ONE
Operation Vendetta
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“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
~~ US Declaration Of Independence
Tuesday - November 6, 2012 approx. 6:00 PM ET - Starbucks Toronto, Ontario - CANADA
There have been very few hacks that I have participated in that made me even slightly nervous, much less terrified. Usually I was at the most anxious to see if it would work. But this hack....this was more outrageous than anything we had ever contemplated, and I was actually sweating like a pig. Because tonight my Crew and I had hacked into the national election in the USA. No, seriously.
It had begun roughly a year and a half ago. I was sitting in a McDonalds in San Francisco late one night chatting with my Crew about what additional attacks we could launch as part of Operation Vendetta. Even during those initial brain-storming sessions I remember feeling insane trepidation at what we were contemplating. It was the only hack in my life I remember hoping that it would fail, that we wouldn't be able to do it. But we did do it. We were doing it.
The manifesto for the hack was simple: to find any way we could to destabilize and de-legitimize the 2012 national election in the USA. It was an apolitical approach, we would not attempt to favor either candidate. In fact we would take pains not to. Instead the goal we settled on was in showing how easily we hacked in, doing some random damage - and then putting out a statement after detailing the hacks and pointing out the obvious fact that if we could do it, others probably also did too. This line of argument ultimately leading to - no one actually knows who did win the national election in the USA. And whomever they crown would be thus de-legitimized by those lingering questions, and the entire democratic process in the USA would be brought into question over the doubts whether it could ever be secured from network hacking attempts.
It was my core inner Crew that made the pact. And we spent a year and a half preparing. Unfortunately, hacks like this don't happen in convenient ten minute segments between ads for sneakers and breakfast cereal like on "Mr. Robot".
We began simply enough, I spent days researching white papers and YouTube videos on proof-of-concept hacks against everything from individual voting machines to the ORCA electronic vote counting systems. The latter ended up as our primary attack vector for Florida and Ohio. In addition, we worked up two voting machine hacks. One involved inserting a thumb drive into a particular model stupid enough to have a USB port exposed, and the other was even simpler - literally involving simply placing a powerful magnet in a certain location on the machine. These "machine hacks" we then packaged up along with a brief manifesto and quietly spread them among the underground, encouraging people to go out and randomly apply the procedures in their own voting stations on election day.
And it was not smooth sailing. After months of work on this, one of the six people in my Crew turned out to be a snitch working as a Confidential Informant for the FBI. He had been privy to all the initial brainstorming sessions, and knew enough to cause the FBI to take serious notice. There was actually a robust debate within the Crew when Locke's deception came to light. Consideration was given to dropping the attempt. But Locke had been outed before we got access to the ORCA systems, he only knew for certain about the voting machine hacks we were slowly spreading within the underground. Which is why when he got desperate to give his handlers something, Locke actually came back to our Crew IRC and attempted to get back into our graces with none other than a "stolen" voting machine - one no doubt given to him by the FBI to try and get back into the Crew. This is from the actual IRC log, one of the handful I have ever kept.
Locke: Commandant. Commander X, I've been waiting for like 5 stinkin' hours.
Commander X: Indeed. And why would you be waiting so long?
Locke: Because I freakin' love tea.
Author's Note: This was Locke's old recognition phrase, only he and I knew it.
Commander X: Indeed, so I have been told. I would suggest Starbucks next time, they have excellent tea. Or latte. Beats waiting in an IRC for five hours.
Locke: Why didn't you run when I told you to.
Commander X: As you may recall, I was sick. Very sick.
Locke: PM
Commander X: I see the PM. Anything you have to say to me you can say to the entire Crew, who you also betrayed.
Locke: Well if that's the welcome that's here, we really don't need you. You just have an eloquent way of saying things.
Commander X: YOU don't need ME? This is MY channel, it's the other way around. And we have been doing just fine lately. Despite your treachery. As I recall our last conversation, you were done with the PLF and me.
Locke: Because I said go and all of a sudden you're pinched.
Commander X: Actually you said you talked to the feds and told them I was in Orlando on my way north. I do not recall any warning, or indication I should run. What I DO recall is I also transmitted to you my exact address, the very address where the following day I was mysteriously arrested by 6 FBI agents. That is my recollection.
Locke: Your address?
You never told me your address. That's definitely not something you would have given me.
Commander X: Yes, I certainly did. It was necessary for you in order to wire me money. Which was the point of the conversation we had last time we spoke.
I used the coffee house address. The same coffee house where the very next day I was arrested by federal agents.
