Elite US cyber team courts hackers to fight terrorists

Breitbart.com 08/01/2010 15:56

An elite US cyber team that has stealthily tracked Internet villains for more that a decade pulled back its cloak of secrecy to recruit hackers at a notorious DefCon gathering here Sunday.

Vigilant was described by its chief Chet Uber as a sort of cyber "A-Team" taking on terrorists, drug cartels, mobsters and other enemies on the Internet.

"We do things the government can't," Uber said. "This was never supposed to have been a public thing."

Vigilant is an alliance of slightly more than 600 volunteers and its secret ranks reportedly include chiefs of technology at top firms and former high-ranking US cyber spies.

The group scours Internet traffic for clues about online attacks, terrorists, cartels and other targets rated as priorities by members of the democratically run private organization.

Vigilant also claimed to have "collection officers" in 22 countries that gather intelligence or coordinate networks in person.

"We go into bars, look for lists of bad actors, get tips from people..." Uber said.

"But, a significant amount of our intelligence comes from our monitoring the Internet. We are looking at everything on websites, and websites are public."