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Hacked Documents Show Chamber Engaged HBGary to Spy on Unions

(photo: Timothy Valentine; Edited: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t)

[Ed: Read the documents about the US Chamber’s plan to spy on unions.]

I noted yesterday how mind-numbingly ignorant analysis of Glenn Greenwald’s motivation as a careerist hack that was provided by HBGary. And if the allegations in the excerpts of former WikiLeaks volunteer Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book are accurate, HBGary’s analysis about WikiLeaks itself is even more ignorant.

Add in the fact that this “security” company got hacked in rather embarrassing fashion.

Which, I’m guessing, is going to cause the Chamber of Commerce to rethink the spying work with HBGary it apparently has been considering.

Let me start with this caveat: what follows is based on emails available by Torrent. The parties in this affair are making claims and counterclaims about the accuracy of what is in there.

But it appears that back in November the same parties involved in the pitch to Bank of America–Palantir, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies working through Hunton and Williams–started preparing a pitch to the Chamber of Commerce. At that point, HBGary started researching anti-Chamber groups StoptheChamber.com and USChamberWatch. At one point, HBGary maps the connections between SEIU, Change to Win, and USChamberWatch as if he’s found gold.

By the end of November, Barr starts working on a presentation outlining the difference between StoptheChamber and USChamberWatch, as well as “a link chart of key people in the distribution of information, background information on each individual and ways to counteract their effect on group.”

On January 13, HBGary believed they had signed a contract.

This afternoon an H&W courier is bringing over a CD with the data from H&W from phase 1. We are assuming that this means that phase 1 is a go (We’ll let you know once we confirm this) and I’m wondering how we will integrate that data. Should we bring the CD over to Tyson’s Corner?

On February 3, law firm H&W came back to the three security firms and told them they’d be doing their Phase I work on spec, until the Chamber had bought into the full project. At that point, the firms put together a plan including a proposed February 14 briefing.

In response, Aaron Barr boasted (as is his wont) that his upcoming presentation at BSides security conference on Anonymous should be proof enough.

Let them read about my talk in two weeks on my analysis of the anonymous group.

Should be proof enough. But willing to discuss.

Which gets us just about to the point where Barr blabs his mouth, this security firm is badly hacked, and the Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to use intelligence firms to investigate activists exposing the Chambers own work is revealed.

I’m guessing HBGary just lost that contract, how about you?

Update: TP has a related take on this, describing more about what the proposal is:

According to one document prepared by Team Themis, the campaign included an entrapment project. The proposal called for first creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” to give to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then to subsequently expose the document as a fake to undermine the credibility of the Chamber’s opponents. In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to “generate communications” with Change to Win.

The Disinformation Campaign Bank of America Considered

Wikileaks has posted the presentation three security companies–Palantir, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies–made to Bank of America, proposing to help it respond to Wikileaks.

In addition to the degree to which the proposal emphasizes the national security ties and military background of the employees of the company (particularly Berico), the presentation fleshes out what the companies proposed. Under potential proactive tactics, it lists:

  • Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. Disinformation. Create messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization. Submit fake documents and then call out the error.
  • Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed to not be secure they are done.
  • Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward.
  • Media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities. Sustained pressure. Does nothing for the fanatics, but creates concern and doubt amongst moderates.
  • Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees.

Of particularly interest, they describe HBGary Federal’s abilities to conduct INFOOPS, including “influence operations” and “social media exploitation.”

In other words, in addition to proposing to conduct cyber attacks on Wikileaks’ European-based infrastructure (complete with a picture of WL’s bomb shelter-housed servers), the proposal appears to recommend that these companies be paid to troll social media, like Twitter, to not only “identify risky behavior of employees” but also, presumably, “push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities.” You know–the kind of trolling we often see targeted at Glenn (and in recent days targeted against David House, who was also listed in this presentation).

In addition, the presentation proposes to create a concern over the security of the infrastructure. Interestingly, when additional newspapers in Europe got copies of the State cables (including Aftenposten), some people speculated that the files had come from a hack of Wikileaks servers. (Note how the slide above notes the disgruntled WL volunteers.)

That doesn’t mean we’re seeing this campaign in process. After all, Glenn has a ton of enemies on Twitter. And if the intent behind leaking additional copies of the cables was to suggest WL’s infrastructure had been hacked, that perception has largely dissipated as more and more newspapers get copies.

One final note: according to Tech Herald, the law firm pitching these firms, Hunton and Williams, was itself recommended to BoA by DOJ. As the presentation makes clear, these are significant government contractors. (Remember, we’re getting these documents because Anonymous hacked HBGary Federal, which was offering what it had collected to DOJ.) To what extent is what we’re seeing just an extension of what our own government is trying to combat Wikileaks?