Locke: Which was great until men in expensive clothing come to my school and bother me while I'm in fucking class. If you think I fucking pinched you, you've got another thing coming. I had no idea where you were. I knew you were in SF. I knew where money was supposed to go. That's it.
Commander X: What I am saying is, that's quite a coincidence - from my point of view you understand.
Locke: I do understand. But I seriously jumped on IRC after I could get somewhere that wasn't at school and told you what happened ASAP. I still get fucking emails from the FBI about anon shit. You think I want that kind of attention?
Commander X: Yes, you said you had a conversation with the feds and told them false info. Here's my question, why even do that much? Why didn't you tell them to go fuck themselves? That's what I do when ever I get V&ed. I give them the finger with one hand, and my lawyers card with the other. Why talk to them at all? Why EVER talk to them, for any reason?
Locke: Because it made sense for you to be in Orlando. They thought you were in fucking Orlando. Because I don't have a choice.
Commander X: No they didn't think I was in Orlando.
Locke: You said so yourself they thought you were in Orlando.
Commander X: Bullshit. We all have choices. I have never said one fucking word to the bastards. And I have much more to lose than you, I have indictments that add up to 35 years in prison. And if as you say you have no choice, then how can one assume you are not even now helping them by logging this conversation?
Locke: Why the fuck do you think I would come back. Deal with this which I knew was going to happen.
Commander X: Because they are very pissed that I escaped into exile in Canada. Because they would like very much to re-capture me. That is why you would so suddenly pop up. Perhaps like our friend Sabu, you got pinched. And now you are working off your debt to them.
YDT10: They are such unhappy people. No wonder why Locke seems so unhappy :(
Commander X: They are indeed.
Locke: Whatever man. They don't own me, I got off scot free because I wasn't dumb enough to DDoS from my house. Or targets inside of the US.
Commander X: Ah so you DID get busted then? You must have neglected to tell me that when I was giving you my address. The day before I got V&ed.
Locke: They show up at my school, I'd say I was pretty well busted.
I TOLD YOU TO GO YOU DUMB MOTHER. I SAID GTFO of dodge.
Commander X: No, you told me you misdirected them. Essentially telling me I was safe.
Locke: If I ratted you, why say anything to you. Your capture would be good for me. IF they were on me now. Why would I identify myself. Why not start over?
Commander X: Because I have very PUBLICLY entered exile in Canada and given them the finger. Because they are mad and want me, that's why Locke.
YDT10: LOL
Commander X: Yes they do. I have given interviews to CNN, Greek TV and NBC. Basically saying fuck you. And now another of the Anonymous 16 has followed my example and bolted. That makes them very mad Locke, and they would easily make you do this to try and draw me out.
YDT10: Bad role model Commander X. How can I look up to you if you're going to make me into a bad person?
Locke: Meh, if I wanted to draw you out I would befriend you differently. Not tell you who I am.
YDT10: Locke why are you such an unhappy person? :( Does it hurt to be a failure? Is that why you're so unhappy?
Locke: I'm not unhappy YDT10, I suggest staying quiet, X can handle himself.
Commander X: Maybe you have? And since that failed, you tried this instead. See Locke, I am not easy to befriend like that anymore. I have learned much from getting V&ed. Including who I can and can not trust.
Locke: Ah cool, well here's the dealio. I'm about to pull off something fucking funny but I need this guys magic voice to make it happen. I'm stealing a voting machine.
Commander X: Good for you. Good luck with that.
Locke: I need you to get me somebody to reverse engineer it.
Poppy: O-o
Commander X: That won't happen Locke, and FYI this channel is almost certainly monitored by the feds.
Locke: Who cares. Everything is monitored. They don't even need a warrant. Wiretap? Nah, they have that shit tagged and searchable somewhere.
Commander X: Sabu knew that too, and yet he blabbed all over. But then he had nothing to fear, as he worked for them. :-D
Locke: Lulzsec was/is/and always will be a joke. 54 days of look at us, then it got hot and they're like fuq dis no lulz 4 us.
Commander X: So let me get this straight, you Mr paranoid himself - and now you think it's fine to talk about stealing voting machines in a public channel guaranteed to be monitored?
Locke: Sure, they can't find me. I have no name here where I am.
Commander X: Yeah, right. Or maybe, because you work for them you can say whatever you want to and you're safe. Hell Locke, you can even commit crimes like Sabu did and you can't be prosecuted.
Locke: The part I'm missing. Is if I can get away with committing crimes. Why identify myself? If I had the feds working with me, why not start over, put out some good work and get rep from Anon?
