The first global cyber war has begun

[dqueue]

Today:
PayPal is attempting damage control by removing the option to close accounts from the account holders menu options, though I did it through the "email us" menu options.

I found the link to close my account, but it was rather well buried. Then, I clicked no less than five confirmations before I was actually able to close it. "Are you sure? Are you really sure? ..." Ciao PayPal.

[Plutonia]

Ah. Prolly depends where you are. I didn't have that option and the Help Desk instructions were "unavailable at this time."

Then there's this:

bailey_carlson Bailey Carlson
Just called to close my PayPal, operator thought Wikileaks was a person and didnt know why she was had so many calls about him. #OpPayPal
4 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Lolwhat?!!

[seemslikeadream]

Scotland Yard: We've Arrested LulzSec Spokesman

[Plutonia]

Yeah, I haven't seen it confirmed yet but if they did get Topiary, they are gonna have to handle his perse.. erm prosecution carefully - he's well liked, only 19, and not actually a hacker. Aaron Barr and his cohorts will want him crushed for the HBGary hack.

Anon twitter chatter has stopped.

[Plutonia]

Mitnick's been there. This should be an informative show:

KEVIN MITNICK ON SPECIAL "OFF THE HOOK" THIS WEEK
Posted 26 Jul 2011 05:52:50 UTC

We're going to have famed hacker Kevin Mitnick on this week's special two-hour edition of "Off The Hook" on Wednesday from 7 to 9 pm ET. You can tune in over WBAI-FM at 99.5 FM in the New York metro region or online at http://www.2600.com/offthehook.

Kevin will be previewing his brand new book, Ghost in the Wires, due out in August. As part of a fundraiser to help keep WBAI operating, we will be offering autographed copies of the book as part of a special premium package.

Ghost in the Wires at last tells the story of Kevin's hacking adventures and the prosecutions and imprisonment that resulted. He was forbidden from releasing such a book for ten years after his release. Now, at last, the world will have the chance to hear it from his side.

...

http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/12118

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/27/p ... ere-hours/

PayPal boycott chops $1 billion off eBay stock value in mere hours

Following the announcement of a boycott by hacktivist groups "Anonymous" and "LulzSec," shares in PayPal parent company eBay plunged by over $1 billion in value before perking back up as opportunistic investors bought into the company in hopes of a deal.

The boycott, popularized by the "#OpPayPal" hashtag on Twitter, called for PayPal users to close their accounts. It was launched in response to the company's refusal to send donations to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

PayPal suspended all transactions headed toward WikiLeaks last year, in the weeks following their groundbreaking publication of secret U.S. diplomatic cables. MasterCard, Visa and Bank of America followed suit shortly thereafter, freezing the majority of WikiLeaks' funds.

In response, the anti-secrecy site pointed out that PayPal still accepts donations for the Ku Klux Klan hate group, and a group connected to the mass murderer in Oslo, Norway.

"PayPal continues to withhold funds from WikiLeaks, a beacon of truth in these dark times," the groups said in a statement. "We encourage anyone using PayPal to immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative."

"The first step to being truly free is not putting one's trust into a company that freezes accounts when it feels like, or when it is pressured by the US government," they added.

The torrent of newly closed accounts was apparently enough to cause PayPal to suspend the page that allows users to close accounts from the Internet, forcing protesters to call their customer service line and wait for a representative. Reports from users by mid-afternoon seemed to indicate they had restored the ability to cancel accounts online.

Reached for comment, a PayPal spokesperson told Raw Story they had not seen "any changes to our normal operations (including account opening and closing) overnight." On a follow-up noting that the original question had been posed about today's activity, they issued the same statement again but dropped "overnight."

Fourteen alleged members of Anonymous were arrested last week in relation to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal, launched by Anonymous after the online payments giant suspended WikiLeaks' funds. Law enforcement officials were reportedly making arrests based on a list of the top 1,000 Internet protocol addresses recorded during the attack, as compiled by PayPal.

