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'Anonymous' Hackers Protest San Francisco's BART Cellphone Blocking
SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's mass transit system prepared for renewed protests Monday, a day after hackers angry over blocked cell phone service at some transit stations broke into a website and posted company contact information for more than 2,000 customers.
Screenshot of myBART.org's hacked website The action by a hacker group known as Anonymous was the latest showdown between anarchists angry at perceived attempts to limit free speech and officials trying to control protests that grow out of social networking and have the potential to become violent.
Anonymous posted people's names, phone numbers, and street and email addresses on its own website, while also calling for a disruption of the Bay Area Rapid Transit's evening commute Monday.
BART officials said Sunday that they were working a strategy to try to block any efforts by protesters to try to disrupt the service.
"We have been planning for the protests that are said to be shaping up for tomorrow," BART spokesman Jim Allison said. He did not provide specifics, but said BART police will be staffing stations and trains and that the agency had already contacted San Francisco police.
The transit agency disabled the effected website, myBART.org, Sunday night after it also had been altered by apparent hackers who posted images of the so-called Guy Fawkes masks that anarchists have previously worn when showing up to physical protests.
The cyber attack came in response to the BART's decision to block wireless service in several of its San Francisco stations Thursday night as the agency aimed to thwart a planned protest over a transit police shooting. Officials said the protest had been designed to disrupt the evening commute.
"We are Anonymous, we are your citizens, we are the people, we do not tolerate oppression from any government agency," the hackers wrote on their own website. "BART has proved multiple times that they have no problem exploiting and abusing the people."
Allison described myBART.org as a "satellite site" used for marketing purposes. It's operated by an outside company and sends BART alerts and other information to customers, Allison said.
The names and contact info published by Sunday came from a database of 55,000 subscribers, he said. He did not know if the group had obtained information from all the subscribers, he said, adding that no bank account or credit card information was listed.
The BART computer problem was the latest hack the loosely organized group claimed credit for this year. Last month, the FBI and British and Dutch officials made 21 arrests, many of them related to the group's attacks on Internet payment provider PayPal Inc., which has been targeted over its refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks. The group also claims credit for disrupting the websites of Visa and MasterCard in December when the credit card companies stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.
BART's decision to shut down wireless access was criticized by many as heavy handed, and some raised questions about whether the move violated free speech.
The problems began Thursday night when BART officials blocked wireless access to disrupt organization of a demonstration protesting the July 3 shooting death by BART police who said the 45-year-old victim was wielding a knife.
Activists also remain upset by the 2009 death of Oscar Grant, an unarmed black passenger who was shot by a white officer on an Oakland train platform. The officer quit the force and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after the shooting.
Facing backlash from civil rights advocates and one of its own board members, BART has defended the decision to block cell phone use, with Allison saying the cell phone disruptions were legal because the agency owns the property and infrastructure.
"I'm just shocked that they didn't think about the implications of this. We really don't have the right to be this type of censor," Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART's board of directors, said previously. "In my opinion, we've let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that's not fair."
Laura Eichman was among those whose email and home phone number were published by the hackers Sunday.
"I think what they (the hackers) did was illegal and wrong. I work in IT myself, and I think that this was not ethical hacking. I think this was completely unjustified," Eichman said.
She said she doesn't blame BART and feels its action earlier in the week of blocking cell phone service was reasonable.
"It doesn't necessarily keep me from taking BART in the future but I will certainly have to review where I set up accounts and what kind of data I'm going to keep online," Eichman said.
Michael Beekman of San Francisco told the AP that he didn't approve of BART's move to cut cell phone service or the Anonymous posting.
"I'm not paranoid but i feel like it was an invasion of privacy," he said. "I thought I would never personally be involved in any of their (Anonymous') shenanigans."
The group Anonymous, according to its website, does "not tolerate oppression from any government agency," and it said it was releasing the User Info Database of MyBart.gov as one of many actions to come.
"We apologize to any citizen that has his information published, but you should go to BART and ask them why your information wasn't secure with them," the statement said.
Associated Press writers Terry Tang and Bob Seavey in Phoenix also contributed to this report.

14 Comments so far
Show AllOh I feel so sorry for all those people who have been outted through their upBart...and this too from another MSM horse shit
WHY THE HELL IS CD POSTING ASSOCIATED PRESS BULL SHIT?