Commander X: Perhaps you could do that. Or you could try and tempt me by stealing a voting machine. The Locke I knew would long ago have told us all to fuck off and left, why so persistent - will your handlers be pissed at you if you fail to gain my trust again? Either strategy will fail, as I said I don't give my trust easily anymore. And either way, you would as an informant be free to act with impunity as you can not be prosecuted.
Commander X: Yep, so now you all know how I got vanned. And you just met the snitch who did it to me. I can't fucking stand snitches. Wonder which two users there are the fed handler?
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After this conversation took place, the paranoia level of the Crew went through the roof. It is the greatest wonder to me that any of us found the courage to actually continue with the strike after Locke snitched. Especially with Sabu having so recently and famously brought down LulzSec and AntiSec by becoming himself a CI for the FBI. But the fact is we did continue the work, and it had all....even Locke's treachery, it had all led to this fateful night.
The five remaining members of the Crew had gathered in a new encrypted platform we had just started using called Jabber with OTR. Our plan was to watch the media reports coming in throughout the evening, and see if events opened up any interesting opportunities. We had continuous access to the vote counting systems in both Ohio and Florida. Eventually if nothing else happened our plan called for depositing a simple virus that would begin slowly gobbling up vote counts totally at random and then leave those systems. Eventually the plan called for us to put out a press release and reveal the code for the virus, which systems we put it in, and the proof-of-concept voting machine hacks as well. But like so many well-laid plans, it just wasn't to be....
Vect0r: Ermmm, guys.... I think we have a problem.
Commander X: No. No problems. Not tonight. What fucking problems?
Vect0r: Whelp. We're not alone in Ohio or Florida.
Gh0stAn0n: What the fuck does that even mean?
Commander X: Vect0r, explain - what are you seeing in there?
Vect0r: There's another crew inside both systems. And if I am reading this right, they are also in a few we aren't in. Pennsylvania, Michigan, I see tunnels leading off everywhere really.
PizzaMan: Jesus. Who is it? Can you tell?
Vect0r: I'm running a backtrace now, should have some info in a few moments.
Commander X: Any signs they have seen us? Do they know were in there with them?
Vext0r: No, at least I don't think so anyway.
DigitalTerrorist: Great. Just fucking great. So what do we do now?
Vect0r: I don't know, but hold onto your seats folks because I just geo-located the IPs of the attackers and you are not going to believe this. They all point to the Ohio State Headquarters of the Republican Party. And I am not even joking.
Commander X: Jesus fucking christ....the GOP?
Gh0stAn0n: It's obvious what they are trying to do. Karl Rove took over the entire Ohio State headquarters this morning. I knew they had a plan like this. I told you guys.
Commander X: It is? Enlighten us. What "plan" do they have?
Gh0stAn0n: Well, it looks like Obama will take the election by at least a couple of million votes, right? So if you want to change the outcome, you either have to mess with a fuck lot of popular votes that need to be changed, or....mess with the Electoral College instead. Bust into battleground States, and delete just a few votes in hundreds of districts. The math works, you can steal an election that way - I explained this to you all before. You'd use a virus just like ours actually.
Vect0r: Wow. I never would have thought of that, even seeing everything I saw. It makes total sense though. That is brilliant.
DigitalTerrorist: The question is, what do we do now?
Commander X: Nothing. This changes nothing. We came here to sow chaos, and we are sticking to the plan.
PizzaMan: Wait a minute. No offense X, but we all worked hard on this for over a year. I think we should consider our options and discuss this. I mean, that is why we agreed to wait until election night anyway, to see if anything interesting developed. This seems....interesting.
Vect0r: What are you thinking Pizza?
PizzaMan: Well, your the man with the foot in the door in these systems, do you think we can, I don't know - throw the Republicans out of the systems?
Commander X: To what fucking end? "Save the election for Obama" and become "heroes" of American Democracy?
PizzaMan: Well, all the over the top hyperbole aside, yeah something like that I guess.
Vect0r: I can lock them out of Ohio and Florida. I am not sure if I can kick them out of the other States, we don't have root there. However it might be possible to trip the security in those systems alerting them to the GOP presence on their servers. Snitch them out.
DigitalTerrorist: I don't know, I'm with X I think on this one. I don't believe in either of these bozos I don't want to save shit for anyone. We came here to wreck it, let's wreck it.
Vect0r: One thing to consider, if we do this - kick out the Repubs and announce we saved the election for Obama, we will be looked on as heroes. Anonymous could use the help with our reputation as of late.
DigitalTerrorist: I thought we were doing this under our Crew flag, the PLF?
Commander X: We were. But no way we are doing this shit, saving the election - under my Crew's flag. I draw the line there.
