one in four US hackers 'is an fbi informer'

from guardian: The underground world of computer hackers has been so thoroughly infiltrated in the US by the FBI and secret service that it is now riddled with paranoia and mistrust, with an estimated one in four hackers secretly informing on their peers, a Guardian investigation has established. Cyber policing units have had such success in forcing online criminals to co-operate with their investigations through the threat of long prison sentences that they have managed to create an army of informants deep inside the hacking community.

In some cases, popular illegal forums used by cyber criminals as marketplaces for stolen identities and credit card numbers have been run by hacker turncoats acting as FBI moles. In others, undercover FBI agents posing as "carders" – hackers specialising in ID theft – have themselves taken over the management of crime forums, using the intelligence gathered to put dozens of people behind bars.

So ubiquitous has the FBI informant network become that Eric Corley, who publishes the hacker quarterly, 2600, has estimated that 25% of hackers in the US may have been recruited by the federal authorities to be their eyes and ears. "Owing to the harsh penalties involved and the relative inexperience with the law that many hackers have, they are rather susceptible to intimidation," Corley told the Guardian.

"It makes for very tense relationships," said John Young, who runs Cryptome, a website depository for secret documents along the lines of WikiLeaks. "There are dozens and dozens of hackers who have been shopped by people they thought they trusted."

related defcon updates:
hackers attack fbi partner website; atlanta infraguard exposed*
pbs website hacked with fake news*
video: did hackers deface fox news building in nyc?*
after cyberattack targeted lockheed martin -
second defense contractor l-3 'actively targeted' with rsa securid hacks*
gmail hack targeted white house*
cyber attacks can count as act of war*
writer urges internet junkies to 'switch off' and think*
video: sony loses $3.2b after playstation network hacked*
hackers attack another sony network, post data*
'world of warcraft' blamed for divorce as men 'prefer them to their wives'*
un report declares internet access a human right*
oregon senator wyden freezes second internet censorship bill*
facebook quietly switches on facial recognition tech by default*
apple patent will cripple devices when in proximity of 'a concert or a classified facility'*
how could so many crooks have managed to scam the national security agency?*

shadowy spy group building dossiers on internet users for feds

from paul joseph watson: An organization that tracks 250 million IP addresses a day has been developing portfolios on Internet users and handing the information to U.S. federal agencies as the latest incarnation of the supposedly defunct Total Information Awareness spy program is revealed.

A group calling itself Project Vigilant went public at yesterday’s Defcon security conference in an effort to add more recruits to its 600 member strong cyber spy force. The outfit announced that it had been tracking “Internet villains” for no less than 14 years and handing the information to federal authorities as part of a massive intelligence gathering program.

However, the target of one such investigation did not fall into the category of cyber criminals - “terrorists, drug cartels, mobsters” - that the group claims to be fighting.

The organization “encouraged one of its 'volunteers', researcher Adrian Lamo, to inform the federal government about the alleged source of a controversial video of civilian deaths in Iraq leaked to whistle-blower site Wikileaks in April,” reports Forbes.

Project Vigilant director Chet Uber used Lamo’s friendship with Bradley Manning, the former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who allegedly released the classified video, to out Manning, who now faces criminal charges...

Uber also founded InfraGard, the ominous FBI-affiliated public-private partnership that is a key component of the unfolding implementation of martial law in the United States. InfraGard made its intentions to act as a political police force clear in March 2009 when the group announced that questions surrounding Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility were “potentially harmful to civil order and national security”.

Uber’s organization poses as a volunteer orientated crime-fighting private outfit, and yet it is nothing more than a tentacle of the military-industrial complex’s sprawling unconstitutional internal spy apparatus.

related updates:
project vigilant is a fraud*
wikileaks posts mysterious 'insurance' file*
wikileaks' julian assange & conspiracy theories*
diarydig.org: 'afghan war diary' search tool*
jacob appelbaum, wikileaks volunteer, detained at US border for 3hrs*
pentagon demands wikileaks return all documents*