The Jester

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For other meanings see jester.

The Jester (also known by the leetspeak handle th3j35t3r[1]) is a computer vigilante[2] who describes himself as grey hat[3] "hacktivist."[4] He or she claims to be responsible for attacks[4] on WikiLeaks,[5] 4chan,[6] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,[5] and Islamist websites.[7] He claims to be acting out of American patriotism.[8] The Jester uses a denial-of-service (DoS) tool known as "XerXeS", that he claims to have developed.[5] One of The Jester's habits is to tweet "TANGO DOWN" on Twitter whenever he successfully takes down a website.[6]

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Military service

The Jester had stated that he was a former soldier and had served in Afghanistan and elsewhere.[5][7] A former defense operative claimed that The Jester was a former military contractor involved in US Special Operations Command projects.[8]

The Jester claims to have originally developed his DoS script as a means to test and harden servers.[9] After learning from an article that Jihadists were using the Internet to recruit and coordinate terror cells, The Jester resolved to disrupting online communications between Jihadists.[10] He weaponized his script and created a front-end known as "XerXeS" [11] in order to solve the script's usability problems.[9]

[edit] Hacking history

On January 1, 2010, The Jester began a campaign against Jihadist websites. His first target was alemarah.info, which was the Taliban's website at the time.[12][13][14]

On November 28, 2010, The Jester posted several tweets claiming to be responsible for the downtime WikiLeaks was experiencing.[6] He justified his alleged attacks by claiming that WikiLeaks was "attempting to endanger the lives of our [US] troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations."[5] In retaliation to The Jester's reported efforts hacktivists including a group named Anonymous in support of WikiLeaks were reported as temporarily disrupting the website of MasterCard as well as attacking websites of Amazon and Paypal.[15]

On November 29, 2010, someone claiming to be The Jester stated that he had been raided by the U.S. and attempted to solicit money for legal fees. A Twitter account claiming to be The Jester @th3j35t3r purports that the scam was run by a pretender. The website it was made on redirected to The Jester's Wordpress blog leading to the speculation that The Jester was involved. How much money was taken through this fraud has not been disclosed.[16][17]

On December 28, 2010, a DoS attack targeted 4chan.org. On that same day, The Jester tweeted "4chan.org — that looks like a TANGO DOWN (not) maybe you guys pissed off the wrong person trying to (wrongly) ID me?"[6] This tweet is believed to be a reference to 4chan's claims that The Jester was a man from Montana.[6][18]

On February 21, 2011, The Jester began a DoS attack on several sites belonging to the Westboro Baptist Church for allegedly celebrating the death of homosexual U.S. service men.[19]

In March of 2011, The Jester employed a different style of attack by injecting fabricated articles into online Libyan newspapers The Malta Independent Online and the Tripoli Post. On March 28, 2011 he tweeted links to the articles without any further comment. These tweets drew the attention of Anthony M. Freed, who examined the articles and discovered they were anomalies not contained in the newspapers' respective archives.[20] Further inspection by Freed revealed The Jester left a watermark of his signature Harlequin avatar on the articles he created, which can only be seen by tilting the computer monitor back at an angle. The fabricated articles reported degradation in troop morale among fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and incidents of his soldiers abandoning their posts.

Freed concluded The Jester's objective was a "psyops campaign aimed at breaking the spirit of the troops loyal to Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi." [20]The Jester confirmed this in a subsequent interview later the same year.[21]

In June 2011 The Jester vowed to find and expose members of LulzSec.[22] He has attempted to obtain and publish the real world personally identifiable information of key members, whom he describes as "childish".[23] On June 24, 2011, he claimed to have revealed the identity of LulzSec leader Sabu as Xavier Kaotico, an information technology consultant possibly from New York City.[24] in July of the same year he falsely accused Hugo Carvlho, a Portuguese IT professional, of also being Sabu, leaving the Jester's outing claims to be considered suspect.[25]

In October 2011, at the Hackers Halted USA conference, The Jester gave a surprise live presentation and fielded questions through an online chat with presenter Jeff Bardin.[21] His identity was authenticated via his Twitter account. Jester answered questions about Xerxes and other tools in development, and discussed his motivations for attacking militant jihadi recruiting websites. He also hinted he may have been physically present at the conference.