Commander X: I'll reluctantly and with great reservations go with whatever the Crew wants to go with. Just saying, you'll need to invent a sock to put that shit out, it's not going out on our label, no way.
Vect0r: We can call ourselves "The Protectors". Say we're a patriot crew in Anonymous.
PizzaMan: I love it!
Commander X: OMG you guys are such dorks.
And that's how we went, in ten short minutes - from wrecking the US Election of 2012 to quite possibly saving it for Obama against GOP meddling. Later that night, as Karl Rove was giving what amounted to his victory speech for the Republican Presidential candidate, someone came up and whispered in his ear and he went spit flying ballistic on live television. While we'll never know, I would like to think it was at that very moment that an aid told him the hackers he sent in had been booted.
Days later we packaged the whole thing up and sent it to the media. We invented a Crew in Anonymous called the Protectors of Democracy (a name that still makes me want to vomit), gathered what little forensic evidence we had on the GOP, and blasted the entire thing to the world's media outlets. To their credit, several had the balls to actually go with the story. In the underground, the whole thing became a bit of a legend. Anonymous has been credited with many amazing things but saving the election for Barack Obama has to be right up there near the top of the "most epic list". Sort of ironic since Obama has tormented, tortured, jailed and even killed more Information Activists in his eight years than all other previous Presidents combined. Hell of a way to show your gratitude.
But it wasn't what we set out to do. And I still believe it was the wrong choice. The original manifesto for the hack, the concept of destabilizing and delegitimizing elections in the USA - would continue to resonate and grow within the underground. And four years hence, this strategy would resurface in the Resistance with a vengeance. And this time, there would be no saving anything for anyone.
Several months later, the hacker I have called "Vect0r" live tweeted as he went out on Golden Gate Bridge and threw the laptop he had done the election hack with into the San Francisco Bay. He then left the Underground, got a good paying job as a White Hat security consultant - and never looked back. It was that sort of hack.
Author's Note: In light of the extraordinary events unfolding in our world as I begin writing the story in Dark Ops: An Anonymous Story, it seems incumbent upon me to at least comment on election hacking in general, and the specific incidents surrounding the National Election of 2016 in the USA.
The first question many have is: how hard is it to actually hack the elections in the USA? The answer is, it's really easy. From affecting the individual machines, to kicking in the back doors to the State and regional counting systems - it was far from the most difficult hack I have ever participated in. The simple fact is taken as a whole, elections in the USA may well be the single most target rich surface in all of Black Hat hacking. With 50 sovereign States having their own systems, and even differences between districts within those States - there is simply no way to secure such a hodge-podge of software and hardware. This is exasperated by the fact that all this equipment and software is commercial and closed source.
As for so-called "State Actors", my Crew saw no evidence of this in 2012. I have likewise seen no convincing evidence that such was a measurable factor in 2016. The fact remains that the only actors I know for certain ever hacked an election in the USA was my Crew and the GOP led by Karl Rove's team of dirty-tricksters. So what do I think happened in 2016?
As both my first book and this one have been at pains to point out, the USA is at war, real war - with the Information Activists in the West. From Julian Assange to myself, we have detailed many stories of the brutal persecution of hacktivists by the government of the USA. It is my opinion that a concerted and massive campaign, led by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and consisting of thousands of Information Activists around the world - is what caused the "disruption" in the national election of the USA in 2016.
Whether or not some small part of the leaked material that fueled this massive propaganda campaign against the stability and legitimacy of the elections in the USA came from agents of the Russian government or not is immaterial. The material leaked itself proves that what cost the DNC its victory was an almost comically flawed campaign strategy, and not the Russians. So bottom line, no - the Russians didn't do it. We did. The Information Activists of the world.
To my mind this is the ultimate lesson of the fiasco of the national election of 2016 in the USA. That waging war against the world's hackers is insane, and a battle you can not possibly win. It proves once again that information alone if wielded properly can have as great or greater effect on geo-political events than kinetic force does. And it shows that Truth can be wielded as a weapon against the corrupt powers of this world.
It bears remembering that leaks of sensitive information can not harm the truly righteous. Such disclosures only damage the corrupt and criminal class. The USA is an Empire built exclusively upon lies, secrets - and corruption. It is therefore no mistake that it is the USA, with the most to lose from our power - that has targeted Information Activists with such brutal persecution. But as the events of 2016 show, the Information Activists, Hackers, and hacktivists - are perfectly capable of wreaking havoc upon anyone who would attempt to silence or harm us. Even the Empire of the USA. The following is a report I wrote after extensively investigating the circumstances of 2016.
