A TRIBUTE TO THE ANONYMOUS

 

WE ARE EVERYWHERE!

WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING!

WE NEVER FORGET!

WE NEVER FORGIVE! 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TIME LINE

1823 (United Kingdom)

          In 1823, mathematician Charles Babbage (1792-1871) was commissioned by the British government to develop a system for calculating the rise and fall of the tides. The British navy ruled the oceans of the world at that time, and crucial to that control was accurate knowledge of the tides. Tides are caused by extremely complex gravitational interaction between the earth, the moon and the sun. The task of accurately charting tidal pattern was beyond the capabilities of most nations of the world at that time. Babbage decided that the only answer was to build a devise he called the “Analytical Engine.” Babbage designed a sophisticated, programmable machine that contained basically some of the features of today’s computers. However, Babbage’s concept was beyond the capabilities of the technology of his time, and his machine remained unfinished at his death in 1871.

 

1937-1941 (United States)

          Physicist John Vincent Atanasoff (1903-1995) and his assistant Clifford Berry (1918-1963) built the first rudimentary vacuum-tube digital computer at the Iowa State College.

 

1941 (Germany)

          German engineer Konrad Zuse (1910-1991) completed the Z3, the first fully functioning relay-based programmable digital computer to be controlled by a program. Switching among the relays controlled its logical operations.

 

1943 (United Kingdom)

          British mathematician Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954), in a secret project, developed a special purpose electronic computer, known as the Colossus, to break down Nazi codes.

 

1944 (United States)

          The first large-scale information-processing computer, the Mark I, built by Harvard professor Howard Hathaway Aiken (1900-1973) and IBM, went into operation. This relay-based computer was eight feet high and 55 feet long.

 

1946 (United States)

          Two engineers at the University of Pennsylvania, John Presper Eckert (1919-1995) and John William Mauchly (1907-1980), working for the US army, completed the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was also the first computer to store parts of its programming. However, the computer weighed 30 tons, occupied an entire room and uses over 18,000 vacuum tubes.

 

1947-1969 (World)

          From the post World War II era, inventions and discoveries in the field of computer technology, one after another, accelerated the development of the modern computer.

 

1969 (World)

          The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Defense Department established the ARPAnet, an experimental four-computer network primarily for communication between military research scientists. By 1971, ARPAnet linked about two dozen host computers in 15 sites, including Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ten years later there were over 200 hosts. In 1983, the military component of ARPAnet established their own network, the MILNET, and ARPAnet was dissolved in 1990.

1971 (United States)

          Ray Tomlinson, an engineer at the Massachusetts consulting firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), sent the first email message across the Net that started the cyberage communication revolution. In parallel to the advancement of Internet tools, 25 years and 100 million emails after, by mid-1996 this form of electronic messaging became the major means of communication throughout the world. Hence, no business establishment can move without using emails.
 

1975 (United States)

          The first commercially-distributed computer, the MITS Altair 8800, was introduced. It that same year, Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

1976 (United States)

          Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak formed Apple Computer. Within a year, they introduced a computer, the Apple II, capable of displaying text and graphics in color.

 

1979-1989 (Philippines)

          Diosdado Banatao, a Filipino electrical engineer and computer scientist, developed the first working graphical user interface (GUI, 1979), the first five-chip motherboard (1985), the first ethernet controller chip (1988), the first Windows accelerator chip (1989), becoming the first Filipino to make a solid mark in the world of computers.

 

1980 (United States)

          Bill Gates started to dominate the world of personal computing by providing software that controlled the way users interacted with their machines – a program called disk operating system (DOS).
 

 

1981 (United States)

          IBM introduced the Personal Computer (PC), which used Microsoft’s DOS. Three years later, Apple Computer released the first Macintosh with its own proprietary operating system – the first computer to have a graphical user interface (GUI) and a mouse.

1984 (World)

          In 1984, Paul Mockapetris introduced the Domain Name System (DNS) as part of Internet Resources. Since 1988 a nonprofit corporation called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) had overseen the system of domain names.
 

 

1985-1990 (World)

          Developments in the fields of operating systems, softwares, programming languages, and the Internet continues at a very fast pace.

 

1986 (Philippines)

          The first Bulletin Board System using a dial-up connection protocol in the Philippines was established by computer hobbyists and enthusiasts.

 

1988 (Finland)

          The Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was developed by Finnish student, Jarkko Oikarinen, enabling people around the world to communicate via the Internet in “real time.”

 

1989 (World)

          The World Wide Web was developed by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau as an environment in which scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research in Switzerland could share information. In this same year, the first commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) supplying dial-up access, known as The World, was made available.

