BART hacked again, hackers release personal information of officers

Bart hacked again, hackers release personal information

news.yahoo.com

Hackers seized and posted personal information of Bay Area Rapid Transit police online — carrying out another website attack against a California agency that turned off some cell phone service to thwart a potential protest.

The latest attack came as BART found itself in the middle of a debate about free speech following its decision last week to curtail wireless communication in some of its stations.

This time, hackers gained access Wednesday to the website operated by The Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Officers' Association, posting personal details of more than 100 officers. The offi

(visit the link for the full news article)

Anonymous has not yet taken responsibility for this attack. Not sure I agree with this, but I'm glad someone is standing up against the police and BART for blocking cell phone signals.

How else can voices be heard? You can't say protest, because the signals were originally blocked to thwart a protest. At least someone is giving it back to the governemt, at least a little bit.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by MysticPearl


I wish i could agree with this, it just seems to be that they keep doing things to push the agenda of internet censorship, this does not help the average individual, it supports the agenda of tptb.

I wish they would do something so that we could know that they are on our side, i am very suspicious of the whole set up i am afraid.

This is good..

I hope the right people got these pig's
information and go vigilante..

ONLY WAY THEY WILL LEARN!!

You spank a child when they do wrong..

Spank the police when they do!!

reply to post by drfeelme

This is good..

While I agree BART may have overstepped its bounds by cutting cell phone service, this is in no way good.

If you look at the situation with a level-head, you can see that the BART administration was attempting to find a creative way to block illegal protesting in its underground stations without another incident of police and protesters clashing.

It appears that it worked too because that night, there were no protests or interruptions to transit service.

That still does not excuse the fact that BART may have overstepped it's bounds by pulling a move such as this.

I hope the right people got these pig's
information and go vigilante..

ONLY WAY THEY WILL LEARN!!

You spank a child when they do wrong..

Spank the police when they do!!

You are assuming it was the BART police that decided to use this tactic. Or it was the BART police that cut the service themselves.

I could find no source that says it was the BART police that made the decision or even effected the outage. In fact, it reads like the BART administration made the decision and not the police.

Even if the BART police did make the decision, hacking the BART police union's website and revealing the personal information of a police officer is not a rational way of fighting the action.

Believe it or not, there are criminals out there that would like to seriously injure or kill a police officer or their family simply because that police officer did his or her job. That is an unfair situation in which to place a police officer in the name of protest against BART.

A proper way of dealing with the situation would be having the ACLU or other organization sue the BART administration or file an injunction in court to prevent such action from happening again. That paired with an investigation by the FCC for possible violation of law would suffice.

It appears that the ACLU will not file a law suit though.
Source
This makes one question the legality of the action. I am sure as soon as they heard of it, ACLU attorneys were all over it reviewing the laws and circumstances surrounding the action. And, based on their track record, if there was any legal basis from which to launch legal action against BART the ACLU would have made it happen.

Originally posted by areyouserious2010
reply to post by drfeelme

 

This is good..

While I agree BART may have overstepped its bounds by cutting cell phone service, this is in no way good.

If you look at the situation with a level-head, you can see that the BART administration was attempting to find a creative way to block illegal protesting in its underground stations without another incident of police and protesters clashing.

It appears that it worked too because that night, there were no protests or interruptions to transit service.

That still does not excuse the fact that BART may have overstepped it's bounds by pulling a move such as this.

I hope the right people got these pig's
information and go vigilante..

ONLY WAY THEY WILL LEARN!!

You spank a child when they do wrong..

Spank the police when they do!!

You are assuming it was the BART police that decided to use this tactic. Or it was the BART police that cut the service themselves.

I could find no source that says it was the BART police that made the decision or even effected the outage. In fact, it reads like the BART administration made the decision and not the police.

Even if the BART police did make the decision, hacking the BART police union's website and revealing the personal information of a police officer is not a rational way of fighting the action.

Believe it or not, there are criminals out there that would like to seriously injure or kill a police officer or their family simply because that police officer did his or her job. That is an unfair situation in which to place a police officer in the name of protest against BART.

