Ethics Assignment #1

Operation Egypt

Hacktivism seemed to really jump into the spotlight in 2011 with many social and politically motivated issues arising into the media. The treasure trove of confidential information released by Asange within WikiLeaks divided the entire world in what many continue to argue whether transparency is more important than privacy. Nonetheless, when civilians feel their respective local laws do not guarantee their freedom, they take to the streets demanding it by force. 

Operation Egypt was launched in response to the Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia. The unjust oppression facing the Egyptian people during Mubarak’s 30-year reign over the country consisted of corruption, police brutality, and lack of freedom of speech. Anonymous decided to lend a technical hand combating censorship of the Internet by the Egyptian government. Anonymous, DDoS’d the Egyptian government’s servers and sent thousands of faxes with information on medical treatments and strategic defense into Egypt in an effort to inform the citizen’s of their own government’s assaults. 

Mubarak was finally overthrown on February 11, 2011 after 18 days of demonstrations and more than 800 civilians dead. Anonymous, though just a small fraction of assistance, did what they could to assist the innocent people from brutal oppression and I definitely agree was the right thing to do. People must stand their ground in self-defense against any tyrannical and oppressive government, period.

Social Engineering

My task was to fake an injury and get a fellow player to believe it and help me.
When i picked up the card to read my assignment i thought to myself this can be done in a day. So after class was ended i went into the lounge where they have the ping pong table because i have a locker there and there was a lot of people there so i thought there goes a opportunity so i accidentally hit my leg against one of the chairs and fell down. Immediately one of the people came and helped me because it looked like i had rolled my ankle which i did not but i had to fake it. They helped me get up and i thanked them and hopped to the main entrance where i did not see any of them then i started walking normally to my car to go home. at first i felt a bit weird doing what i just did to them but later i realize that i had to do it for my grade in the class. With this hack i could of obtained the person name , phone number.

Social Engineering Post #1

My task was that got a follow player to buy you something

I did not know my classmates well. When my classmates did their introduction, I tried to remember their name. The first thing I though was that when my class finished, I went to snack vending machine. Then I wait my classmates past that way, so I could try to ask them to buy me a bag of snack. I wait almost 10 minutes, and nobody went that way. After one minute, I saw my classmates went that way, but I did not ask them. I started to think that action was so stupid because they might say you could go home and eat. Therefore, I changed my plan. I went to orange line station, and I hided my wallet in my backpack. I wait my classmates went through this way again. After 6 minutes, I saw Admiral Arsenic was ready to go through this way. I tried to make my face sad. When Admiral Arsenic arrived the orange line station. I walked in front of her, and I said hi to her politely. I said her name correctly, and I said I was her classmates. I told her that I forgot my wallet home, and I showed my pocket that had no wallet to her. I asked her to buy me a ticket sincerely. Finally, Admiral Arsenic bough me a ticket.

For my strategy, at first, when my classmates introduce themselves, I took note to remember their name. Asking someone name correctly could be rise a little bit of trust. They might forgot who you were because we were in class not so many time. If you said their name correctly, they could remember your were their classmates. Second, my task was get a follow player to buy me something. I set up something had a low price. It should be up to $2.00. Cheaper thing could make my task easily. Third, I needed to set up a time to start my task. The end of this class was a good opportunity to finish my task because this class was nobody took the same class with my other CIT class. If I miss this chance, I could not finish my task. When this class finished, I went to outside of class right away. Third, I stood in front of a sack snack vending machine to wait a follow player. However, I changed my plan, because I could not make a good reason for it. I though most of my classmate may take orange line. Therefore, I went to the orange line station to wait for my classmates. Asking a follow player to buy me a ticket could be more easy because ticket was cheap and necessary. When I saw Admiral Arsenic, I pretend to be so sad. I also showed her that I did not have a wallet. These action let her feel that I really needed a ticket. Finally, she bough me a ticket.

For the moral stakes, I think I cheat my classmate's trust. Next time, if I asked Admiral Arsenic help me to do some thing, she may does not trust me. If everybody do what I did, this society will get worst. Trust will hard to build. When someone really needs help, people may do not trust him.

After I have done this. I think I can not trust people easily, especially the nice people. If a stranger accost suddenly, he must purpose to something. When we face a stranger, we need to be careful. Also we need to consider why this stranger will chose this area to accost you. We should analysis his motivation before we start to make our decision. On another hand, If you ask someone that you know to do something, it is important to say their name correctly.

This task was so hard for me because it was my first time to cheat some that I did not know. Also I spoke English not really well, so I have pool communication skill. Whenever I talk to a native speaker, I feel so nervous. I am afraid of that I can not understand what they talking about. Therefore, I feel so hard to start my task. When I did my task, I felt so uncomfortable. When I choose Admiral Arsenic to be my target, I felt so guilty. She was a really nice person who tried to help me. However I utilized her trust, I was a bad guy. I felt I was like a bad homeless guy. I have no choice to finish my task. I have to say sorry to Admiral Arsenic.

Social Engineering Post #1

The task which I drew for this assignment was to "Find out the make and model of a fellow player's car" and assignment which I failed to complete due to partially to catch the target unexpected, and mostly because I decided not to commit a crime to obtain the data.

My target was Dr. Blu Ninja, as he and I have been in the same class before, I have a good dialog with him, and I am in two classes with his this semester.

At the end of EH class, as we were leaving class I attempted to engage my target in a dialog but was interrupted by another student and I was not able to broach the inquiry as to their make and model of vehicle.

After this initial failure I went to my books for other classes and looked up his phone number, so that I could have a third party call and apologize for backing into them at school, but rejected this avenue as it would constitute a crime called "fraud by wire" and may subject the target to undue stress or alarm and on an ethical basis I did not wish to cause them alarm.

