

Anonymous releases 10,365 e-mails from the Iranian government - ssclafani
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6422934/Anonymous_Operation_Iran_TOP_SECRET_FILES_

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tansey
1) The emails are mostly English

2) They're primarily Visa approval/rejection notices

99% of the emails are boring, auto-send text, examples:

EMAIL A ------

Dear frederic norbert didier Your visa request has received successfully. You
application ID is:99027 You will also be notified about your application
process by e-mail. Thank you.

EMAIL B --------

With reference to your visa application No 1000116698-1000102795 , we are glad
to inform you that your request is approved under No. 901841. . After 3
working days of receiving this approval , please approach in person the
Iranian Embassy / General Consulate in LAHORE . and collect your required visa
. Best regards,M.F.A / Passport and Visa Office .

\---------

Pretty boring stuff. There is some Persian writing above the text in EMAIL B
variants, so maybe that is interesting. I do not see any interesting English-
text content.

~~~
anigbrowl
It is boring in one sense, but in another way that is what makes it exciting.
you and I have little or no use for this information, but it's great from an
intelligence standpoint.

I'm not entirely sure about the provenance. I've often wondered if western
governments use anon as a deniable vector for track II diplomacy. Either way,
interesting.

~~~
kposehn
Hmm, that is a good point there. I'm not so sure this intel is that useful all
around outside tracking people that applied for Iranian visas.

That said, I haven't perused these emails and I don't plan to. There could
easily be other patterns here worth going over.

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shii
You know, I can see real utility in a simple site that lets you upload data
garnered from hacking escapades online to be easily searchable and presentable
to the general public. It'd have the pastebin feature of a general press
statement/greetz file as well. On non-US/EU/whatever harbors to protect from
bring being easily taken down. Easy to upload massive amounts of files and can
take the load from DoS attacks. Easy way to pipe massive amounts of data via
shell. Is spartan so things like SQLi aren't a problem, with competent
security in the backend. Basically a CableGates search site for all dox from
large scale hacking events like all the high profile recent ones in this year.
To make things interesting, it'd use fancy things like schemaless document
stores, bitcoin payment processing and fiat-->bitcoin conversion, and other
shiny things that are popular nowadays.

Pays the bills via ads and subscription-based early access to members. Also
has pretty features like alerts via SMS on new uploads, easy viewing of images
with jquery, auto-submitter to big news sites, etc. Could function as the role
of media relative/press kit for news orgs as well.

Makes the process of rolling your own torrent of the data (hostable by
thepiratebay amongst other choices) easy and deadsimple. Basically the
ultimate CMS for hacking.

Whaddya think?

~~~
jackolas
This is what Wikileaks was supposed to be/ originally was. Since they've
changed gears a site for en masse data collection of value would be
interesting, sadly the "wikileaks rivals" have no interest in this... so it's
probably a good plan.

~~~
canadaduane
They changed gears because it turned out that passive reporting of giant fact
dumps did not garner attention nor have significant impact on the world. As
soon as they began taking on the role of curation or reporting on top of their
cache of data, that's when things really took off (according to Assange).

~~~
roc
Well, they certainly went from 'obscure curiosity' to 'house-hold name and
infamy.'

------
Mithrandir
See also: <http://piratepad.net/30Dz8cCdv5> (Release Notes)

<http://opiran.iranserv.com/> (Their chatroom)

<http://www.mediafire.com/?6d8bh7w4c938m4j> (The files)

<http://piratepad.net/498yehfsdk> (Discussions about vulnerable .ir servers)

<http://piratepad.net/JAI223D1jp> (Discussions about vulnerable .ir servers)

[http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/03/anonymous-
steals-1...](http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/03/anonymous-
steals-10000-iranian-government-emails-plans-ddos-attack/) (News Article)

~~~
brianleb
The second pirate pad is the most interesting (to me).

"2a. Suggestions on how to proceed I know that there is an urge to "run and
gun" this, perhaps go on a mad defacing spree, or start dropping anonymous
based UI icons into the site's buttons, guy fakes banners, etc. We must resist
this urge. I think there is a tremendous opportunity if we get even 3
moderately popular anti-green sites. Let's look at sites A,B, and C. What we
should consider, is the ability to plant stories inside A, link to them from
B, and then plant stories in B, and link to A and B's stories from C - the
site with the most traffic. The stories should be posted, if possible, two
days ago, or yesterday, assuming a blog-like ability to set times and dates
when you post. Anyway, do what suits, thiswas just a thought. We may not have
the luxury of time, in which case raw vandalization may do it - just put green
party banners on the home page, and "anonymous" in text at the copyright on
the bottom - that is just so they don't blame the green party for the
exploit."

Interesting. It seems to indicate that perhaps some of Anonymous' actors have
matured, or at least were able to use the petty vandalism phase of the group
as a learning process.

I can't help but feel like with Anonymous talking about planting fake news,
the whole government/HBGary thing about planting fake news, etc. that in the
near future there may be some (albeit minor) crisis on the internet about
finding news you can trust. Until the internet figures out how to route around
the damage, of course.

------
tomelders
Looks like Iran is doing business with several Nigerian dignitaries, helping
them shift millions of US Dollars out of the country through Western Union.

What a scandal.

------
olalonde
Password for rar is: opiranopiran

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scottjad
One of the first email: "I decided to contact you for a business transaction
to transfer funds for Investment purpose"

Apparently even scam emails are TOP SECRET.

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iandanforth
At first glance it looks like thousands of really boring visa requests. Anyone
find anything interesting?

~~~
leon_
yeah, one request in german with an attached zipped "passport copy" which
extracts to an .exe

I don't want to know how often embassy employees actually open such .exe
files.

~~~
yaix
At least once. You seem to have found the attack vector. ;)

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thelicx
Piratebay is not accessible from Italy. If you want to open the website from
there use a proxy like <http://hidemyass.com/>

~~~
kmfrk
Or [http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-
www.cgi/http://thepirateb...](http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-
www.cgi/http://thepiratebay.org).

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Mithrandir
The majority (or all of them, I can't tell) are directed to
"e_visa@mfa.gov.ir" which seems to be related to
<http://evisa.mfa.gov.ir:7780/mfa/>. That's the "Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Online Electronic Visa Service"

Also, the main website (<http://mfa.gov.ir/>) is dead.

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alanh
What language is the content in?

~~~
Mithrandir
It's mixed English and Persian. Majority is English.

------
freeth
I'm currently trying to see if I can find anything to do with:
<http://freethehikers.org/> Josh Fattal was a friend of mine in high school.
Any help is appreciated.

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scottjad
Persian or English?

~~~
dimmuborgir
Both English and Farsi.

------
thelicx
Password for rar is: opiranopiran

