AntiCanadaDay from OpCyberPrivacy of Anonymous via AnonymousVancouver on Facebook
On this day we protest against the passing of C-51 and it’s royal assent to law. We protest against the systemic invasion of privacy by government and corperate entities around the world. We stand ardent in our defiance to all those who would take away our rights and freedoms. Today we #TakeBackCanada. It’s our party, and we’ll pwn if we want to.
At 12 noon ET / 09:00 PT #AntiCanadaDay kicks off, Go out into the world and hand out fliers, engage the public, speak truth to power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those that would listen the anounciation of truth. We encourage disobedience.
Take your stand IRL or in Cyberspace. No effort is wasted on this day of days. Our voices will be heard to spite their efforts to silence our dissent. For we are the people and these governments work for us! Today, we remind them of that fact.
All Canadian government web assests are fair game. Lazors free on all federal, provincial and municpal services. We will be posting a target list shortly before kick off. #AntiCanadaDay is an all day affair. To be ceased at 00:01 hours July 2nd.
BYOL/BYOB There will be a small after party on IRC. Yes you are invited. irc.anonops.com/6697 #OpCyberPrivacy because what’s #AntiCanadaDay without a party?
We are Anonymous
We are Legion
United by One
Divided by Zero
To the government of Canada
U mad yet bro?
Oh, they mad.
Yesterday, in the culmination of several weeks of attacks on Canadian government websites, OpCyberPrivacy took the website of Canadian domestic spy agency CSIS offline in a DoS or DDoS attack.
Today, Canada Day, they announced AntiCanadaDay, a generalized call to action and push-back to recent erosions in cyber freedoms. From 2011’s passage of Bill C-11 through to June’s passage of the sweeping surveillance Bill C-51, the government of Tory Stephen Harper has consistently, aggressively, and increasingly, cut away at online privacy rights and inserted government oversight and agency into Canadian civilian cyberspace, as a matter of policy and natural expression of their political beliefs.
In doing so, they made #OpCyberPrivacy inevitable.
And popular.
With just shy of 5000 tweets in the last thirty days, #OpCyberPrivacy has capitalized on the larger-than-expected blowback to C-51, a bill which fundamentally changes the relationship of the Canadian people to the Internet, and to their own domestic security. Touted as an “anti-terrorism” bill, and timed to rush through the approval process in time to capitalize on FUD after the attack on Parliament Hill, the bill’s reception has been chilly, even actively hostile, and even among those whom the Tories had counted on for support. Even the ordinarily (small c) conservative Yahoo News has this to say about the bill:
It should be noted, too, that this has been tabled in an election year. The Conservative party has been using images of jihadi terrorists in emails and on social media to drum up support for the bill and the party in general.
To their surprise, it has backfired, driving Harper to record low approval ratings in an election year. And for the past several weeks they have been embarrassed daily by incursions, attacks, leaks, and dozens of tangodowns of government websites, as Anonymous makes it their business to demonstrate that the security of Canadian citizens is in the hands of those Anonymous deems not merely malign, but also dangerously incompetent.
We interviewed several members of the team behind OpCyberPrivacy. Here is what they had to say, in between taking down Canada.ca, the website of the Prime Minister’s Office, and other assorted high-profile targets including domestic spy agency CSIS. Meanwhile, the Harperites are sticking to the party line: Blame Snowden, then refuse comment.
The Cryptosphere: Where did the idea start? How long did it take to go from idea to reality?
Divide: It started with one of our group posting an article about CISA and my ranting about C-51. I’d already started IRL against C-51 and CISA seemed liked a good target for an online campaign. From idea to reality in under an hour, we work quickly. Several weeks of logistical frame work and research later we began reaching out to the public with a long term plan in place.
Maple: OpC51 was also already pretty active in Canada, especially in Qc. It wasn’t long before we joined forces so to speak, and doubled our lazers.
The Cryptosphere: How did the team come together? Who’s in the team?
