7 ms·

FBI arrests LulzSec member "recursion" for Sony Pictures hack

39 points by alvivar 15y ago

patrickod 15y ago
It's hardly surprising that these people are being caught. Using a VPN service that resides primarily in the USA, the same jurisdiction in which your attacks are being carried out, seems a bit shortsighted.
- laluser 15y ago
  Exactly. At the level that these guys were playing at, I would assume that they would have protected themselves in a wiser manner
- shin_lao 15y ago
  Actually I'm not surprised. They got too comfortable. They got lazy. Properly covering your tracks is extremely cumbersome and boring.
  - tripzilch 15y ago
    Well, there's that and there's using a USA-based VPN service. They could have picked any other totalitarian police state in the world, Russian, Chinese proxies, they all accept creditcard, and the FBI could have done fuck all to get the logs. Instead you know USA based companies are required to barf up the logs at the drop of a hat. It's not just lazy, it's really really dumb.
tsotha 15y ago
Good. Throw the book at him.
- sophacles 15y ago
  What a great idea! Now we can focus on how evil this guy is, and not have to talk about Sony who in an act of pure altruism is requiring any users of their service to waive their right to hold Sony liable for not bothering to protect things they have a legal obligation actually protect. (Note: under no circumstances is allowing an sql injection attack evidence of anything other than criminal neglect and those who have a susceptible product should be just as liable as those who manufacture faulty vehicles.)
  - coderdude 15y ago
    Quit it with this hippy tech youth crap. The guy committed a crime. Get over it. It's time for him to face justice. I swear, some people are retarded.
    - wnight 15y ago
      Quit it with this codger pissing his diaper routine. I know blindly following the law is seeming more important as you get old but the "crime" consisted of sending malformed data and it caused games to go offline. Get over it. It's time to require Sony to run their business properly instead of investigating children as if they were mobsters. I swear, some people are retarded.
      - coderdude 15y ago
        This isn't blindly following the law. So someone hacks your site and we praise the hacker and condemn you? Someone breaks the lock to your front door and we applaud the burgler and make fun of your lock? Get real. I'm sick of this attitude. Just because I understand right from wrong doesn't make me some kind of lackey for the law dogs. People with your attitude convey the wrong message. You don't like Sony, I get it. But you think it's OK to hack people and destroy property as long is it's against someone you don't like and that is not OK.
        bandushrew 15y ago
        If I had taken the possessions of thousands of people, and promised to keep them safe in my house, and then a burglar broke in and stole everything. I deserve to be condemned. sure, the burglar should be punished for the simple crime of theft that he committed. but I took the possessions of thousands of people and failed to make them secure, despite promising to do so. Especially if I took all those possessions and then used a 5 dollar lock from the local shop, instead of investing in something that may actually make secure the possessions I promised to keep safe.
        15y ago
9999 15y ago
Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Recursion. One of these is not like the others.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- sophacles 15y ago
  You're right. Neslon Mandela led and participated in a group which committed violent acts of sabotage and resistance (including human right violations according to Mandela himself). I know you mean Recursion, because you are not on the same side as him, but at least try to pick examples that don't undermine your own freaking point.
maeon3 15y ago
Arrest these evil-doers, copying information and defacing images. In other news, why is the FBI suffering from such a shortage of willing hackers? More hypocrisy after the break.
DNeb 15y ago
Hope he's still lul'ing
guelo 15y ago
It would be great if they would go to trial so that maybe we could find out how the FBI tracked them down. My suspicion is that it's all an abuse of spying laws intended for terrorism. Unfortunately these guys will probably all plead.
- Steko 15y ago
  http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201138/7643/Proxy-logs-helped-FBI-track-and-arrest-LulzSec-member http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201138/7643/Proxy-l... "According to HideMyAss.com, “…services such as ours do not exist to hide people from illegal activity. We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies if it has become evident that your account has been used for illegal activities.” The service stores logs for 30-days when it comes to Website proxy services, and they store the connecting IP address, as well as time stamps for those using the VPN offerings."
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Why on Earth would he use hma when tor is readily available and far better at hiding your nefarious deeds? At the very least, if you live in the US, use an extranational vpn. Take some of those "hacking" skills and use your neighbour's wifi, wiping the logs after each session. For the FBI to have an IP address that leads back to you means you're incompetent. The lack of technological sophistication from these guys just further highlights the negligence on the part of the victims. If someone who knows this little about security can infiltrate your network and steal your secrets, then you have serious problems.
antimora 15y ago
In that can how is HideMyAss.com useful? Wasn't the service able to guarantee the anonymity?
- brownie 15y ago
  Not for illegal activity, according to an article on Tech Herald: "Logs, seized equipment, and testimony from those arrested, seems to be the undoing for those connected to Anonymous and LulzSec. ...According to HideMyAss.com, ...services such as ours do not exist to hide people from illegal activity. We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies if it has become evident that your account has been used for illegal activities The service stores logs for 30-days when it comes to Website proxy services, and they store the connecting IP address, as well as time stamps for those using the VPN offerings." Furthermore - if you're using a VPN service to stay anonymous, you're only staying anonymous from whatever you're accessing, not the VPN service itself.
  - ltamake 15y ago
    The only service I can think of that doesn't store any sort of data is ipredator.se (which is what I use). I know there are a few more (I think SwissVPN is safe too), but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
- Jach 15y ago
  I always thought the main purpose of things like HideMyAss.com are to get around stupid filters installed at your workplace or school. Thankfully neither for me have filters, but I've visited my old high school a number of times and I just throw everything through an ssh connection to my home machine.
- infinity 15y ago
  I wouldn't trust this service, because I can't find any information about who is running this service - at least not in the few minutes I have spend clicking around on their site. Maybe there is some info somewhere, I have not found it. In another comment a quote from a different article was mentioned regarding the Terms of Service. I could not find a page about the terms of service. Maybe it's me, but I think that these informations should be easy to find on a site. Some other interesting points about this service are explored in an article by rsnake from ha.ckers.org: http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100104/anonymous-proxy-woes/ http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100104/anonymous-proxy-woes/ "So yeah, please don’t use CGI proxies, unless you really know what you’re doing. They really very rarely increase your security. Most of the time, they just decrease it, as a matter of fact."
Steko 15y ago
Maybe try 8 proxies next time? (realize he was not actually behind 7 proxies)

