On 5/3/12 2:24 PM, Wei Honker wrote: > cDc Created Hong Kong Blondes and 'Hacktivism' as a Media Hack > > http://weihonker.tumblr.com/ > > Anonymous is a Lie > > Anonymous is a lie. Anonymous is built on a false foundation that > casts a pale shadow over anything and everything they attempt to > accomplish. While born out of the trolls and lulz of the /b/ board on > fourchan Anonymous has quickly become an online activist movement. The > group has targeted everything from oppressive regimes in the Middle > East, to opposition about Internet censorship. They have been > launching DDoS attacks from the comfort of their basements while > people in the street are literally gunned down and then they have the > audacity to claim victory for themselves because they managed to take > a website offline for a few hours. These actions, these minor > irritations, have given Anonymous the audacity to call themselves > hacktivists, a term that is itself a lie. By using the term hackivist > or hacktivism Anonymous is helping to perpetuate one of the biggest > media hacks of all time and they don’t even know it. > > Pulling pranks on the media has a long history with the computer > underground. One of the best examples is the entire movie “Hackers” > which is so full of inside jokes they cease to be funny. Although when > you examine the list of technical consultants the lack of humor makes > sense. Hackers, the movie, is such a huge media hack the plot is used > not once, but twice. The second time with Serena Achtul and the ‘True > Life” show on MTV. The show supposedly illustrates a so called > ‘hacker’ who convinces Serena to follow him around while he attempts > to retrieve a disk before the feds do, which is exactly the same plot > used in the movie ‘Hackers”. Even after Serena and MTV where told they > were being trolled they chose to air the footage anyway. > > I don’t know who from the computer underground was the first to > execute a media hack but some of the best have come from the Cult of > the Dead Cow. To give you an idea of just how prolific and proficient > the cDc is at hacking the media consider that their slogan is ‘World > Domination through Media Saturation’. This is nowhere more apparent > than the spectacle that was the BO2K release during Defcon in 1999. No > software launch in recorded history; including those done by the media > savvy Apple Inc., could touch this. Everything from smashing guitars > to furry assless chaps to bad rap music with all the cDc members > prancing around on stage as if it was the second coming. All that > spectacle for nothing more than a remote access tool, something with > almost the exact same feature set as PC Anywhere except that it runs > on a different port number. Even Microsoft themselves said that BO2K > wasn’t a threat but the press ate it up anyway and cDc proved again > that they were in fact master media manipulators. > > Hactivism is another brainchild of cDc designed to fool and trick the > media and all who choose to be associated with the term. The creation > of the term is supposedly well documented as being first used by cDc > member Omega in an IRC chat room in 1996. But close examination of the > hacktivism Wikipedia page and that page’s history shows a second > possible source for the term, that of techno-culture writer Jason Sack > in a piece about media artist Shu Lea Cheang, published in InfoNation > in 1995 which pre-dates cDc’s claim to the term. This co-option of the > term itself is part of cDc’s plan to execute the biggest media hack of > all time encompassing all of ‘hacktivism’. > > But co-opting the term itself is not enough. cDc felt they needed > something to take advantage of the term and to plunge it fully into > the media spotlight. They came up with a fictitious international > hacking group, a group who would only attack corporations that did not > support human rights, and so the Hong Kong Blondes were born. > > Reading the initial interview between the supposed Hong Kong Blondes > leader ‘Blondie Wong’ and the cDc member ‘Oxblood Ruffin’ in cDc #356 > now, fourteen years later, makes the entire ruse plainly obvious. Arik > Hesseldahl, who ran the initial story in Wired based solely on this > interview, with absolutely no corroborating evidence in the first > place, has since privately expressed his doubts about the story. By > publishing this article he unwittingly became the first rube in a long > line of media rubes that the cDc played with ever increasing > dexterity. Hesseldahl has most likely not publicly expanded on his > misgivings over the story as it would draw attention to his original > reservations and expose the fact that he failed to verify even one > fact in the article. > > The first thing that jumps out at me from the initial interview is > that it was conducted by cDc member Oxblood Ruffin and published > directly by him. No one else was present and no one else spoke to > Blondie Wong and so no one can confirm the interview ever took place. > Which brings me to the second red flag, the use of the handles > ‘Blondie Wong’ and ‘Lemon Li’. Are these hacker handles supposed to be > taken as legitimate or where they made up in an IRC chat room among > half drunk and half high cDc members laughing themselves onto the > floor? I won’t even mention the part of Blondie traveling with armed > guards, seriously, Hollywood would have a hard time topping this. > > Next lets look at the claims that Blondie Wong and the Hong Kong > Blondes supposedly temporarily disabled a Chinese communications > satellite. China only had three official satellites at the time. Of > course there is no confirmation of this claim from anyone either, not > the Chinese, who probably would have pointed the finger at the US if > it were true, or anyone else. But there is no mention anywhere of any > Chinese satellite anomalies of any sort. Considering the large number > of claims over the years of hackers attacking satellites, all of which > have been proven to be false, it is highly unlikely that the HKBs > succeeded where everyone else has failed. > > Then just as quickly as it began it was over. Within six month cDc > officially cut ties with the Hong Kong Blondes and bid them ado. > Oxblood wrote a tear-stained letter to his best buddy Blondie Wong in > cDc #361 and the group formally cut ties with a press release in > December, a press release signed by the cDc ‘Minister of Propaganda’ > and asking for all movie deals to be forwarded to him. But if the hack > was going so well, with the media now using earlier uncorroborated > stories to corroborate the current stories, why stop now? Why not > build a massive Hong Kong Blonde media empire? Why? Because the > Chinese government was starting to actually believe the bovine > excrement the cDc was shoveling. > > Some of the members of the cDc received visits from associates of the > Chinese diplomatic core at their homes, and by Diplomatic core I mean > the Ministry of State Security for the People’s Republic of China. > Having men in suits show up on your doorstep, regardless of which > country they are from, was seen by members of cDc as taking a simple > media hack a little too far. And so, just as quickly as the HKBs > began, they disappeared, never to be heard from again, except in the > echo’s of Oxblood Ruffin as he pontificates about the origins of > hacktivism. > > Hacktivists and Hactivism pretty much went away after that. Sure it > was around here and there but very few DDoS attacks and website > defacements contained any sort of political or activist message. Those > that did where mostly attributed to angry teenagers and not to > activist organizations practicing hacktivism. That is until Anonymous > came along. Anonymous quickly graduated from the trolling and the lulz > that was /b/ and needed something to latch onto out in the real > Internet, something to give their actions legitimacy, to draw in new > members, and to evoke sympathy from the general population. The irony > of all ironies is that the media gave Anonymous what they needed by > labeling the leaderless collective as hacktivists. > > Of course once Anonymous had something they thought was legitimate > they ran with it, waving the hactivism banner far and wide. > Unfortunately, the whole thing is a lie, a media hack perpetrated by > the ultimate masters of the lulz, cDc. A hack so lulzy and so > pervasive it is still being laughed about by cDc members today. > Anonymous unfortunately is oblivious to the fact that that they are > just one more piece in the most epic media hack of all time, a media > hack that has existed for over a decade and is now responsible for > labeling an entire movement. Unfortunately, it’s no longer a joke and > it’s no longer funny. It is time for Oxblood and the rest of the cDc > to own up to their shenanigans and set the record straight. > > If Anonymous truly wants to make a difference they need to evolve > beyond the simple DDoS attacks, web defacements and the media hack > that currently defines hacktivsm and become the movement they want to > be. > > _______________________________________________ > Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. > Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html > Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/ tl;dr
_______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