It was, however, not clear whether the arrestees were actually committing a crime when they allegedly participated in the PayPal attack. Conducting a DDoS with an army of computers controlled through malicious software -- known as a botnet -- is a crime and a serious threat to any company on the Internet. On the other hand, a voluntary botnet, comprised of thousands of people willingly directing their computers to request pages from a server, is legally ambiguous and the charges may not stand up in court.

One of the arrestees, a journalism student from Nevada, faces up to 15 years in prison.

Anonymous and LulzSec said in their boycott announcement that they were "outraged" by the FBI's "willingness to arrest and threaten those who are involved in ethical, modern cyber operations" against "corrupt and greedy organizations, such as PayPal."

EBay's stock value was down about 2 percent at time of this story's publication. By the time markets closed, it had gone down by more than 3 percent. EBay rival Amazon was up by 3.8 percent, a likely beneficiary of the day's uncertainty.

Overall, the Nasdaq closed down 2.65 percent, largely due to fears over a potential U.S. debt default. The Dow also saw its worst performance in almost two months, closing down 1.59 percent.

[seemslikeadream]

Internet abuzz with claims that UK police picked up the wrong Topiary
By Peter Bright | Published 15 minutes ago
Internet abuzz with claims that UK police picked up the wrong Topiary
Also not the Topiary wanted by law enforcement

The Metropolitan Police claimed yesterday that they had arrested prominent Lulz Security and AnonOps member Topiary. The initial report claimed that a 19-year-old man was arrested in the Shetland Islands and was being flown down to London for questioning. That report has now been adjusted, saying that he was in fact an 18-year-old man. But there's a lot of speculation—some rather bombastic, other more reserved—that, however old this man actually is, there's one thing he isn't: Topiary.

Attempts to dox people—find out their real identities and publish their "documents" on the Web—have long been a tool in Anonymous' arsenal. Many people, whether they be animal abusers who've posted videos to YouTube or Sony executives and their families, have found themselves doxed after provoking Anonymous' wrath. Turn about is fair play, and so many groups who oppose Anonymous, and its high profile spin-off, Lulz Security, have attempted to dox members of that collective.

Topiary is one of those previously doxed, most extensively by a group calling itself LulzSec Exposed. In their view, Topiary is a 23-year-old Swedish male, with two videos—a two-year-old piece of Swedish TV about Anonymous' protests against Scientologists, and a Skype interview with Topiary about denial-of-service attacks performed on the Westboro Baptist Church—cited as particularly compelling evidence.

An IRC transcript, in which he discusses a doxing attempt made on him, appears particularly compelling: he does nothing to refute the claim that he has a Swedish accent, and explicitly indicates that he's trying to pass himself off as a British citizen who apparently also goes by the name of Topiary online.

So if the doxings are accurate, then the British police have made quite a mistake by picking up this Shetlander and not Swedish Topiary.

It's certainly possible that they are accurate; at least some doxings in the past have been accurate. Ryan Cleary, the UK teenager arrested in June for his involvement with Lulz Security and Anonymous, had been doxed the previous month; the subsequent arrest corroborates the facts released at the time.

But the track record is far from consistent. Sabu, another prominent member of Lulz Security and AnonOps, has been repeatedly doxed, most recently being named as "Hugo Carvalho". Initially, at least, he appeared to play along with this doxing on Twitter, admitting that he'd been identified but claiming that he had nothing to fear, as the Portuguese government wouldn't extradite him anyway. But then a person—apparently the "real" Hugo Carvalho—contacted media outlets to tell them that he wasn't Sabu at all, and had been framed.

Did the police get the wrong guy? Consensus opinion is that, well, there is no consensus. As Graham Cluley of Sophos Security wrote:

If you ask me, is the man they arrested in the Shetland Islands is Topiary, another hacker (either working in league with Anonymous/LulzSec or opposing them), or entirely innocent.. my simple answer is I don't know.