Divide: I’m in my mid twenties, self taught sysadmin/grey hat. I run a business. I have children. I’m doing this for their future and the future of all Canadians. I am CANADIAN! \o/
Most of us met during #OpFerguson and #OpKKK we administrate a number of educational and ‘hangout’ channels together. We’ve worked on a number of operations together in the past and this is the second we ourselves have set up. A core group of eight. We as an operation vote on every important issue in both planning and execution. We number near 100 participants across several IRC networks. Uhm, if you want to include people simply tweeting as participants? It’s A lot. lol We don’t keep numbers on that.
Maple: We are a core crew of 8 and less than half are Canadian. We went from 300 – 1000 followers almost overnight following the June 17th cyber protest. [Me?] Early 30’s, social worker, haz kiddlits, is Canadian. Is doing this for the future our kiddlits and Canadians.
Also, cawks.
Divide: Cawk, Cawk all in your face!
The Cryptosphere: The public blowback on C-51 seemed to surprise Ottawa. Why do you think that is?
Maple: I don’t think it was much of a surprise at all. Canadians have been in opposition of Bill c-51 since it came to fruition. Several Anon cells and other citizen groups and organizations have been petitioning since January 30th when C-51 was presented. Harper’s administration knew exactly where Canada stood.
The Cryptosphere: What does C-51 say about Canada as a country?
Divide: C51 is a complex and far reaching bit of legislation. I encourage people to visit www.stopc51.ca for really great breakdowns of the law and in which ways they will be impacted. C51 says as a nation we are fearful of the world. It says that we are willing to give up everything we hold dear for a simple illusion of security. We see it as an aberration, Canada has always been a nation of peace keepers and diplomats. Respecting deeply the rights of it’s citizens. It is a remarkable paradigm shift, and certainly not for the better. This is NOT the Canada any of us grew up in, it feels so alien.
We will fix that. :)
The Cryptosphere: What will be different about life under C-51?
Maple: That is difficult to answer. This completely changes the political and sociological landscape of Canada. There is such a vast slaughter of civil and human rights with the implimentation of this legislation that its anyones guess just how these powers will be (ab)used. Ambiguity is a scary thing and its a universal commonality among cyber and surveillence laws, internationally. It is important for internet users to note that cyber legislation in any country will impact them. Borders fade out in cyberspace and with international intelligence interception alliances running silently in the background, NO intenet users are safe from violation, analysis, exploitation or interrogation. Canadians can expect that anything they do or say online or otherwise will be collected and analyzed by government officals, and about 17 other agencies. Nothing is private and every single footprint left within the interwebs is collected for future use.
But the implications of C51 go much further than cyber privacy.
The Cryptosphere: What specific actions has the Op accomplished? We’ve seen lots of media coverage of websites being DDoS’d offline, but have you cracked any databases [note Cyberguerrilla has archived one such DB leak, but when asked, the team denies the leak originated with them]? What are you going to do to CSIS, for instance?
Divide: We could have breached their DB’s, yes, but that was not our target. We will state for the record that we do not condone the dumping of DBs or personal information. Our aim here is to protect privacy, not attack it. We see DDoS are legitimate protest. It should be legalized and you should be able to go and schedule it like any other protest.
Maple: We do not support dumping db, personal info, etc etc.
Divide: We could have accessed all of the Canadian government’s data. This includes CSIS/CSEC, telecom satellite network, Members of Parliament, Senate, police, military; however, we have not and will not do so.
The bottom line is this: Cybersecurity in Canada is a joke.
They do not employ even simple counter measures that would mitigate attacks. We thought that maybe, just maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as it is considering they feel the need to introduce such harsh legislation to ‘fix’ their security. But there truly is no security here. They have the technology, but are to lazy or to stupid to use it. And yes… it really is that bad. These laws don’t improve security; they merely crack down on dissidents. Running outdated OS’s with 1000’s of known vulnerabilities. They claim to thwart cyber attacks on a daily basis but…that’s not possible unless foreign states are as incompotent, in which case there isn’t a problem here lmao. No threat at all.
[for instance] There is no way the Chinese gov doesn’t have ALL Canada’s data.