 

1991 (Philippines)

          On September 19, 1992, three young professionals from three different universities, all of whom are friends of slain Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) leader, Leandro “Lean” Alejandro (1960-1987), met to commemorate the fourth year of martyrdom of Alejandro. Among the subjects of conversation were the discoveries of Diosdado Banatao in the field of computer technology and recent developments in the realm called Internet. An aspiration evolved in the discovery of the media to where Filipinos can become a superpower – the cyberworld.
 

 

1992-1999 (World)

          More developments and improvements in Internet technology.

1993 (Philippines)

          The PhilNet was established, and through its gateway, students from partner universities were able to send and receive emails.

 

1994 (Philippines)

          On March 29, 1994, the Philippines connected to the Internet for the first time. On June 1994, Mosaic Communication (MozCom) became the first commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the Philippines.

2000 (Philippines)

          On May 5, 2000, Filipino computer programmers, Reonel Ramones and Onel de Guzman gave birth to the ILOVEYOU, the computer “love” bug that infected tens of millions of Windows personal computers.

          The outbreak was later estimated to have caused 5.5–8.7 billion dollars in damages worldwide, and estimated to cost 15 billion dollars to remove the bug. Within ten days, over fifty million infections had been reported, and it is estimated that 10 to15 percent of internet-connected computers in the world had been affected. Damage cited was mostly the time and effort spent getting rid of the infection and recovering files from backups. To protect themselves, the Pentagon, the CIA, the British Parliament and most large corporations decided to completely shut down their mail systems. The ILOVEYOU virus infected computers all over the world. At the time it was one of the world's most destructive computer related disasters ever.

          Since there were no laws in the Philippines against writing malware at the time, both Ramones and de Guzman were released with all charges dropped by state prosecutors. To address this legislative deficiency, the Philippine Congress enacted Republic Act No. 8792, otherwise known as the E-Commerce Law, in July 2000, just two months after the worm outbreak. This single incident, however, showed the world what a single computer hacker can do with simple scripts. Cyber-experts consider De Guzman as top “identified” hacker of all time.
 

 

2001 (Philippines)

          A group of Filipino engineers and computer programmers met to discuss the aftermath and consequences of the ILOVEYOU virus. The foremost objective was to “reprogram” and “redirect” such knowledge and competency to useful, practical purposes, beneficial to the people of the world; to conceptualize the possibility of spearheading a social movement, decentralize, but acting on common goals and aspirations. It will be Internet-based, non-extremist, a movement seeking solutions to unresolved problems plaguing the Filipinos and the Philippines and, on a larger scale, humanity and the world. Tentatively called the Philippine Cyberwarriors.
 

2002 (World)

          Hackers from different nations, including the Philippines, talked for the first time with a common goal – the establishment of an Internet social movement of their own, unbiased of race, religion, language and country of origin.
 

 

2003 (World)

          Anonymous, as a decentralized community of hacktivists, came into existence.

           New Zealand became the first country to offer free nationwide wireless access to the Internet using Wi-Fi technology.

2003-2007 (World)

          The Anonymous movement started and continued to take “form” and “substance.” The Collective is born.

2007 (Canada)

          The Toronto Sun, a Canada-based newspaper published a report (December 7, 2007) on the arrest of Internet child predator Chris Forcand. The report stated that Forcand was tracked and identified by “cyber-vigilantes.” The Global Television Network later identified the group responsible for Forcand’s arrest as a “self-described Internet vigilante group called Anonymous.” This is the first time that a pedophile was arrested as a result of Internet vigilantism.
 

 

2008 (World)

          Anonymous gained worldwide attention with its “Project Chanology” (January-April 2008), a protest and social war against the Church of Scientology.
 

 

2011 (World)

          Anonymous launched “Operation Darknet” (October 2011), a campaign against child pornography. The collective cyber-attacked 40 child porn sites including Lolita City hosted by Freedom Hosting. In an effort to eliminate child pornography from the internet, the group posted 1,589 usernames, emails and IP addresses of pedophiles frequenting the websites, on the online forum PasteBin. Some of the traced usernames revealed to have originated from the Philippines, including from several Catholic churches and the House of Representatives.
 

 

2012 (Philippines)

          The official website of Vatican was brought down (March 7, 2012). It was explained that the attack was not meant against Catholics and Catholicism but against the church itself and its leaders which Anonymous viewed as corrupt and anti-Christ.

