Anonymous publishes data

The loosely organized group published in the night to new year’s eve left, which are to lead to 75 000 names, addresses, credit card numbers and passwords of customers of the enterprise stratfor. The group announces further cyberattacks for the new year’s eve, but information about it was initially missing.

In addition, 860,000 usernames and e-mail addresses of all persons who ever registered on the company’s website were listed. 50 000 of these addresses ended with ".Mil" or ".Gov" – endings used by military personnel and government officials in the U.S. Several hours after the declaration, the contents that should be found under the links, were already deleted.

"We call on all connected battleships, all armies of darkness, to use and abuse these password lists and credit card information," the message reads. The goal was "to bring unholy chaos to the systems and personal email accounts of these rich and powerful oppressors".

The group also explicitly refers to the alleged wikileaks whistleblower bradley manning, who is in jail and is being tried by the military justice system. "Do you still want to lock him up for life? Do you still think we only do spab? This is in order. Enough words have been said."

On its facebook page, stratfor regretted on saturday night that the theft was possible. The company confirmed that among the information are credit card details of paying customers and the e-mail addresses of people who received free information. "We would like to assure our customers and friends that this is not a new cyberattack, but information that was stolen during an earlier penetration of the system."

After the attack against stratfor – the word stands for strategic forecasting – clients reported transfers in their name to charitable organizations. Initially, there had been doubts as to whether anonymousus was actually behind the attack or whether splinter groups or freeloaders were behind it.

The anonymous movement advocates for the free flow of data, freedom of speech and against censorship. Under the cover name, activists have already launched numerous attacks on banks, credit file companies, or even government institutions. However, the hacker group is only loosely organized; in principle, anyone can impersonate them without being able to prove the opposite.