This is a failure on behalf of the government to implement security measures. Our government is lying to us all. They don’t care about security; if they did, this wouldn’t be such a sad state. They have to know that these laws don’t improve security.
Oh, here’s a fun fact: the computer I’ve been using for all this was built for $20 from yard sale computer parts. If it can do all of this…*shudders*. We must embarass them into fixing these problems for the sake of all Canadians.
The Cryptosphere: When will this operation end? If C-51 becomes a part of Canadian life, will the operation continue indefinitely, like OpDeathEaters? If C-51 dies, what will happen to the op and the team behind it?
Divide: For the past three and a half months we’ve worked to organise IRL protests, and will continue to do so. We are currently having an Anti-Canada day protest both IRL/Cyber. We plan as well for an Independance day party in the States to oppose #CISA #PCNA etc.
Maple: This operation is is a political campaign aimed at protecting cyber privacy and battling censorship and surveillance laws in every country. Our current target is Canada and billC51 but there is a much bigger picture to consider here. This legislative cyber fail is happening in several countries. France, the UK, America and New Zealand are all in varying stages of passing laws and along with Austrailia, have formed the Five Eyes; a border busting open book policy on domestic Internet user activity. We knew going in that this was going to be a long road.We know how this works. Bills get rejected, reworded, shined up and renamed. They push it through and the cycle continues. We’re in this for the long haul. We’re prepared.
The Cryptosphere: Canada experienced terrorism for the first decades of its existence and arguably before that (I’d call it war, myself). We eventually recognized Louis Riel as a national hero instead of a terrorist. Your thoughts?
Divide: Anonymous is seen around the world by most if not all governments as a terrorist organisation. In recent years we have begun to see the people of the world look up to Anonymous as heros of social justice. We hope that one day that the governments of the world will recognise us as a movement of activists protesting for change.
The Cryptosphere: How should Canada react to the jihad-motivated attacks of the past decade and more? Noting, of course, that some of those attacks were equal parts jihad and insanity. Do they exist so far outside of our existing history that new laws are necessary?
Divide: Religious zealotry is nothing new, nor is holy war. Our current legal structure is adequite to handle this type of thing. The problem here is fear. Did you know that you’re more likely to be killed by a moose than a terrorist? How should we react. Well, let’s look at what these people want for a moment. A holy land of Islam under sharia law, power, wealth. Their main weapon is fear. Right now we respond with fear, giving them exactly what they want. Our way of life destroyed brick by brick. We should react with calm, take some time to really think about what we’re doing here before we finish their job for them.
The Cryptosphere: What can people outside Canada do to help?
Maple: This isn’t just about Canada. Cyber spying and surveillance is an international thing. Alliances such as the Five Eyes make it a universal jurisdiction in many ways. People need to educate themselves and their friends and family about this sort of law. They need to get angry and wrote to their local political reps. They need to get in the strees and demand protection of their rights come before Ill – provoked ‘antiterrorism security’.
The Cryptosphere: What does total victory look like for the operation?
Divide: Nuked all the things, taken over the world. Long live Anon nation! But, in all seriousness. We want our rights respected. We want the freedom to roam cyberspace with reasonable expectation of privacy. We want to have the right to privacy online as well as off. Idealy all the laws currently targeted would be repealed, amended or scrapped completely.
The Cryptosphere: What one thing do you want to say to the world about this Canadian bill?
Maple: It’s coming for you next. But we’re coming too and we are one step ahead.
Divide: This type of law is coming, in all nations of the five eyes. Your governments will not listen to you, the people. They will pass these laws regardless. We will not stop fighting for you. For those that don’t see this as a serious threat: Until you wake up we will fight for you. There is a long road ahead, and we are prepared for it.
Categories: Activism, Anonymous, Attack, Canada, CSIS, Cyber, DDoS, DoS, Hackers, Hacktivism, Interviews, Leaks, News, OpCyberPrivacy, Ops, Politics, Protests, Pwnd, Security
The Cryptosphere 
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