THEY ARE THE ENEMY...go look for someone to listen to who is there...maybe check out Anonymous's website...ahhahahaha if you can get there...
f'n nuts
"BART is working with law enforcement to investigate the weekend's online attacks, but catching those responsible may prove difficult as Anonymous' membership tends to be somewhat nebulous. The group's OpBart Twitter account, for example, is purportedly controlled by hundreds of people; a problem that is concerning even for Anonymous.
Early Sunday, someone with access to the OpBart Twitter account sent out the message, "BART and you're dead." Other members with access to OpBart spent time on Monday doing damage control for the outburst".
"--anarchists angry at perceived attempts to limit free speech and officials--"
so? loyalty to basic rights of all living creatures to live, speak and influence policies for which we bear the brunt of unfavorable repercussions is anarchy? we've succeeded in turning the earth upside down and only we the people can inject a counter move to turn this puppy upright. those who mouth a commitment to the u.s. constitution, never comprehending the spirit of that dusty document in my opinion are the true anarchists.
Er, I hate to inform you, but "Anarchist" is not an epethet - it is what Anarchists call themselves!
It is a fully ligitimate social philosophy with a long and colorful international history - Proudhon, Bakunin, Kroptopkin, Emma Goldman, Sacco, Vanzetti, the Haymarket Seven, Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, the IWW, and in the present day, large portions of the environmental justice movement, Food Not Bombs, Critical Mass Bicyclists, Noam Chomsky; numerous bands and musicians, from Anti-Flag, Chumbawamba, Jello Biafra, Utah Phillips, Billy Bragg (sort of), and direct-cyber-action groups like "Anonymous".
Go here:
www.infoshop.org
According to the SF Chronicle:
"Bay Area Rapid Transit officials have said they shut down power Thursday evening to cellular towers for stations stretching from downtown to the San Francisco's airport after learning protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate its demonstration."
I don't think the previous reports here on CD said anything about the carriers other than they wouldn't comment, leaving the question of complicity unanswered.
Actually, I assume that the equipment that was disabled was just the special equipment that allows cell phones to be used in the underground stations and tunnels. I don't think this required cooperation with the service carriers - as the equipment probably just consists of low-power 2-way repeaters of all the providers signals spaced along the subway tunnels. The SF Chronicle account of shutting down a "cell tower" (as whenever a journalist tries to explain a technical issue) probably in error.
But any such suppression of free speech is of course still vile.
Unfortunately, cell phones are not covered by common-carrier regulations the way land-line phones are, and are "private property" that can be denied to anyone the corporation wishes.
Turning off all cell phone usage can kill or injure people, through failure to respond promptly to a heart attack, to a fire or explosion, to a crime. BART has endangered lives. Should we congratulate them for getting away with zero deaths and injuries (at least none have been reported yet) this time? If my fire station snipped its own phone lines and an emergency either happened or didn't happen, I'd want those guys fired and possibly jailed either way.
Publishing people's addresses and phone numbers can in theory do harm if a battered wife is on the run from her husband. Having a tech-savvy abusive husband is still uncommon but possible. In terms of actual effects, this is more of a loss of privacy issue.
I'm going to encourage Anonymous not to post women's names, addresses and phone numbers in the future, as most abusive husbands/boyfriends are looking for certain women.
The point Anon was making by releasing the information was that any 8 year old so inclined could have broke through BARTs online security, therefore it is BARTs problem and fault that they care so little for their customers.
Blaming the victim? Seriously? It's kind of like saying that any 8 year old so inclined could trip a person on a staircase, and if that person dies, well, why weren't they more careful?
And no, not any 8 year old could do it.
"Laura Eichman was among those whose email and home phone number were published by the hackers Sunday."
_____________________
When I first scanned this sentence I thought the name was "Little Eichmann". And it might as well have been.
PS: Grammar Nanny Quibble: "The transit agency disabled the effected website, myBART.org"; s/b "affected website".
"Laura Eichman was among those whose email and home phone number were published by the hackers"
Big deal. In the old days everyone phone numbers were published - in this thing called a "phone book". E-mails would have been too if such things were provided by the cheap and reliable Bell System. As a kid, I would occasionally encounter a neighbor whose phone number was "unpublished" but we regarded such people as weird and anti-social.
And don't get me started with "You have reached so-and-so phone number". I know what number I dialed! I want to know if I have reached the intended person!