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Russians, Russians….Everywhere: What Really Happened To The 2016 US Election, Who Did It, & Why
Before we dive into a little reality check for America, I would like to lay out what this article is, and is not – and what you the reader can expect to take away from it. This way you can save time, and simply decide not to read further.
What I am willing to offer you is the Truth as I have discovered it. My quest for this particular Truth began quite sometime prior to even the concept of election hacking, with an investigation into the Guccifer phenomenon.
I did not search out these Truths so that I could enlighten the world, I am not a journalist. This is part of my job as an Information Activist to be aware of the playing field and actors operating in Cyber Space. As such, I neither have, nor would I provide if I did – any sort of hard ‘forensic’ evidence of what I am about to tell you. For the average reader, the veracity of my conclusions must rest solely upon my own reputation in both knowledge and honesty. I am simply not in the business of providing evidence to the world and potentially law enforcement that could be used against my fellow hackers in the Underground. If it’s proof you demand, your journalists and law enforcement will need to seek that out themselves based on what I will present here – as I’ll not help them. That is their job, not mine.
What I will provide is a cogent and logical, albeit radically different – concept of what actually took place during the latest election cycle in the USA. It will tangent more than a few data points already in the public domain, more than enough to warrant and facilitate further investigation. Certainly enough to bring into question the prevailing narrative coming from the USA government and its proxy media in the west regarding the latest election. With all this in mind, this is what I learned investigating the circumstances of the 2016 Election in the USA.
As I stated above, my investigation began long before the election cycle in the USA even got underway, and was instead centered on what I have come to call the Guccifer Phenomenon. And here at the very beginning is where I will straight away leave the mainstream narrative behind with a startling discovery. Wrap your mind around this, Guccifer is not a person – it is a Crew! Approximately six to eight individuals from Ukraine, Serbia, and Romania. Now let’s drill down on this so you understand exactly what I mean here. First I don’t believe this Crew ever called themselves Guccifer Crew. That was most likely a stage name, not even the actual hacker handle but a simple front name – for the person who was the leader of this Crew. An individual we now know is a Romanian hacker currently serving consecutive terms first in Romania than in the USA for cyber crime related offenses.
Eventually, I made contact with one member of this Crew whom I shall not name. Nor will I share what we discussed in specific terms. We talked in general about the state of hacktivism in the West versus Eastern Europe and Russia. We specifically spoke in that regard about Anonymous and its presence in Russia. I found this individual to be calm and thoughtful, intelligent and skilled. My feeling is that like so many Hacker Crews coming from that region, they didn’t even fly a flag or even have a name for their Crew. Certainly, they had no public meme like that. They did seem very tight, loyal, and compatible. While not affiliated with Anonymous, they were in contact with and worked with individual Anons and Anonymous Cells all over the world. A solid underground Crew with no need for glamor, or even a name. And certainly not affiliated with any Nation State. Of this, I’m absolutely certain.
Now let’s examine the three major cyber-related events that appear to have significantly influenced the Election, and caused massive chaos in the government of the USA. First, the hack and dump of the DNC E-Mail spool. We all know who everyone says did it, the omnipowerful and omnipresent Russian Spooks. Obviously, my investigation led me to a completely different conclusion. Instead, for me, the trail led to a Cell within the Global Collective called Anonymous Russia. This National Cell is managed by approximately eight individuals, six of whom have been arrested by Russian authorities since the election and charged with some extremely weird cyber-offenses. One member of this Cell managed to escape and is publicly seeking political asylum in Eastern Europe. I believe this Cell liberated the DNC E-Mail spool, gave it to the Guccifer Crew, who in turn delivered it to WikiLeaks for publication. This hand-off was necessitated not for obfuscation of nation state involvement, but because of the language gap – which the Guccifer Crew is better at navigating than Anonymous Russia.
The motive here was simple political hacktivism. Like it or not Russian Information Activists have as much reason (arguably more) to hate the USA as Jester and his “Patriot Hackers” have to hate Russia. And to argue they were either State sponsored or State sanctioned is ludicrous and ignores the glaring reality that the entire cell was wiped out by FSB, save one lone Anon who escaped – just after the election.
That brings us to the Podesta hack and dump of his personal E-Mail spool. This was accomplished in-house by the Guccifer Crew. And again, this was strictly motivated by political hacktivism, in this case specifically, it was the NATO interference in the Ukraine situation. Which brings us to the persona known publicly as Guccifer 2.0. There has been so much speculation as to this individual. Except….they’re not. An individual, th