Anonymous plans to leak Bank of America e-mails

[jimmy olsen]

I wonder what kind of corruption?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/13/us-bankofamerica-anonymous-idUSTRE72C3QA20110313?WT

(Reporting by Joe Rauch; editing by Gunna Dickson)

Hacker group plans BofA e-mail release Monday
   
| Sun Mar 13, 2011 5:51pm EDT

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Anonymous, a hacker group sympathetic to WikiLeaks, plans to release e-mails obtained from Bank of America Corp early Monday morning, according to posts on the group's Twitter feed.

The group, unrelated to the document leak website founded by Julian Assange, said it plans to release documents exposing "corruption and fraud" at the largest U.S. bank by assets.

A Bank of America spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

[MadImmortalMan]

I like how they manage to throw in buzzwords "wikileaks" and "Assange" even though this has nothing to do with either.

[DGuller]

I like how they manage to throw in buzzwords "wikileaks" and "Assange" even though this has nothing to do with either.

There may be some connection.  After all, Assange claims to have dirt of BoA of his own, and all the hacker groups sprang into force when the Wikirapes saga started unfolding.

[garbon]

I heard that this is about whether or not they improperly foreclosed homes.

[grumbler]

I like how they manage to throw in buzzwords "wikileaks" and "Assange" even though this has nothing to do with either.

The words sell stories, so they get crammed anywhere they can possibly fit.

[Darth Wagtaros]

So, what was released?

[garbon]

So, what was released?

What I said.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/hackers-say-bofa-unit-tried-to-hide-mortgage-error/?src=mv

A hacker organization known as Anonymous released a series of e-mails on Monday provided by a former Bank of America employee who claims they show how a division of the bank sought to hide information on foreclosures.

The bank unit, Balboa Insurance, was acquired by Bank of America when it bought the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial in 2008. Balboa deals in so-called force-placed insurance coverage on mortgages. The e-mail messages concern the removal of information linking loans to other documentation.

A Bank of America spokesman told Reuters on Sunday that the documents had been stolen by a former Balboa employee, and were not tied to foreclosures. "We are confident that his extravagant assertions are untrue," the spokesman said.

The e-mails dating from November 2010 concern correspondence among Balboa employees in which they discuss taking steps to alter the record about certain documents "that went out in error." The documents were related to loans by GMAC, a Bank of America client, according to the e-mails.

"The following GMAC DTN's need to have the images removed from Tracksource/Rembrandt," an operations team manager at Balboa wrote. DTN refers to document tracking number, and Tracksource/Rembrandt is an insurance tracking system.

The response he receives: "I have spoken to my developer and she stated that we cannot remove the DTNs from Rembrandt, but she can remove the loan numbers, so the documents will not show as matched to those loans."

According to the e-mails, approval was given to remove the loan numbers from the documents.

A member of Anonymous told DealBook on Monday that the purpose of his Web site was to bring attention to the wrongdoing of banks. "The way the system is, it's made to cheat the average person," he said.

He had set up a Web site to post bank data that WikiLeaks has said it would release, and was subsequently contacted this month by the former Balboa employee. It has been speculated that the documents, which have yet to be released, would focus on Bank of America. The spokesman for Anonymous said he had no direct ties to WikiLeaks, which is run by Julian Assange.

Balboa describes itself as providing "mortgage and auto lender-placed insurance tracking services." Lender-paced insurance is another term for force-placed coverage.

Mortgage lenders require that homes be insured. In the event that mortgage holders let insurance lapse, lenders may take out their own insurance on the property, which protects the lender's interest but is paid for by the mortgage holder.

Bank of America agreed last month to sell Balboa to QBE of Australia, which is set to pay $700 million up front and take on $1.2 billion in liabilities. A representative of QBE was not immediately available for comment.

[Admiral Yi]

That email is a real bombshell.