The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Anonymous hackers leak Scotland Yard-FBI conference call

Were you talking about us?

Cloud based data management

Members of Anonymous have released an intercept of a conference call between investigators at the FBI and Scotland Yard during which operations against hacktivist group were discussed.

During the 17-minute call – which was released as an MP3 file and distributed on YouTube and elsewhere – investigators can be heard discussing various Anonymous and LulzSec-related cases. Information discussed in the call reportedly included details of evidence against suspects (sometimes referred to by their hacker handles), plans for legal action and court dates. The hacktivist group also published what it said was an FBI email detailing the addresses of invited call participants: 40 law enforcement officials in the UK, US, France, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden.

It is unconfirmed how the 17 January call was intercepted but the "leaked email" includes the time, dial-in number and access code, so it could be that members of the group simply dialled into the number and recorded the call directly.

The FBI confirmed the leak, saying the information "was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained," AP reports. The agency has reportedly launched an investigation into the leak, the BBC adds.

Meanwhile, a Met spokesman said:

We are aware of the video which relates to an FBI conference call involving a PCeU [Police Central e-Crime Unit] representative.

The matter is being investigated by the FBI.

At this stage no operational risks to the MPS have been identified; however we continue to carry out a full assessment. We are not prepared to discuss (this) further.

The interception of the conference call is a serious operation security breach, especially because it affects an ongoing high-profile investigation, and is a major coup for the rag-tag hactivist collective.

A Twitter account linked to Anonymous – AnonymousIRC – boasted:

The #FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now. #OpInfiltration.

Hints that hackers may have had an inside track on police investigations into their activities came late last month when "Anonymous Sabu" (leader of the LulzSec group) correctly predicted the postponement of trial against Jake Davis, an alleged member of LulzSec, F-Secure notes.

The cases against Jake Davis (allegedly "Topiary", the public face of the Anonymous and LulzSec hacktivist groups) and Ryan Cleary (who is alleged to have run a DDoS attack on the Serious Organised Crime Agency's website) are discussed during the conference call.

Additional security commentary on the incident can be found in a blog post by Sophos here. ®

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

Pay IT staff ~20K

get monkeys and end up with security holes big enough to sail the titanic through.

30
0

I LOVE IT....

:-) HEADLINE

FBI AND SCOTLAND YARD HAVE BEEN TANGO'D

How do you recover from this embarrassment?

Arrest and extradite the 12 year old hackers of course.

Respect to Anonymous.

28
2
Anonymous Coward

I read somewhere

that the FBI didn't even have email until about a decade after every criminal was using it. I forget where I read that, probably some conspiracy site full of lies.

In times like this I like to reflect on an episode of the animated Dilbert series:

Dilbert: What are you doing?

Dogbert: I'm putting false information on the internet.

Dilbert: Why?

Dogbert: It's fun.

15
0

More from The Register

 breaking news
Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise
Only a telegram from the Queen can get you off it
 breaking news
NSA PRISM snoop-gate: Won't someone think of the children, wails Apple
10,000 things probed, mostly about missing kids, Alzheimer patients, we're told
Flash flaw potentially makes every webcam or laptop a PEEPHOLE
But it's a Google problem - Chrome only, insists Adobe
Internet fraud still stings suckers
Australians twice as gullible as Americans
 breaking news
NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron
Whatever they are up to, it's all above board, we're told
 breaking news
Yahoo! joins! rivals! in! PRISM! data! request! admission!
Keep calm and carry on using American tech firms, folks
PRISM snitch claims NSA hacked Chinese targets since 2009
Snowden suddenly looks safer in Hong Kong after revelations
 breaking news
US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 BEELLLION of you
Americans assured they are not in the NSA's sights
Speech-to-text drives motorists to distraction
Will talking to you mean I crash into that car up ahead, Siri?
DHS warns of vulns in hospital medical equipment
Has your doctor's anasthesia machine been hacked?