Face Behind The Name: Meet Matthew Riskin Bean, Convicted 4chan Cyberstalker - Mootfag

From Meet Matthew Riskin Bean.

The 20-year-old New Jersey man was sentenced last week to 45 days in prison and five years probation for his role in a cyberbullying campaign carried out by denizens of 4chan.org, the infamous, and often malicious, online cabal.

Bean, who pleaded guilty in September to a felony stalking count, admitted e-mailing sexually explicit photos of a boy to administrators at the victim’s school. The minor had previously uploaded the naked photos to a chat room, and the 4chan mob set out to identify the teen and drive him to suicide. In his e-mail to school administrators, Bean masqueraded as the "concerned mother" of another boy at the school, stating that "this sort of behavior” was unacceptable.

In a reversal of roles, Bean’s photo was made public by the United States Marshals Service, which released this mug shot in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

In court filings, Bean’s lawyer claimed that his client’s small stature--the felon is 5’ 4” and 110 lbs--could make him the target of jailhouse sexual abuse. Remarking that it is “important that people understand this is a crime," U.S. District Court Judge Anita Brody sentenced Bean to a nominal prison term, which he is scheduled to begin March 4.

Affidavit Details FBI Operation Payback

From thesmokinggun.com

4chan, "Anonymous" targeted over attacks on PayPal

DECEMBER 29--As part of an international criminal probe into computer attacks launched this month against perceived corporate enemies of WikiLeaks, the FBI has raided a Texas business and seized a computer server that investigators believe was used to launch a massive electronic attack on PayPal, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The FBI investigation began earlier this month after PayPal officials contacted agents and “reported that an Internet activist group using the names ‘4chan’ and “Anonymous” appeared to be organizing a distributed denial of service (“DDoS”) attack against the company,”according to an FBI affidavit excerpted here.

The PayPal assault was part of “Operation Payback,” an organized effort to attack firms that suspended or froze WikiLeaks’s accounts in the wake of the group’s publication of thousands of sensitive Department of State cables. As noted by the FBI, other targets of this “Anonymous” effort included Visa, Mastercard, Sarah Palin’s web site, and the Swedish prosecutor pursuing sex assault charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.

On December 9, PayPal investigators provided FBI agents with eight IP addresses that were hosting an “Anonymous” Internet Relay Chat (IRC) site that was being used to organize denial of service attacks. The unidentified administrators of this IRC “then acted as the command and control” of a botnet army of computers that was used to attack target web sites.

Federal investigators noted that “multiple, severe DDos attacks” had been launched against PayPal, and that the company’s blog had been knocked offline for several hours. These coordinated attacks, investigators allege, amount to felony violations of a federal law covering the “unauthorized and knowing transmission of code or commands resulting in intentional damage to a protected computer system.”

The nascent FBI probe, launched from the bureau’s San Francisco field office, has targeted at least two of those IP addresses, according to the affidavit sworn by Agent Allyn Lynd.

One IP address was initially traced to Host Europe, a Germany-based Internet service provider. A search warrant executed by the German Federal Criminal Police revealed that the “server at issue” belonged to a man from Herrlisheim, France. However, an analysis of the server showed that “root-level access” to the machine “appeared to come from an administrator logging in from” another IP address.

“Log files showed that the commands to execute the DDoS on PayPal actually came from” this IP, Agent Lynd reported. Two log entries cited in the affidavit include an identical message: “Good_night,_paypal_Sweet_dreams_from_AnonOPs.”

Investigators traced the IP address to Tailor Made Services, a Dallas firm providing “dedicated server hosting.” During a December 16 raid, agents copied two hard drives inside the targeted server. Court records do not detail what was found on those drives, nor whether the information led to a suspect or, perhaps, a continuing electronic trail. In a brief phone conversation, Lynd declined to answer questions about the ongoing denial of service probe.

Search warrant records indicate that agents were authorized to seize records and material relating to the DDoS attacks “or other illegal activities pertaining to the organization “Anonymous” or “4chan.”

A second IP address used by “Anonymous” was traced to an Internet service provider in British Columbia, Canada. Investigators with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police determined that the Canadian firm’s “virtual” server was actually housed at Hurricane Electric, a California firm offering “colocation, web hosting, dedicated servers, and Internet connections,” according to its web site.

FBI Agent Christopher Calderon, an expert on malicious botnets who works from the bureau’s San Jose office, is leading the probe of the second IP (and presumably has seized a server from Hurricane Electric). Hurricane’s president, Mike Leber, did not respond to a message left for him at the firm’s office in Fremont, which is about 20 miles from PayPal’s San Jose headquarters. (5 pages)

4chan Linked To Federal Kiddie Porn Probe, Collin Campbell - Mootfag

NOVEMBER 3--After borrowing a fellow Navy man’s iPhone last month in order to play video games while aboard the USS Boxer, a sailor browsed through a folder titled “porn” and discovered his friend was in possession of illicit images of children, a discovery that has triggered a federal child porn investigation, records show.

When questioned by a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent, Collin Campbell admitted to “downloading between 10-20 images of child pornography” that he claimed to have found on 4chan.org, the notorious image and message board. Campbell, pictured at right, is a Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class aboard the Boxer, a Navy warship currently docked in San Diego, but due for deployment in early-2011.

According to a U.S. District Court filing excerpted here, Campbell and fellow sailor William Vest were “in the Machinery Room, Cargo Weapons Elevator” on the Boxer on October 6 when Campbell “allowed Vest to use his personal cellular telephone, an iPhone 3G, in order to play video games while Campbell was also present playing video games on his iPod Touch.”

Vest, a Machinist’s Mate Fireman, told NCIS investigators that, after about 20-30 minutes playing video games, he “began opening pictures contained within the cellular telephone.” While browsing through the “porn” folder, Vest opened 5-6 images showing “what he believes to be child pornography.” Vest provided a detailed description of the images to Gerald Martin, who is identified in court records as the NCIS “Special Agent Afloat aboard the USS Boxer.”

Vest said that he initially considered speaking with Campbell about the photos, but “he thought that if he did, Campbell may dispose of the evidence or would get Vest in trouble since Campbell is of higher rank than him,” according to the court filing.

On October 15, NCIS agents seized “several items of electronic media…from Campbell’s person and berthing area” on the USS Boxer. During an interview with investigators, Campbell reportedly copped to possessing child porn and “alleged he obtained all those images from the website www.4chan.org.” He added that the images were on his iPhone and a personal computer in his home in National City, a San Diego suburb.

Campbell, who was previously stationed on the carrier USS Kitty Hawk, did not respond to a Facebook message seeking comment about the ongoing NCIS probe. It is unclear whether Campbell is aware of Vest’s cooperation with investigators, since Vest’s name is still included among the 58 friends listed on Campbell’s Facebook page. (4 pages)

[11/5 UPDATE: In an e-mail today, Ed Buice, an NCIS public affairs officer, confirmed the agency’s probe of Campbell, but said that no charges have been filed against the sailor, who is not in custody.]