.S. Love, 31, is currently fighting extradition to the Uni...
British Authorities Order Hacker Lauri Love to hand Over Encryption Keys

British Authorities Order Hacker Lauri Love to hand Over Encryption Keys

Apr 13, 2016
The National Crime Agency (NCA) of United Kingdom is forcing the British citizen, and political hacktivist Lauri Love accused of hacking to hand over encryption keys to equipment seized from his home. Love, 31, is currently fighting extradition to the United States where he faces up to 99 years in prison for allegedly hacking into the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), the US Missile Defence Agency, NASA and Federal Reserve Bank of New York during 2012 and 2013. US Prosecutors claim that Love was allegedly involved in #OpLastResort , an online protest linked with the Anonymous group, following the persecution and untimely death of activist Aaron Swartz , who committed suicide in 2013 while under federal charges for data theft. Love was initially arrested from his home in Stradishall, England in October 2013 by the NCA and had criminal charges filed against him in New York, East Virginia, and New Jersey. During a court hearing at Westminster Magistrates on Tues...
7 PAM Best Practices to Secure Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments

7 PAM Best Practices to Secure Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments

Dec 04, 2024Risk Management / Zero Trust
Are you using the cloud or thinking about transitioning? Undoubtedly, multi-cloud and hybrid environments offer numerous benefits for organizations. However, the cloud's flexibility, scalability, and efficiency come with significant risk — an expanded attack surface. The decentralization that comes with utilizing multi-cloud environments can also lead to limited visibility into user activity and poor access management.  Privileged accounts with access to your critical systems and sensitive data are among the most vulnerable elements in cloud setups. When mismanaged, these accounts open the doors to unauthorized access, potential malicious activity, and data breaches. That's why strong privileged access management (PAM) is indispensable. PAM plays an essential role in addressing the security challenges of complex infrastructures by enforcing strict access controls and managing the life cycle of privileged accounts. By employing PAM in hybrid and cloud environments, you're not...
Movie Review: The Internet’s Own Boy - The story of Aaron Swartz

Movie Review: The Internet's Own Boy - The story of Aaron Swartz

Jun 30, 2014
Death is always painful, but its pains compounded considerably if its cause is suicide. When a suicide occurs, we aren't just left with the loss of a person, but we're also left with a legacy of anger, second-guessing, and fearful anxiety. Like in the case of the great Internet Activist Aaron Swartz. Aaron Hillel Swartz , an eclectic persona, was a self-taught programmer, Internet activist, co-founder of the popular social news website Reddit, founder of the organization Demand Progress and an activist who helped create the RSS feed format. In Fact, this isn't enough to define The Internet's Own Boy Aaron Swartz , who crafted the Internet we know today. Aaron Swartz committed suicide last year (when he was just a 26-year-old) after being threatened with the possibility of at least 35-year prison sentence and $4 million in fines by the Court for downloading millions of academic journal articles illegally over the digital library Jstor from MIT, with no bad intention ot...
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The AppSec & R&D Playbook: How to Align Security and Innovation

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AppSec vs. R&D? Bridge the gap with clear steps to streamline workflows and foster collaboration.
US Prosecutor drops Criminal charges against Barrett Brown

US Prosecutor drops Criminal charges against Barrett Brown

Mar 07, 2014
U.S. Prosecutors decided not to pursue crucial criminal charges against journalist and activist Barrett Brown , and dismiss a majority of charges related to sharing a link to a dump of credit card numbers connected to the breach of intelligence firm Stratfor. Supporters say Brown just copied the hyperlink from an the Internet chat room and then reposted the link on his own internet chat room, Project PM , that linked to stolen documents from the US government contractor, Stratfor Global Intelligence , included 860,000 e-mail addresses for Stratfor subscribers and 60,000 credit card details. Just hours after Brown's lawyers filed their comprehensive argument, the DOJ has filed a motion to dismiss all 11 charges, on Thursday.  Apart from computer fraud charges, Brown is also facing prosecution for allegedly threatening an FBI agent and for alleged obstruction of justice. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) , a non-profit organization defending civil libertie...
Dear Internet, Today is 'The Day We Fight Back', Biggest protest against NSA Surveillance

Dear Internet, Today is 'The Day We Fight Back', Biggest protest against NSA Surveillance

