This is a serious post, unlike some others which tilt more toward fun and awe. But like them all, it’s something I think is riveting, and that you really should be aware of and try to digest and incorporate into your world view. I will try to give the briefest summary, then give you the links which I recommend you dive into one evening. What you will find is disturbing, ongoing, and reads like the plot of a sci-fi movie.
Bank of America, the United States’ largest bank, is afraid of Wikileaks’ threatened release of documents it claims will “take down” a major bank. Suspecting that it is the targeted bank, BoA has been “preparing” for months to mitigate whatever damage might occur. Its law firm, Hunton & Williams contacted a consortium of security firms led by HB Gary Federal. Got it so far?
How do we know this? HB Gary Federal (HBGF) was recently bragging through its CEO that it had infiltrated the hacker group Anonymous, which used cyber attacks to disrupt corporate entities (Mastercard, etc) who cut off financial services from Wikileaks upon the publication (in conjunction with the New York Times and other news entities) of revealing diplomatic cables. In retaliation for whatever HBGF had done or tried to do, Anonymous hacked HBGF’s email server and published over 50,000 of the company’s internal emails. Ouch.
From these emails we learned that HBGF and two other Internet security firms, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies collaborated to plan a campaign of sabotage, intimidation, extortion and fraud in order to discredit and disrupt Wikileaks and specific entities and persons, including named journalists, who were perceived as supportive of Wikileaks. Not only odious, these tactics or some of them are quite possibly illegal. The email dump also linked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to a similar blueprint for attacking its critics.
HBGF is bearing the brunt of these revelations. BoA is running away as fast as it can claiming no knowledge, and its law firm Hunton & Williams has steadfastly refused to comment. The other security firms involved have cut ties with HBGF, suspended employees and made personal apologies to journalists involved, including Glenn Greewald of Salon.com.
Now dive in.
Salon editorial responding to the threat against its journalist
Greenwald says Nate “Anderson has written the definitive account thus far about the facts showing the involvement of each of these companies”
The who-knew-what-when questions are just beginning. I will post more attempted explanations and links as things develop.
Between the lines is a whole lot of commentary on the state of our society and polity.
B
