anonymous

Hackers have posted personal information about the chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests.

The document released on Pastebin by "CabinCr3w" includes information about CEO James Dimon's addresses, family, business connections, political contributions and legal information. A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan Chase said the company is declining to comment.

The same hackers posted personal data of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and of New York Police Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna earlier this week after Bologna was seen in videos pepper-spraying peaceful demonstrators in the face last weekend. Bologna, … Read more

Members of the Anonymous collective are not just taking their activism to the Internet and the streets; they're now targeting corporate financials with a securities research arm.

The mission of Anonymous Analytics is to "expose companies that practice poor corporate governance and are involved in large-scale fraudulent activities," according to the Web site.

Anonymous researchers--who include unnamed and unnumbered "analysts, forensic accountants, statisticians, computer experts, and lawyers"--will base their investigative reports on information "acquired through legal channels, fact-checked, and vetted thoroughly before release."

Their first target is a produce firm listed on … Read more

The Anonymous activist collective today released personal information about a New York police officer who is believed to have sprayed pepper spray on women protesters on Wall Street.

The group released a phone number, addresses, names of relatives, and other personal data for a New York police officer that numerous Web sites identified as Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, as well as photos that appear to show him at the protest and a close-up of his badge.

Bologna was identified as the officer in a slow-motion video who sprayed pepper spray directly in the faces of a handful of women who … Read more

A 47-year-old homeless man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he joined in an Anonymous-organized cyberattack that temporarily shut down Santa Cruz County servers.

Chris Doyon was arrested yesterday and is being held until a bail hearing scheduled for Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., his lawyer, Jay Leiderman, told CNET this afternoon. "Hopefully he will be released on Thursday," Leiderman said.

Also listed as a defendant on the indictment with Doyon is 26-year-old Joshua John Covelli of Fairborn, Ohio. And in a separate case that involves cyberattack charges linked to Anonymous spin-off … Read more

Hacktivist group Anonymous is planning to hold a special "Day of Vengeance" in several cities around the U.S. on Saturday.

Late last night, Anonymous--or at least people claiming to be from Anonymous--posted a press release on Pastebin, saying that Saturday will be marked by peaceful protests in cities across the U.S. combined with cyberattacks on "various targets, including Wall Street, Corrupt Banking Institutions, and the New York City Police Department."

Anonymous didn't say the cities in which the protests will be held, though New York would seem to be an obvious guess.… Read more

The FBI office in Los Angeles is investigating a series of hacking incidents targeting high-profile victims.

"The FBI is investigating a person or group responsible for computer intrusions of high-profile figures," FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told CNET in a phone interview today.

Eimiller said she couldn't say how many alleged victims there may have been, but estimated that there were "dozens." The investigation has been going on since late 2010, she said.

Yesterday, photos of Scarlett Johansson were posted to BuzzFeed that appeared to have been taken by the star of herself. Johansson asked the FBI to investigate, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The news follows leaks of celebrity photos reported in previous months. In March, Vanessa Hudgens met with the FBI after nude photos of her were allegedly stolen from her Gmail account and released online, TMZ reported at the time.

It's unclear who is behind the Johansson incident and whether all of the reported cases are linked or even legitimate.

Unlike corporations, which typically shun publicity for hacking, celebrities--whose careers seem to rise and fall with headlines--may have a motivation for going public with hacking claims, either to get attention or to deflect bad publicity. Meanwhile, celebrities are an attractive target for headline-seeking hackers. Sometimes it's difficult to link the attack to a specific party. … Read more

The Anonymous group of online activists released a new tool today designed to allow people to hijack trending topics on Twitter and tweet messages within them.

Dubbed URGE (for Universal Rapid Gamma Emitter), the beta software is available for download for Windows computers and requires .Net Framework 4 to work.

"This is not a hacking tool nor is it an exploit tool," the group said in a statement. "It was created to make it easier for us to tweet faster without copying and pasting constantly."

Anonymous members say they are annoyed with all the redundant and &… Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Anonymous may have became a little less anonymous this afternoon.

One by one, as alleged members of Anonymous heard their full legal names read aloud in a courtroom here, they stood before a federal judge and acknowledged that, yes, they understood the nature of the remarkably severe criminal charges that were filed against them in July.

The 14 defendants are facing felony charges of conspiracy and computer hacking stemming from last December's distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack against PayPal. It was organized in response to PayPal halting donations to WikiLeaks a few days earlier.

Magistrate Judge … Read more

A splinter group of hacker collective Anonymous is turning attention away from corporations and governments and toward the beautiful people.

According to multiple reports, the Hollywood Leaks team has announced its intent to target celebrities in film, TV, and music--evidently, folks like Miley Cyrus, Tom Cruise, and rapper Kreayshawn have already been hit. The hackers are looking for dirt, such as nude photos, embarrassing e-mails or memos, scripts under wraps, etc. In general, Hollywood Leaks wants to leave a trail of showbiz carnage in its wake.

So far, the fruits of their dastardly labor include publishing online a list of celebrity cell phone numbers (Cyrus and Ashley Green, Helio Castronoves and Corky Ballas, who both previously appeared on "Dancing with the Stars") and the pre-release script of the movie musical "Rock of Ages" starring Tom Cruise. This morning, they served up Gerald Butler's e-mail address. Admittedly, that's not the most devastating list of achievements so far, but these are the early days yet.

"Nothing like a #LEAK for breakfast," the group tweeted this morning. … Read more