In other words, every option remains open, and the authenticity of the dox remains unknown. The evidence that he's Swedish is far from compelling, not least because the accents in the Westboro Baptist Church interview (among others that Topiary has performed) is plainly not Swedish, and has more than a hint of a Scottish lilt to it. In spite of the arrest, LulzSec Exposed are standing by their claims, saying that Swedish Topiary tried to trick them into thinking he was from the UK, but they didn't fall for it—the also claimed once more that the voices in the videos match.

There are also indications that Topiary is indeed in hot water: he cleared out his Twitter account except for one final, solitary tweet: "You cannot arrest an idea." A tweet that could well be interpreted as an admission that while the game may be up for Topiary, he hoped others would continue Anonymous' work.

The Swedish Topiary doxing was widely publicized at the time, and one would hope that the police investigating Lulz Security and Anonymous would know about the Swedish claims and wouldn't be caught out so easily.

But given the group's propensity for anonymity, and—at least in Sabu's case—a habit of creating false trails to mislead would-be doxers, the facts remain elusive. The mystery of Topiary's identity isn't over yet.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/2 ... 10892.html

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Bianca Bosker
bianca@huffingtonpost.com

Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg: Anonymity Online 'Has To Go Away'


First Posted: 7/27/11 12:23 PM ET Updated: 7/28/11 12:34 AM ET




Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s marketing director, has a fix for cyberbullying: stop people from doing anything online without their names attached.

Facebook requires all members to use their real names and email addresses when joining the social network -- a policy that has been difficult at times to enforce, as the prevalence of spam accounts or profiles assigned to people’s pets suggest.

Zuckerberg, who is Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, argued that putting an end to anonymity online could help curb bullying and harassment on the web.

“I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away,” she said during a panel discussion on social media hosted Tuesday evening by Marie Claire magazine. “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.”

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has also made this suggestion, calling online anonymity “dangerous” and predicting that governments will eventually “demand” that people use their names for all online activity.

But the proposal to tie real-world identities to online actions is a controversial one, with many privacy and free speech advocates countering that anonymity is necessary to protect dissidents and other individuals, such as sexual abuse victims.

Gigaom’s Matthew Ingram wrote recently, “Many people believe that requiring real names will solve the problems of trolls and bad behavior, but they don’t -- and that policy can have negative consequences in terms of suppressing dialogue about important topics.”

Though pressed several times to name what new features Facebook will offer to better safeguard security on the social networking site, Zuckerberg declined to offer specific examples of forthcoming initiatives.

“There's so much more we can do,” she said. “We’re actively tying to work with partners like Common Sense Media and our safety advisory committee.”

Erin Andrews, an ESPN anchor who had a naked video of her posted online by a stalker, joined Zuckerberg as a panelist and addressed her struggles to have the illegally-obtained video removed from the web. She became emotional at points during the conversation and described her frustration working Google and other companies that declined to pull the video from the websites hosting it.

Andrews praised Google for its “remarkable” contribution to the campaign against bullying titled "It gets better," but noted she also found it inconsistent: Google searches for her name still turn up the images and videos posted by her stalker, even as the search giant professes to be taking a stand against online harassment.

“So when does it get better? I’m confused,” said Andrews, who suggested that her situation may have been viewed differently because it involves a “woman in her 30s.” “It’s still cyberbullying. Somebody needs to step in. As a family we're always asking, what is it going to take?”

[Bruce Dazzling]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/2 ... 10892.html

Loading...
Bianca Bosker
bianca@huffingtonpost.com

Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg: Anonymity Online 'Has To Go Away'


First Posted: 7/27/11 12:23 PM ET Updated: 7/28/11 12:34 AM ET




Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s marketing director, has a fix for cyberbullying: stop people from doing anything online without their names attached.

Facebook requires all members to use their real names and email addresses when joining the social network -- a policy that has been difficult at times to enforce, as the prevalence of spam accounts or profiles assigned to people’s pets suggest.