Feb 11, 2014
The US Government has allotted a large share of its ' Black Budget ' for secret military research and weapons programs, along with surveillance programs, that is harvesting hundreds of millions of Metadata from emails, web activity, chats, social networks, and everything else around the world. To make this happen, NSA has used a number of unethical ways, but labeled as legal solutions.  Today, on February 11th, we all unite to fight against the Government intrusion on the privacy of innocent people worldwide, under one banner of ' The Day We Fight Back ', along with other 7000 websites by hosting a large banner at the bottom of the websites; reading " Dear Internet, we're standing with 300+ nonprofits worldwide in demanding an end to mass, suspicionless surveillance ", asking people of the world to vote against proposed NSA reforms that the American Civil Liberties Union has labeled " Bad for Privacy ". The Banner, you can see at the bottom of this page, e...
MIT University website defaced by Anonymous hackers in honor of Aaron Swartz

MIT University website defaced by Anonymous hackers in honor of Aaron Swartz

Jan 11, 2014
Today is January 11, 2014 and the last year on the same day a 26-year-old, young hacker, Reddit cofounder and the digital Activist, Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide. He found dead in his Brooklyn, New York apartment, where he had hanged himself. Swartz was indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2011, accused of hacking the MIT JSTOR database and stealing over four million documents with the intent to distribute them. He could have prison for 50 years and $4 million in fines by the Court, but before that he committed suicide in fear. Swartz's father, Robert, later blamed the MIT and the judiciary system for his son's death. On the first Anniversary of Aaron Swartz , today the Anonymous group of hackers defaced the sub-domain of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) website ( https://cogen.mit.edu/ ) for about an hour as part of #OPLASTRESORT. Defacement page was titled ' THE DAY WE FIGHT BACK '. The message posted on it, " Remember The Day We Fight Back,...
Anonymous threatens to Hack Obama's State of the Union broadcast

Anonymous threatens to Hack Obama's State of the Union broadcast

Feb 13, 2013
The hacktivist group Anonymous says it's planning to block all live streams of President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, in an operation entitled " Operation SOTU ". " We reject the State of the Union. We reject the authority of the President to sign arbitrary orders and bring irresponsible and damaging controls to the Internet, " the statement reads. " The President of the United States of America, and the Joint Session of Congress will face an Army tonight. " Anonymous group is upset with a pending Internet security bill. According to Anonymous and other Internet freedom activists, if the CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Information Act) is passed it will infringe on online privacy and freedom. A Twitter account associated with Anonymous also hinted by tweeting ," ADVANCED WARNING: This year's State of the Union Address WILL be cancelled if internet regulation is passed by executive order #opLastResort " ...
Anonymous hackers deface United States Sentencing Commission website

Anonymous hackers deface United States Sentencing Commission website

Jan 26, 2013
Anonymous hackers deface the official website of U.S. Sentencing Commission website (ussc.gov) on Friday under a new campaign called " Operation Last Resort " in memory of  Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz and also threatening to release a massive WikiLeaks-style exposure of sensitive U.S. government secrets. " The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration. The time has come to give this system a taste of its own medicine. " hackers said. The hack was performed in opposition to alleged unjust policies of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) with the late Aaron Swartz. They also had distributed encrypted government files and claimed to give away decryption keys publicly as soon as possible. Where as this is not specified exactly what files they have obtained. Swartz was facing up to 50+ years in prison and a $4 million fine after releasing pay-walled academic articles from t...
RIP Aaron Swartz, A legendary Internet Activist

RIP Aaron Swartz, A legendary Internet Activist

Jan 13, 2013
Aaron Swartz has committed suicide on January 11, 2013 in New York City.  I have long been fought if you write something about this extraordinary boy, but not dedicate a tribute would be a shame. Aaron Swartz has decided to leave a huge void in the IT scenario.  For me, as the entire world he is a legend, a guy that has profoundly changed our daily work. Aaron Swartz is an eclectic persona; he is an hacker and active activist, co-founder of social news website Reddit and founder of the group Demand Progress. The EFF in a blog post states: " Aaron did more than almost anyone to make the Internet a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge, and to keep it that way. His contributions were numerous, and some of them were indispensable. When we asked him in late 2010 for help in stopping COICA, the predecessor to the SOPA and PIPA Internet blacklist bills, he founded an organization called Demand Progress, which mobilized over a million online activists and proved to be...
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