UPDATED 12:17 EDT / APRIL 09 2012

NEWS

Pastebin Starts Policing Hackers’ Posts, Says They’re Not Against Anonymous

Pastebin reinforces the responsibility that comes along with the freedom of speech on the web. The platform allows uploading of snippets of text for public viewing is hiring more hands to start screening the site for “sensitive information” posts. Over the last few months, Pastebin has turned out to be the favorite avenue for hackers to reveal the products of their infiltration to the Internet–this is often sensitive or confidential information.

To tackle this issue, Pastebin CEO Jeroen Vader is going to employ people to monitor website content for possible password lists, source code, or personal information.

Ever since he bought Pastebin in 2010, Vader has made significant modifications that led to the surge in popularity of the website as evident with over 17 million unique monthly visitors. In an interview with BBC, he answered questions looming around his owned platform becoming a playground for Anonymous. When asked if they believe that the popularity of exposing personal information hacked help drive traffic to the site and ultimately generates you advertising revenue, he discounted the fact that they would want to tolerate such activity. He responded,

“We do indeed not allow people to post email lists and other personal information that does not belong to them. That said, we are very much aware that it happens a lot, but trying to automatically filter out such pastes is a pretty impossible task. Instead we heavily rely on our users to report items that do not comply with our FAQ. On average we get over 1,000 abuse reports a day via our on-site abuse report system, and another 200 or so come in via email. These are all monitored.”

He also believes that the term hacking is unfairly defined nowadays. He added, “The term hacker has received a lot of negative press over the years, but often that isn’t fair at all. I think it is very important that people have access to sites like Pastebin, because it offers them total freedom of speech. Especially if they post their items behind a proxy of some kind, there is no way to trace who posted what. It is great to see that people use Pastebin as a platform to get their thoughts and ideals out to the rest of the world. A lot of items in the Trends section can be very interesting to read actually.”

This news leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the infamous cyber bullies, Anonymous. The notorious group’s faction in Sweden encouraged users to access PasteBay instead, following the announcement of Vader to delete Anonymous data dumps.

However, Pastebin clarifies that this move is not set in place to directly hit Anonymous. A certain Pastebin Admin post in Anonymous Central Tumblr reads: “Hey guys, I’m from Pastebin.com and would like to speak to someone from @anonops via email. Could someone email admin@pastebin.com please? Would like to set some stuff straight, as a lot of news sites are reporting false stories now about how Pastebin is against Anonymous all the sudden.”

The U.S. authorities are admittedly not winning the war versus hacking spree according to FBI. Despite the recent arrests of big names behind cyber menaces, cyber czar Shawn Henry feels that they are still a little behind in this combat, especially with the widespread attacks globally and sophisticated mechanisms that these culprits use. Unless drastic technology and behavior happen, Henry sees no permanent resolution.

Vader also confirmed that Pastebin was banned in Pakistan and Turkey for carrying confidential information from hacked local databases. Such sanctions could be a prelude of what could be the organization’s future should irreverent cyber terrorism progresses and their site becomes an involuntary accessory to what is treated already as a federal crime. The screening of the website for such contents is one move to get the message across that they are not okay with illegal online hacking. Obviously, Pastebin is in the middle of social discourse.


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