Zuckerberg, who is Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, argued that putting an end to anonymity online could help curb bullying and harassment on the web.

“I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away,” she said during a panel discussion on social media hosted Tuesday evening by Marie Claire magazine. “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.”

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has also made this suggestion, calling online anonymity “dangerous” and predicting that governments will eventually “demand” that people use their names for all online activity.

But the proposal to tie real-world identities to online actions is a controversial one, with many privacy and free speech advocates countering that anonymity is necessary to protect dissidents and other individuals, such as sexual abuse victims.

Gigaom’s Matthew Ingram wrote recently, “Many people believe that requiring real names will solve the problems of trolls and bad behavior, but they don’t -- and that policy can have negative consequences in terms of suppressing dialogue about important topics.”

Though pressed several times to name what new features Facebook will offer to better safeguard security on the social networking site, Zuckerberg declined to offer specific examples of forthcoming initiatives.

“There's so much more we can do,” she said. “We’re actively tying to work with partners like Common Sense Media and our safety advisory committee.”

Erin Andrews, an ESPN anchor who had a naked video of her posted online by a stalker, joined Zuckerberg as a panelist and addressed her struggles to have the illegally-obtained video removed from the web. She became emotional at points during the conversation and described her frustration working Google and other companies that declined to pull the video from the websites hosting it.

Andrews praised Google for its “remarkable” contribution to the campaign against bullying titled "It gets better," but noted she also found it inconsistent: Google searches for her name still turn up the images and videos posted by her stalker, even as the search giant professes to be taking a stand against online harassment.

“So when does it get better? I’m confused,” said Andrews, who suggested that her situation may have been viewed differently because it involves a “woman in her 30s.” “It’s still cyberbullying. Somebody needs to step in. As a family we're always asking, what is it going to take?”

Ironically, Randi's next is initiative is ridding internet corporations of nepotism.

[stickdog99]

Disgusting.

[Plutonia]

anonymous are collecting testimonials:

to whom it may concern

I took the red pill

I took it when I joined some IRC servers and started to help people all over the world. I took the red pill and now I have to deal with it. What has beens seen can not be made unseen, what has been experienced can not be made unexperienced.

The red pill started to kick in - I saw thing I never dreamt of. We had the opportunity to help some people all over the world. We are proud about this things. We are proud that we have shown the world that we fight for our right and our possibilities of free communication. Many people all over the world work on these things.

I had the opportunity to meet great people. Some of them now I consider as friends. They share the experience of the things we see as activists. With activists I refer to those people who not only write blogs and complain on twitter, but really do things. Who actually help other people by providing technology, providing knowledge and spread the news.

We saw people disappearing while the operations went on. On both sides. Some activists disappeared silently because they were burned out. Others had serious breakdowns. People we were talking to disappeared and left others unsettled. We did out best to keep up working, help each others to deal with it. Some activists saw how people got forced away form their computer by men with guns. These pictures will never go away. They can not be unseen.

Other activists saw videos of young people asking for help on demonstrations, to get protection. We talked to some of them. Young people fighting for their right of free expression. Some of them disappeared. We do not know where they are or if they are alive.

We did the best to help. It is still not enough but I know that every day someone wakes up and wants to help. Please do so. Take your red pill and see what is going on. Take your red pill and help people. It is not a movie, not a game and yes, this is real.

I took the red pill and now I have to deal with it.

http://pastebin.com/sY3XHVEM

[JackRiddler]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/28/h ... b-history/

House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users’ web history

By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, July 28th, 2011 -- 9:41 pm

Tags: congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz, electronic frontier foundation, rep john conyers


The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users' activity.

CNET reported the bill would require ISPs to retain customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses for 12 months.

The bill passed by a vote of 19 to 10, and is aimed at helping law enforcement track down pedophiles.

"The bill is mislabeled," Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a senior member of the panel told CNET. "This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes."