They have stated in class, the nearby town where they live, so I opted to contact the Town Tax Assessors office and inquire as to the make and model of vehicles they  have on file for excises taxes and was told "Honda Civic" but I in no way represented to them why I was calling, merely that I wished tax information.

I had expect to see them later in the week in class, and it was there that I was going have a dialog about my grand-daughter hitting a "Honda Civic" in the parking lot at school a few minutes before class, and had my  grand-daughter send me a text message a few minutes before class of the car she "hit" in which the plate was not visible, but alas my target was not in class on the day of the planned ruse.

The ethics of showing an image of a banged up Honda in person I felt was more merciful than causing alarm over the phone, and I decided to strictly stay with face-to-face manipulation of very short term alarm instead of a phone call to do the same thing.

I would also have been technically possible to merely access the DMV for registration by his name, or upon his address, but such a DMV inquiry would have been unlawful, and outside of the parameters laid out for the course.

I obtained the requirement as states, but did not do it by the social engineering method, but rather as a direct inquiry to the taxing authorities. Ah, but I have no idea is the information they shared with me is accurate, and I have not taken measures to confirm its accuracy.

I was also partially foiled by the target missing the class before which I was planning to foist the text message  of a bogus fender bender.

If I wished to progress this further, it would be easy enough to troll stalk their residence and look for a BHCC parking sticker, apply a small smudge to the bumper with rubber cement and paint and attach a GPS transmitter to disclose exact parking location at the school to enrich the ruse, but I felt this would be outside the given parameters.

Ethics Assignment # 1

                                     H.B.Gary Hack

Erin Barr was the former CEO of H.B.Gary, a federal intelligence contractor. He told Financial Times that he had the confirmed identities of the Anonymous ringleaders. Anonymous responded by hacking into HBGary’s servers and publishing his emails. What appealed to me about this hack was the little attention that was given to the leaked email proposals from Mr. Barr. Mr. Barr formulated proposals to discredit Julian Assange and to cyber attack Wiki Leaks. He proposed submitting fake documents to wiki leaks that when discovered to be false, it can be formulated as a way to discredit Wiki Leaks. Also, the proposal he sent Bank Of America on DDos attacks on wiki leaks, all because Julian Assange had info on a bank doing wrongdoing. I feel that this man passed the ethical line. If this had been a regular John Doe, the Government would be all over this. Charging the regular citizen with criminal contempt and countless other charges. The Government bends the rules. They can pretty much get away with anything and the punishment they give will never be proportional to the crime. I see why Anonymous broke into this company. They were trying to protect their identity. I completely agree with everything they did. If the identity of these members would have been exposed then they will have to go to Jail for expressing their opinions. As I said before; the punishment will never be proportional to the crime. The government is capable of anything to keep their wrongdoing secret. Politicians and corporations bend the rules and laws to suit their own needs. The way I see it, Anonymous was protecting themselves. After the emails were exposed not much was talked about or reported on since I guess it was considered not that big of deal. I bet if the tables were turned things would of turned out a lot differently.

Everyone should be able to communicate and get his or her message out on the internet. Freedom of speech extends to online. We have the right not to be monitored by the government when we voice our opinions. Anonymous contributes towards democracy around the world. Everyone should stand up against oppressive governments.

Ethics Assignment

Operation Payback


In 2010 Anonymous decided to attack and disable the major online payment methods, such as master card and paypal because they blocked funding towards Wikileaks who released thousands of diplomatic cables / classified US files. They did this because there was no way to process payments anymore towards Wikileaks whereas it was still possible to support other internet groups such as neo nazi groups etc.

There was a lot of controversy on this argument, but the point that Anonymous was trying to prove was that Wikileaks had done a good thing and didn't had to be discriminated for their actions.

Was this the right thing to do?

Maybe, or maybe not. Due to their attack they blocked the service that those providers were offering to the entire community/users that were using them. So perhaps, what they did was yes, to prove a point, but at the end, they affected thousands of users that didn't take part to the actions of those companies. It's kind of if we take an example of what is happening today. Is it ok that war refugees are not accepted or looked as antagonists due to the actions of a few people that share their heritage?

Maybe here the question is, did Paypal and MasterCard do the right thing?

At that point I would say no. In the documentary they saw, as mentioned before, that access to fund many neo nazi / socialist groups was never blocked from those companies. Does this mean that Wikileaks is worst than those groups? Is Wikileaks a huge threat to people, or is it a threat to government only?

Social Engineering Task #1

My mission was to find out how a fellow player gets to BHCC on Tuesdays (Car? T? Bike? etc.).

Target: Dr. Blue Ninja

I engaged the subject in friendly conversation by using my previously known knowledge of him to obtain the assigned task. I appealed to his interest by asking more info on the hobby I knew he had. Dr. B.N participates in rocket launch events all over the northeast.  Once engaged, it was not difficult to accomplish my mission. Dr. Blue Ninja drives from Revere to school on Tuesdays. 

 

It is easier to obtain the information you want when you start communicating with the targeted individual about things that you already know sparks their interests. So it is definitely easier to do that to people you have had previous conversations with and that you’ve already learned a bit about.

I guess the moral stakes would be what I would do with this information. I could eventually do some research on the Revere area and start asking him questions about the area until it leads to him giving me his address. Now, once I have his address then there are endless possibilities of the things I can do with this information. Eg. I can send $100 worth of pizzas to his house, or something obnoxious like that.

I didn’t feel as if I was doing anything wrong by obtaining this information since I know I wasn’t really asked to do anything else but find out how this person gets to school everyday.