YEARENDER: Hacking, protests rule cyber space in 2013

MANILA, Philippines - Year 2013 was a busy one for netizens. 

In sharing thoughts and ideas on various issues, the public has exhaustively used the Internet in the same way that social media has been one of the major news sources.

Among them was the release of the alleged phone numbers of President Aquino on Facebook on June 15. Malacañang did not confirm if the numbers were really owned by the President, but it was reported in July that Aquino was forced to change his phone and number following the incident.

“It is cyber vandalism plain and simple,” said then Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office Secretary Ricky Carandang. “We are dealing with it. That’s all I can say for now.”

The three mobile numbers were posted on the Facebook account of a certain #pR.is0n3r, who claims to be a member of hacking group Anonymous Philippines.

The post received more than a hundred shares within 12 hours after it was posted.

The owner of the Facebook account urged friends and followers to communicate directly with the President.

“We want to (contact him directly) and tell him the things that we want to happen. (We want to tell him) the sentiments of the Filipino people,” the account owner said.

In a Facebook message sent to The STAR, #pR.is0n3r said he was “100 percent” sure that they were the President’s phone numbers. 

He declined to name the source of the numbers, but said “ordinary people aren’t just the ones who don’t like what is happening now.”

When asked if he received a reply from the supposed numbers of the President, the hacker told The STAR he only received a message containing three question marks.

He said that while they can give the people direct access to the President, they don’t have the capability to make the President listen to the sentiments of the public.

He reminded those who saw the numbers to use the information correctly, saying that what they are doing is not a joke.

#pR.is0n3r admitted that releasing Aquino’s phone numbers was wrong but said it was the only way to get directly in touch with the highest official of the country.

“It’s hard to talk to someone if you have to go through a lot of things. It’s hard to write to someone when you are not sure if your message will be received,” the account owner said.

“The release of the numbers is not cyber vandalism but a security problem,” he added. “(It shows) that there are loopholes in security and that it could result in more damage if other people discover (Aquino’s personal numbers).” 

Napoles’ numbers

Administrators of a Facebook page calling for the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) have posted the alleged contact information of pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles and members of her family.

Anonymous Inc., which claimed to be different from the hacking group, posted on Aug. 21 more than a dozen mobile, land line and international numbers allegedly belonging to Napoles, her husband and their children.

The post also included supposed “verified, valid and working addresses” of Napoles and some of her relatives. It also included the alleged addresses of the family in the Philippines and in the United States.

“We are now going to give the public the email addresses, phone numbers and addresses of some members of the Napoles family,” read the post.

The post did not reveal where the supposed contact information came from, but noted that its members sacrificed a lot in the past few weeks. 

Million People March

The Internet was also instrumental in the organization of major protest actions calling for the abolition of the pork barrel system.

Among these was the Million People March on Aug. 26, which was attended by more than 100,000 people in Luneta and other places across the country.

Peachy Rallonza-Bretaña, one of the coordinators of the march, scheduled the rally after seeing a Facebook post urging people to protest against the pork barrel.

Subsequent protests against the pork barrel had respective Facebook event pages to encourage the people from joining such activities, among them the EDSA Tayo rally on Sept. 11, the Rock and Rage against Pork event on Sept. 13, the nationwide noise barrage on Sept. 20, and the Million Mask March of hacking group Anonymous on Nov. 5. 

Hacked, defaced

Various government websites were also hacked and defaced.

During the Million People March on Aug. 26, Anonymous Philippines said more than 30 websites – including that of the Optical Media Board, Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines – had been defaced.

On Nov. 4, the group again launched an attack that allegedly affected more than 100 local and national government agencies – including that of the Official Gazette, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the National Bureau of Investigation.

The group also hacked and defaced the website of the Office of the Ombudsman.

“We apologize for this inconvenience, but this is the easiest way we could convey our message to you, our dear brothers and sisters who are tired of this cruelty and this false democracy, tired of this government and the politicians who only think about themselves,” read the message.

During the midterm elections in May, various government websites, including that of the Commission on Elections, were rendered inaccessible due to alleged distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

A DDoS attack is mounted to shut down an Internet site by flooding it with access requests and overload its server handling capabilities.

Websites affected by successful DDoS attacks are inaccessible to legitimate users who wish to access the sites.

Reports said the attacks allegedly came from Taiwan, which at the time was at odds with the Philippine government following the encounter between the Coast Guard and a Taiwanese fishing vessel that left analleged Taiwanese poacher dead.

DDoS attacks are different from hacking, which requires an Internet user to access the website using the password of a legitimate administrator.

Roy Espiritu, communications head of the Information and Communications Technology Office, said government websites are currently in the process of migrating into more secure servers as mandated by Administrative Order 39, signed by the President in July, which establishes a Government Web Hosting Service.

The Official Gazette website (gov.ph) is protected from DDoS attacks by CloudFare, which offers security by checking the integrity of browsers and looking for threat signatures from users who wish to access the site.

Espiritu said an investigation will be conducted to determine the people behind the attacks against the government websites. 

Online petitions

Last year also saw the rise of online petitions with the launch of online platform change.org.

During the EDSA Tayo rally on Sept. 11, the online platform had a booth where participants could sign the petition calling for the abolition of the pork barrel.

Inday Varona, campaigns director of change.org in the Philippines, said at least 179 online petitions have already been filed in connection with the pork barrel system.

Aside from the abolition of all forms of pork barrel, the online petition which has over 14,000 supporters also asked government officials to account for all spent pork barrel funds and to investigate and punish those guilty for abusing the funds.

Petitions that gained following include one asking the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration to name typhoons that enter the Philippine area of responsibility after corrupt politicians.

Thousands around the world also joined petitions for the benefit of the survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

In United Kingdom, the Big Lottery Fund pledged as much as 5 million pounds (roughly P350 million) to help typhoon survivors after more than 150,000 people signed a petition urging the National Lottery to donate to the Philippines the EuroMillion prize amounting to 12 million pounds.

In Canada, a relative of typhoon survivors urged major telecommunications companies in the country to waive long-distance fees to the Philippines to enable Filipinos to get in touch with their relatives.

Celebrities Bianca Gonzales and Luis Manzano have called on Globe and Smart to provide more hotlines for the Philippine National Police and Department of Social Welfare and Development to help in information dissemination.

Other petitions include those requesting Medical City and Makati Medical Center to set up mobile hospitals in areas hit by the typhoon. 

Online petitions were also launched in connection with the 150th birth anniversary of Andres Bonifacio (calling for state funeral), the impending power rate hike by Meralco (calling for lights off protest), and Skyway bus incident in Dec. 16 (calling for mandatory installation of speed limiters).