Anonymous and the Online Fight for Justice

Architecture and Background

Copy of the slides for this talk are here: Anonymous and the Online Fight for Justice Amber Lyon Independent Investigative Journalist Gabriella Coleman Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy, McGill University, Department of Art History & Communication Studies Marcia Hoffman Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation Mercedes Haefer Student, UNLV Jay Leiderman Attorney, Leiderman Devine LLP Gráinne O'Neill Coordinator Anonlg Project, National Lawyers Guild How the media mischaracterizes, & portrays hackers. IRL protest VS. online protest. Politically motivated prosecution. COINTELPRO. The future of hacking and what law enforcement agencies plan to do about it Amber Lyon is a three-time Emmy Award- winning investigative journalist, photographer, and documentary filmmaker.

Vulnerability Analysis

Formerly of CNN, Amber now works Independently to cover corporate corruption, human and environmental abuses, revolutions, and hacktivists. While working for CNN, Amber worked to get more in-depth coverage of Anonymous into the main stream media and was the lead reporter on CNN's inside Anonymous special. ( Twitter: @amberlyon Gabriella Coleman researches and teaches on the politics of free software, hackers, the law, and digital activism. Her first book, "Coding Freedom: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Hacking" is forthcoming in November 2012 with Princeton University Press and she is currently working on a new book on Anonymous and digital activism. Twitter: @BiellaColeman Marcia Hoffman is a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where she works on a broad range of digital civil liberties issues including computer security, electronic privacy, and free expression. She currently focuses on computer crime and EFF's Coders' Rights Project, which promotes innovation and protects the rights of curious tinkerers and researchers in their cutting-edge exploration of technology.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Prior to joining EFF, Marcia was staff counsel and director of the Open Government Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Twitter: @marciahoffman Mercedes Haefer In July 2011, Mercedes was indicted along with 13 others (dubbed the Anonymous 14) for allegedly conspiring to commit distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal's website as part of an alleged Anonymous Operation Payback. (allegedly) Mercedes is enrolled as a sociology undergraduate at the University of Nevada and Las Vegas. Twitter: @usagi_the_bunny Jay Leiderman is a criminal defense lawyer at Leiderman Devine LLP in Ventura, California. Among other cases involving hacktivism, Leiderman is representing Christopher Doyon, alleged member of Anonymous known as Commander X. (Doyon has fled to Canada using what he referred to as "an underground railroad and network of safe houses").

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Leiderman has said he knew Doyon was frustrated by the condition of his release, which included being banned from accessing Twitter or IRC chats. (currently the "Anon 14" have been granted their Twitter rights). As a veteran trial attorney who spends most of his time in court defending the accused, and as one of the few attorneys that has actually represented an alleged member of Anonymous accused of a federal hacking crime, Leiderman brings a unique perspective to the defense of purported members of Anonymous. Twitter: @leidermandevine Gráinne O'Neill is a the Director of the MyGideon project at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. She is also a board member of the National Lawyers Guild and in that role Coordinates the Anonlg Project. Anonlg is a national network of NLG attorneys who provide defense to targeted hacktivists. She received her JD from Columbia Law School where she was the Managing Editor of the Jailhouse Lawyers Manual, and has a degree in computer science from Cornell University. ( Twitter: @grainne