The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 (H.R. 1981) was sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

“When investigators develop leads that might result in saving a child or apprehending a pedophile, their efforts should not be frustrated because vital records were destroyed simply because there was no requirement to retain them," Smith said Thursday.

"This bill requires ISPs to retain subscriber records, similar to records retained by telephone companies, to aid law enforcement officials in their fight against child sexual exploitation."



The American Civil Liberties Union and 29 other organizations sent a letter (PDF) to Rep. Smith on July 27, claiming that "any data retention mandate is a direct assault on bedrock privacy principles."

"The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have recognized," Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said.

"Requiring Internet companies to redesign and reconfigure their systems to facilitate government surveillance of Americans' expressive activities is simply un-American. Such a scheme would be as objectionable to our Founders as the requiring of licenses for printing presses or the banning of anonymous pamphlets."

The bill is supported by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Center for Victims of Crime, the National Sheriff’s Association, the Major County Sheriff’s Association, the International Union of Police Associations and the Fraternal Order of Police.

[Plutonia]

_ _ __ __
__| || |__ _____ _____/ |_|__| ______ ____ ____ #Anonymous
\ __ / \__ \ / \ __\ |/ ___// __ \_/ ___\ #AntiSec
| || | / __ \| | \ | | |\___ \\ ___/\ \___ #FUCK
/_ ~~ _\ (____ /___| /__| |__/____ \ \___ \ \___ | #FBI
|_||_| \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ #FRIDAY

/*******************************************************************************
*** FUCK FBI FRIDAY III: ManTech Mayhem ***
*******************************************************************************/

Ahoy thar,

Today is Friday and we will be following the tradition of humiliating our friends
from the FBI once again. This time we hit one of their biggest contractors for
cyber security: Mantech International Corporation.

What ManTech has to do with the FBI? Well, quite simple: In Summer 2010 the FBI
had the glorious idea to outsource their Cybersecurity to ManTech. Value of the
contract: 100 Million US-Dollar:

"The FBI is outsourcing cybersecurity to the tune of nearly $100 million to a
Washington-area managed services company. The deal shows a willingness in the
federal government to place IT services more and more in the hands of third
parties as agencies don't have enough staff on hand to do the job."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/gov ... /226700486

And this is not the only Cybersecurity contract ManTech won; with a quick
internet search you will be able to find lots more. And just a few months back,
in March 2011, ManTech received another 9 Million cybersecurity contract from
the FBI:

http://www.euroinvestor.co.uk/news/stor ... d=11545467

Well done, good sirs. You failed epically. Because we pwned ManTech utterly and
throughly; and we did not need hundreds of millions for it. In fact, we did not
require any funds at all, we did it with Lulz.

So we begin by releasing 400MB of internal data from ManTech, this gives
some insight on how they are wasting the tax payer's money. Most of the
documents in this first batch are related to NATO who, you may recall, made some
bold claims regarding Anonymous earlier this year:

"It remains to be seen how much time Anonymous has for pursuing such paths.
The longer these attacks persist the more likely countermeasures will be
developed, implemented, the groups will be infiltrated and perpetrators
persecuted"

http://www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=2443

Indeed, it remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen how much longer the
public will accept how completely incompetent law enforcement agencies are
spending their citizens' money to fund even more incompetent federal
contractors. Incidentally, apart from the FBI, ManTech International has some other
clients:

* Defense Intelligence Agency,
* National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
* National Reconnaissance Office
* National Security Agency
* Department of Homeland Security
* U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps
* Missile Defense Agency and DARPA
* Department of Justice
* Department of State
* Environmental Protection Agency
* NASA, NATO, state and local governments

Great. It's really good to know that you guys are taking care of protecting the
Unites States from so-called cyber threats.

It should also be noted that ManTech, along with HBGary, Palantir, Endgames and
others were involved in the now-dubbed Operation MetalGear to manipulate and spy
on their citizens using persona management software for social networks:

http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Mantech

We are providing these ManTech documents so the public can see for themselves
how their tax money is being spent. But don't you worry, the U.S. is a rich
country and can afford to waste money, right?