          Anonymous Philippines targeted and defaced the website of China University Media Union, which claimed that Scarborough Shoal is Chinese territory (April 21, 2012), and more than 200 other Chinese websites. They left a message that reads “Scarborough Shoal is the Philippines’ Territory.” The attack was also in retaliation against Chinese hackers defacing the University of the Philippines’ website.

          Anonymous Philippines warned that they will attack more Chinese websites if provoke further (April 25, 2012). One Chinese hacker sent a message to his Filipino hacker-friend that reads “Your president (Noynoy Aquino) already sold Scarborough to our (the Chinese) government.” This started a worldwide silent search for huge bank transfer from China to dummy accounts allegedly owned by Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.

          Anonymous Philippines launched a series of attacks against several websites of the Philippine government (September-October 2013) to protest against certain provisions of Republic Act 10175 (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012). The hackers urged for the revisions of the cybercrime law that violates freedom of expression and described the law as the “most notorious act ever witnessed in cyber-history.” Four months later, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled out that the online libel provisions of the law to be unconstitutional.
 

 

2013 (Philippines)

          On March 14, 2013, Anonymous Philippines hacked and defaced 115 government websites including that of the Office of the President for “mishandling” the Sabah crisis caused by the revival of the sultanate of Sulu’s claim on Sabah. Senator Trillanes IV expressed alarm with the group’s capabilities, suggesting the possibility of the group to hack government websites and compromise State operations and data storage.

          During the Lahad Datu standoff tension in Sabah due to the clashes between the Royal Army of the Sultanate of Sulu and Malaysian security Forces. A cyberwar sparked between Philippines and Malaysia. Malaysian hackers attacked and defaced Philippine websites, posting online threats and videos giving a message to the Filipinos to keep away from the region of Sabah. In response to these attacks, a group called the Philippine Cyber Army, close ally of Anonymous Philippines, defaced 175 Malaysian sites (including state-owned pages).

          On August 26, 2013, when thousands of people took part in the “Million People March” demanding the abolition of the pork barrel system, Anonymous Philippines hacked government websites. It joined the call for the scrapping of the pork barrel amid the 10-billion-peso scam that channeled government funds to bogus non-government organizations. According to the Department of Science and Technology, at least 30 government websites were defaced, including the Office of Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

          On November 8, 2013, Anonymous Philippines hacked government websites to protest the incompetence, ineptness and corruption of the national leadership in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan). More than 10 government websites were defaced by the said group and 33 more were rendered inaccessible for seven hours.

 

2014 (Philippines)

          During the anniversary of the Supertyphoon Yolanda Tragedy, which was expected to be a day of prayer and thanksgiving, turned out to be a day of protest from different “online” groups and organizations in the Philippines spearheaded by Anonymous Philippines through “Operation Infosurge.”

2015 (Philippines)

          On April 2, 2015, Anonymous Philippines attacked and defaced a total of 132 Chinese government, educational and commercial websites in response to China’s reclamation work in the disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea. Much of southeastern China was also blacked-out with no Internet access.

 

2016 (Philippines)

          On March 22, 2016, the COMELEC database was breached by three hackers, two were identified as Paul Biteng of Anonymous Pilippines and Joenel de Asis of Lulzsec Pilipinas. Around 340 gigabytes of voters’ data – 77,736,795 records affected – were downloaded. Five days later, on March 27, the COMELEC website was defaced leaving a message that calls for “tighter security measures of the Voter Counting Machine (VCM) to be used for the 2016 Philippine General Election.” On that same day, the voters’ data were leaked through Lulzsec Pilipinas website. The incident was considered the “biggest data breach in Philippine history.”

          On April 20, Paul Biteng was arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation. Biteng admitted the hacking, but said “it was intended to show how vulnerable the COMELEC website is.” At 20 years old, Biteng is the youngest hacker to be arrested in the Philippines. Eight days later, Joenel de Asis was also arrested.

          On May 2, Anonymous Philippines staged a protest rally demanding the release of Paul Biteng. They argued that Biteng only helped the government in exposing the serious flaws of the COMELEC’s website, which stores data of over 70 million voters. They countered that it is the COMELEC that should be charged for its failure to secure the voters’ information. They also suggested that the government should recruit Biteng to protect other government websites. “Instead of putting him in jail, why not recruit him and other hackers who have the skills to protect the system? Why are we being arrested when we are only concerned and defending the cyber security of our country without asking for a single peso?” read one Anonymous’ banner. “Why are corrupt officials remaining at-large while a fresh graduate of IT known in Facebook as a security expert is arrested and jailed? Where is justice? This is why we in Anonymous will continue to be on guard,” one of the Anons told reporters. The intended message was put across:

Greetings Philippines! We are Anonymous.