A proper way of dealing with the situation would be having the ACLU or other organization sue the BART administration or file an injunction in court to prevent such action from happening again. That paired with an investigation by the FCC for possible violation of law would suffice.

It appears that the ACLU will not file a law suit though.
Source
This makes one question the legality of the action. I am sure as soon as they heard of it, ACLU attorneys were all over it reviewing the laws and circumstances surrounding the action. And, based on their track record, if there was any legal basis from which to launch legal action against BART the ACLU would have made it happen.

edit on 18-8-2011 by areyouserious2010 because: edit

I do not want the wrong people to suffer the consequences of this..

It just makes me upset of the censorship of freedom of speech going on..

I think that they should have gone after the administration information. They were the ones that made the decision, and while the police shouldn't have followed orders because "it's their job", they still shouldn't be punished this severly. That would have hurt BART much more , not hurting the working people.

reply to post by MysticPearl

Anonymous has not yet taken responsibility for this attack. Not sure I agree with this, but I'm glad someone is standing up against the police and BART for blocking cell phone signals.

Again, it is unclear who made the decision to shut down the mobile phone service but after reading several articles, it appears it was BART administration that made that call and effected it. Not the police.

How else can voices be heard? You can't say protest, because the signals were originally blocked to thwart a protest. At least someone is giving it back to the governemt, at least a little bit.

First, they could try protesting the old fashioned way. I do not understand why people need cell phones to effect a protest somewhere. People have been protesting without them for centuries.

Second, using the word "blocked" is a little misleading. The way I read it is they shut down cell phone relays which carry cell signals to underground stations. This sounds a little more plausible to tell the truth. I do not think BART has access to the technology to block cell phone service. I may be wrong because I can not find any article which clarifies that question but that is how it read to me.

With that in mind, would that be a violation of anyone's rights? If they just shut down the relays that carry the signal underground, I do not think so. It is not one's constitutional right to be provided cell phone service.

It was dirty pool though and I would say that unless they want some serious legal trouble they should stop this sort of tactic.

reply to post by drfeelme


But the wrong people will always be affected with things like this.

Hacking into any website that contains personal information on people and then posting it online will hurt more innocent and wrong people than it will those who the hackers were intending to hurt.

It'd be like having one loose cannon in a school killing people and somehow their identity isn't known or released so a hacker gets into the school records and posts everyone's details, followed by some "vigilante" or criminal going after as many as possible with the mindset that "if we get rid of them all, the killing will stop".

It shows the reliance on technology that society is in today that a cell service can be blocked to halt any protests and possibly a criminal element wanting to sabotage that protest for their own needs (like the anarchists who jump on a bandwagon as a way to cause trouble) and then people hack and cry about freedom of speech when they're still free to talk or communicate any other way.

As someone said, people protested for thousands of years without needing cell phones to organise it. If what they were protesting was that important, they'd find other, non-technological means to group together.

Any time a hacker group publishes the details of innocent, hard working people, I sigh and shake my head not only at that but also at comments by some who claim it's a great thing and "go Anon/whoever". It'd be like wiping out the entire continent of Europe with a nuke and killing billions of innocents just to eradicate a small group of nutjobs who reside in one country spewing hate-filled and abusive rhetoric.

People claim police tactics are heavy handed. Well these groups releasing details of EVERYONE on the payroll is even worse.

I normally support them if they do something I feel is right and just but so far this year, I honestly can count those things with less than a few fingers of one hand.

reply to post by MysticPearl


What do you mean that you can't protest?

Read PhoenixOD's thread in this very section:
Anonymous BART Protest Shuts Down Several Underground Stations

Supporters of Anonymous took to the streets and subways Monday to rally against BART's suspension of cell phone service during a previous protest, forcing police to shut down several BART and Muni underground stations in San Francisco.

