The LulzBoat may have sailed off into the sunset, but LulzSec weren’t the only ones who knew how to make waves. Anonymous and the People’s Liberation Front launched HackerLeaks earlier this week in a bid to make hacked information more widely accessible. The site is apparently the brainchild of several PLF members and was concieved during “Operation Orlando”, an attack against the city of Orlando after the repeated arrest of members of the group “Food Not Bombs.” This new site, which is admittedly modeled after WikiLeaks, provides hackers with a centralized site with which they can publicize their hacked data.
In the site’s own words
In both security as well as overall strategy, HackerLeaks is closely modeled on WikiLeaks. Our firstpriority is to provide a safe, secure – and anonymous way for hackers to disclose sensitive information. Our team of analysts first carefully screens each submission for any possible trace of the senders [sic] identity. Our second commitment is to ensure that each and every leak receives the maximum exposure possible in order to achieve the most profound political impact for the risks taken by those submitting material. To that end, we work with media outlets all over the world.
The site is already host to several leaks including an email that appears to be from the Gmail account of the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, two username and password lists (pcicase.nl and Bronkerk.nl) and a news post announcing a hack of mikanosteel.com.
With WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange going through some tough times, it’s interesting to think what may become of HackerLeaks. It’s only a matter of time before the site attracts some serious negative attention, but unlike its predecessor WikiLeaks, HackerLeaks, like Anonymous, seems to already understand the safety of anonymity. It has no real-life figurehead founder that can be extradited, sued, or arrested. Still, HackerLeaks seems to have some personality, a little bit of that classic black-hat vitriol that draws media attention in droves. Better check to make sure your passwords are strong, because it just got a lot more likely that the ones that are stolen will be made public knowledge.
(HackerLeaks via Forbes)