The Constitution so asserts that “Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.”
One of the processes by which people exercise their sovereignty is through voting in an election- where people choose the candidates who will best represent them,

who will serve them under the principle that “Public office is a public trust.”
But what happens when the electoral process is so mired with questions and controversies?
Can the government still guarantee that the sovereignty of the people is upheld?

We request the implementation of the security features on the PCOS machines.

Commission on Elections, We are watching!

We are Anonymous,
We are legion,
We do not forgive,
We do not forget.

EXPECT US!

          On May 9, 2016, the Philippine General Election was held. Up to midnight, Vice-presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos was leading his closest opponent, Leni Robredo, by more than one million votes. Suddenly there was a “glitch” that delayed the updates of the transmitted votes in the transparency server. The alleged glitch was the computer showing “?” instead of “ñ” as in “Nape?as” for “Napeñas.” When the glitch was corrected, Robredo’s numbers started gaining, and by 5 a.m. of May 10, Robredo was ahead with a quarter of a million votes. A mathematical impossibility! The script change may not directly cause the cheating, but something “secretly” done favored the Robredo count. Fortunately, in the cyberworld, you can’t hide conspicuous anomalies like these. There are good people, some “anonymous,” who will reveal these dastardly schemes. What happened in the election count between midnight of May 9 and early morning of May 10 is a mathematical anomaly. Impossible unless something sinister was done to change the algorithm of the counting machines.

 

          The website Get Real Philippines.com posted on May 10, 2016 a revealing article titled “1.37 Million ‘Registered Voters’ Discrepancy Observed in Unofficial Results Reporting Operations!” The author, “Benigno,” related how several netizens took keen interest in the extraordinary way that Robredo “chipped away” at the more than 1-million vote lead of Marcos, and then succeeded in wresting the lead. They noticed the algorithmic way the process was accomplished. An algorithm is a systematic procedure of solving a specific problem. Algorithmic, in a sense, means a mathematical program was introduced into the system that produced the fixed linear summation progressively giving Robredo higher tallies than Marcos.

          Benigno’s article read: “Facebook netizen Benjamin Vallejo, Jr. plotted the progressive decrease of Marcos’ lead over Robredo over time and found an almost perfect linear correlation and posted it on his Facebook profile. The correlation plotted a straight path downward trajectory for Marcos’ lead. Di kapanipaniwala! (unbelievable!) Observed Vallejo, noting the perfectly straight line. Statistician and Ateneo de Manila faculty member David Yap also closely monitored the movement of Marcos’ lead over Robredo and arrived at the same conclusion independently. Like Vallejo, he also posted the results of his analysis on his Facebook profile. Yap said: ‘Starting from the 80% (of returns) mark, BBM’s lead has been dwindling by 40k per 1%. The progression is so consistent.’ What is going on?”

          To answer why was there an anomaly. It is because the election tally counts that came in the server for each candidate (six of them) should be random. The probability that it became linear for the two candidates, Marcos and Robredo, is staggering, exceeding perhaps that of winning through a single combination the 6/55 lotto jackpot.

 

2018 (Philippines)

          A Filipina domestic helper named Joanna Demafelis was found murdered and stuffed inside a freezer in an abandoned apartment in Kuwait on February 6, 2018. A call for help was issued by the family to help them get justice. The incident prompted a diplomatic crisis between the Philippines and Kuwait. Pres. Rodrigo Duterte ordered the banning of deployment of domestic workers to the Gulf State. On February 21, 2018, the Interpol received an “anonymous” call identifying the location of Demafelis’ killers, Lebanese Nader Essam Assaf and his Syrian wife, Mona Hassoun. They were arrested three days later. On April 1, a Kuwaiti criminal court sentenced them to death by hanging. This is just one act of an “Anonymous” among many, without coercion, without fanfare, without credit.

 

          Anonymous Philippines helped trace and locate website operators in the Philippines catering to pedophiles and sex traffickers.
 

2019 (Philippines)

          On May 2019, at least 30 members of Anonymous Philippines alternately guarded the transfer of election returns and the COMELEC vote counts, preventing several attempts by hired black hat hackers to penetrate the system and alter the outcome.

          On July 8, 2019, the third telecommunication company, Mislatel Consortium, got its license to operate. Pres. Rodrigo Duterte held the company in its commitment to improve the country’s prevailing Internet speed from 4.5 Mbps to 55 Mbps. They better deliver!

 

 

 

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