(from the OPs link in the above linked thread on this very site)

Take a look at the videos in the above link.
Related threads:
Cellphones blocked in SF to hinder transit protest
Anonymous Hacks BART

related offsite article:
Innocent passengers targeted to protest subway agency,Anonymous punishes THE PEOPLE to protect them

To my understanding, some passengers commutes were up to 3 hours long due to the protests. I also read somewhere that several people (passengers) were locked in a room for their protection without being able to call anyone

Further reading regarding this topic indicates that cell phone traffic was shut down because the protesters wanted to protest on the platforms (which is illegal under local laws) during rush hour, rather than protest at a legally designated area. I have also read that another reason was that previous protests (before the attempted one where they shut down the cell service) had been violent.

As far as releasing the officers email address, that doesn't make any big deal. Just set that to be a junk mail and don't worry about it.

As far as releasing home addresses, that is not a good thing. All of the officers who had data released probably weren't involved in the death that caused the protests in the first place or in the decision to cut off cell service. Most likely, at least some of the officers have family that weren't involved either. Why does someone think that it is neccessary to put those uninvolved at risk.

p

The actions of the federal government at BART, you know that the Fed's owns it right? The Feds shut off the cell phones to stamp out a peaceful protest. Putting the public at risk, so people can't complain about them. This is a VERY serious precedent.

reply to post by thejlxc

The actions of the federal government at BART, you know that the Fed's owns it right? The Feds shut off the cell phones to stamp out a peaceful protest. Putting the public at risk, so people can't complain about them. This is a VERY serious precedent.

I have no idea where you are getting that they are owned by the federal government. Please provide that source here.

In fact, I have a source that says it is a special governmental agency created by the State of California. The BART system may receive some sort of federal funding but it appears that it is not directly owned or operated by the federal government.
Wikipedia on BART

Actually, under amenities it specifically says that it provides cellular service to passengers of all cellular carriers while underground. Meaning they provide equipment that carries the cellular signals to underground trains and stations as a service to their patrons. They did not "block" cellular service, they simply stopped providing this service so that the protesters could not use it to disrupt transit service. The ground "blocked" the cellular service.
Wikipedia on BART

In May 2004, BART became the first transit system in the United States to offer cellular telephone communication to passengers of all wireless carriers on its trains underground. This is in contrast to other systems in United States, which only provide for customers of some of the major cell phone carriers.[12] Service was made available for customers of Verizon Wireless, Sprint/Nextel, AT&T Mobility, and T-Mobile in and between the four San Francisco Market Street stations from Civic Center to Embarcadero. In 2005, coverage was made available between Balboa Park and 16th St. Mission. By July 2008, the fifth cell phone network of the Bay Area, MetroPCS, was added.[13] In December 2009, service was expanded to include the Transbay Tube, thus providing continuous cell phone coverage between West Oakland and Balboa Park. Service is planned to be added in downtown Oakland, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Hills Tunnel by the end of the third quarter 2010. Coverage is expected to be added to South San Francisco and San Bruno in 2011. The goal is to provide continuous cell phone and internet service throughout the entire BART system

And the protests which occurred before they shut the service down became violent. So again, I do not know where you are getting your information from.

Anon and Lulzsec are too irresponsible to be doing hacking for political reasons. I see that as a flag of convience for just simply stealing, just like piracy.

If you want to be USEFUL to the world politically, go hack the system, and make things better, stop walking over people.

Sure release deals that are bad for the people, politically and commerically, and various dark stuff, but leave PEOPLE out of it.

There is a line of responsbility, they have crossed it too many times to retain support.

But oh theyre denying you your rights, so what, go do real hacks that give those rights back, that isnt stealing personal information.

Bite me, keep this up Anon and I WILL and many WILL sign on the dotted line begging government to protect us.

Yeah bite me, because frankly, Anon are not doing this in a good way and no I wont encourage them with their current tactics. .

Change tactics or we end up worse off.


I have from personal experience been on the receieving end of Lulzsec political hacking and my personal details, my bank accounts compromised and STOLEN FROM. My crime? To pay for a service that they hacked.

You crossed the line.

Bring on the SOLUTION.


Fck Anon and Lulzsec.