Late November, th3j35t3r claimed to take down multiple jihadist sites permanently, with his newest tool known as 'Saladin'.[26][27][28] Saladin is claimed to be similar to other 'Apache Killer' tools used by hackers.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Keizer, Gregg (2010-11-30). "WikiLeaks moves to Amazon servers after DOS attacks". Computerworld New Zealand. http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/wikileaks-moves-to-amazon-servers-after-dos-attacks. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  2. ^ "Hacktivist Tactics Raise Ethical Questions". Infosecisland.com. 2010-01-27. https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/2695-Hacktivist-Tactics-Raise-Ethical-Questions.html. Retrieved 2011-08-30. 
  3. ^ th3j35t3r (2010-07-03). [Interview] The Jester. Interview with ethicalhack3r. ethicalhack3r. http://www.ethicalhack3r.co.uk/security/interview-the-jester/. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  4. ^ a b th3j35t3r. "About Jester". th3j35t3r.wordpress.com. WordPress. http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/about/. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  5. ^ a b c d e Winter, Jana (2010-12-03). "'Hacktivist' Jester Claims Responsibility for WikiLeaks Attack". Fox News. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/03/patriotic-hactivist-took-down-wikileaks/. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  6. ^ a b c d e Nelson, Steven (2010-12-28). "Patriotic ‘hackitivist for good’ may be behind takedown of 4chan.org". The Daily Caller. http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/28/patriotic-hackitivist-for-good-may-be-behind-takedown-of-4chan-org/. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  7. ^ a b Rosenbach, Marcel; Stark, Holger (2010-12-07). "Julian Assange Becomes US's Public Enemy No. 1". Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-733154.html. Retrieved 2011-12-02. 
  8. ^ a b Vance, Ashlee (2010-12-03). "WikiLeaks Struggles to Stay Online After Attacks". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/world/europe/04domain.html. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  9. ^ a b Freed, Anthony M. (2010-02-10). "Jester Unveils XerXeS Automated DoS Attack". Infosec Island. https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/2882-Jester-Unveils-XerXeS-Automated-DoS-Attack.html. Retrieved 2011-01-03. 
  10. ^ Freed, Anthony M. (2010-02-04). "More Talks with Anti-Jihadi Hacker The Jester". Infosec Island. https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/2805-More-Talks-with-Anti-Jihadi-Hacker-The-Jester.html. Retrieved 2011-01-03. 
  11. ^ Bailey, Laurelai (2010-07-08). "XerXeS source code". SecLists.Org Security Mailing List. http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Jul/94. Retrieved 2011-07-08. 
  12. ^ th3j35t3r (2010-06-30). Hacker macht Jagd auf Online-Dschihadisten. Interview with Florian Flade. Die Welt. http://www.welt.de/politik/article8236634/Hacker-macht-Jagd-auf-Online-Dschihadisten.html. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  13. ^ th3j35t3r (2010-06-30). Unredacted Original Interview with Newspaper ‘Die Welt’. Interview with Florian Flade. th3j35t3r.wordpress.com. http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/unredacted-original-interview-with-die-welt-english/. Retrieved 2010-12-29. 
  14. ^ "Afghan Taliban deny meeting U.N. envoy". Reuters. 2010-01-30. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60T0NE20100130. Retrieved 2011-01-03. 
  15. ^ David Leigh, Luke Harding WikiLeaks cyber attacks: a tango with the Jester The Guardian, 2 February 2011
  16. ^ "Did WikiLeaks Hacker The Jester Pull Police Raid Hoax?". Infosecisland.com. 2010-12-02. https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/9970-Did-WikiLeaks-Hacker-The-Jester-Pull-Police-Raid-Hoax.html. Retrieved 2011-08-30. 
  17. ^ Sullivan, Bob. "Red Tape - WikiLeaks hacker a villain or a hero?". Redtape.msnbc.msn.com. http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/07/6345517-wikileaks-hacker-a-villain-or-a-hero. Retrieved 2011-08-30. 
  18. ^ Prefect (2010-12-10). "Anonymous Turns Operation Payback Toward “The Jester”". Praetorian Prefect. http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/12/anonymous-turns-operation-payback-toward-the-jester/. Retrieved 2011-01-02. 
  19. ^ (2011-03-24) "Hacktivist Maintains Attack on Westboro Baptist Church" Retrieved 28 March 2011
  20. ^ a b Freed, Anthony (2011-03-30). "Patriot Hacker The Jester's Libyan Psyops Campaign". Infosec Island. https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/12745-Patriot-Hacker-The-Jesters-Libyan-Psyops-Campaign.html. Retrieved 2011-12-01. 
  21. ^ a b "Hacktivist "The Jester" Draws Crowd at Hacker Halted". Infosec Island. 2011-10-31. https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/17784-Hacktivist-The-Jester-Draws-Crowd-at-Hacker-Halted.html. Retrieved 2011-11-23. 
  22. ^ Poeter, Damon (24 June 2011). "Will LulzSec's Hit on Arizona Cops be its Last Hurrah?". PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. http://www.webcitation.org/5zh16iRcx. Retrieved 25 June 2011. 
  23. ^ Halliday, Josh (24 June 2011). "LulzSec: the members and the enemies". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group (London). Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. http://www.webcitation.org/5zh27Q4f6. Retrieved 25 June 2011. 
  24. ^ Chapman, Stephen (24 June 2011). "LulzSec's leader, Sabu, revealed?". ZDNet. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. http://www.webcitation.org/5zh1hqAmI. Retrieved 25 June 2011. 
  25. ^ "The Quest to Unmask the Ringleader of Anonymous - Technology". The Atlantic Wire. 2011-07-14. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/07/quest-unmask-ringleader-anonymous/39977/. Retrieved 2011-08-30. 
  26. ^ http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r/status/140916218864472064
  27. ^ http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r/status/140919855149879296
  28. ^ http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r/status/140919628263211008

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