Dear Government and Law Enforcement, we are repeating this message as we have
the suspicion you still do not take us seriously: We are not scared anymore and
your threats to arrest us are meaningless. We will continue to demonstrate how
you fail at about every aspect of cybersecurity while burning hundreds of
millions of dollars that you do not even have.

The director of the U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), Randy
Vickers, already resigned from his post, without proving an explanation. Let us
provide you with one: Mr. Vickers realized that he is on the losing side of
this war. A war that should never have been started in the first place. Not
only because the enemy was vastly underestimated and misjudged completely but
even more because it is fought against innocent citizens who simply chose to
protest against the grievance of the government. You cannot win this war and
the sooner you realize this and call for peace, the sooner we can put an end to
this and solve the problems of this world together.

Dear citizens of the U.S. and the world: We are fighting in the name of all the
oppressed and betrayed people. In your name we will continue to fire upon these
laughable battleships until they are no more. Hold on tight while the seas are
rough but we will prevail!

Anonymous
AntiSec

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6571301-

[Bruce Dazzling]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/28/h ... b-history/

House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users’ web history

By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, July 28th, 2011 -- 9:41 pm

Tags: congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz, electronic frontier foundation, rep john conyers


The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users' activity.

CNET reported the bill would require ISPs to retain customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses for 12 months.

The bill passed by a vote of 19 to 10, and is aimed at helping law enforcement track down pedophiles.

"The bill is mislabeled," Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a senior member of the panel told CNET. "This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes."

The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 (H.R. 1981) was sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

“When investigators develop leads that might result in saving a child or apprehending a pedophile, their efforts should not be frustrated because vital records were destroyed simply because there was no requirement to retain them," Smith said Thursday.

"This bill requires ISPs to retain subscriber records, similar to records retained by telephone companies, to aid law enforcement officials in their fight against child sexual exploitation."



The American Civil Liberties Union and 29 other organizations sent a letter (PDF) to Rep. Smith on July 27, claiming that "any data retention mandate is a direct assault on bedrock privacy principles."

"The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have recognized," Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said.

"Requiring Internet companies to redesign and reconfigure their systems to facilitate government surveillance of Americans' expressive activities is simply un-American. Such a scheme would be as objectionable to our Founders as the requiring of licenses for printing presses or the banning of anonymous pamphlets."

The bill is supported by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Center for Victims of Crime, the National Sheriff’s Association, the Major County Sheriff’s Association, the International Union of Police Associations and the Fraternal Order of Police.

What's the big deal, Jack?

If you haven't done anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about.

[operator kos]

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/07/former-bush-nsa-director-calls-for-digital-blackwater/

Former Bush NSA director calls for ‘digital Blackwater’

Posted on 07.30.11
By David Edwards
Categories: Featured, Nation

The man who headed the NSA and CIA under President George W. Bush suggested Friday that mercenaries were needed to deal with growing cyber threats.

Gen. Michael Hayden told the Aspen Security Forum that in the near future, the Department of Defense may have to allow the creation of a “digital Blackwater.”

Private sector offense “might be one of those big new ideas in terms of how we have to conduct ourselves in this new cyber domain,” Hayden explained. “You think back long enough in history and there are times when the private sector was responsible for its own defense.”

“We may come to a point where defense is more actively and aggressively defined even for the private sector and what is permitted there is something that we would never let the private sector do in physical space… Let me really throw out a bumper sticker for you. How about a digital Blackwater?” he suggested.

“I mean, we have privatized certain defense activities even in physical space and now you’ve got a new domain in which we don’t have any paths trampled down in the forest in terms of what it is we expect the government or will allow the government to do. In the past when that has happened, private sector expands to fill the empty space. I’m not quite an advocate for that, but these are the kinds of things that are going to be put into play here very, very soon.”