39 points by alvivar 15y ago

It's hardly surprising that these people are being caught. Using a VPN service that resides primarily in the USA, the same jurisdiction in which your attacks are being carried out, seems a bit shortsighted.

laluser 15y ago
Exactly. At the level that these guys were playing at, I would assume that they would have protected themselves in a wiser manner
shin_lao 15y ago
Actually I'm not surprised. They got too comfortable. They got lazy. Properly covering your tracks is extremely cumbersome and boring.
- tripzilch 15y ago
  Well, there's that and there's using a USA-based VPN service. They could have picked any other totalitarian police state in the world, Russian, Chinese proxies, they all accept creditcard, and the FBI could have done fuck all to get the logs. Instead you know USA based companies are required to barf up the logs at the drop of a hat. It's not just lazy, it's really really dumb.

tsotha 15y ago

Good. Throw the book at him.

sophacles 15y ago
What a great idea! Now we can focus on how evil this guy is, and not have to talk about Sony who in an act of pure altruism is requiring any users of their service to waive their right to hold Sony liable for not bothering to protect things they have a legal obligation actually protect. (Note: under no circumstances is allowing an sql injection attack evidence of anything other than criminal neglect and those who have a susceptible product should be just as liable as those who manufacture faulty vehicles.)
- coderdude 15y ago
  Quit it with this hippy tech youth crap. The guy committed a crime. Get over it. It's time for him to face justice. I swear, some people are retarded.
  - wnight 15y ago
    Quit it with this codger pissing his diaper routine. I know blindly following the law is seeming more important as you get old but the "crime" consisted of sending malformed data and it caused games to go offline. Get over it. It's time to require Sony to run their business properly instead of investigating children as if they were mobsters. I swear, some people are retarded.
    - coderdude 15y ago
      This isn't blindly following the law. So someone hacks your site and we praise the hacker and condemn you? Someone breaks the lock to your front door and we applaud the burgler and make fun of your lock? Get real. I'm sick of this attitude. Just because I understand right from wrong doesn't make me some kind of lackey for the law dogs. People with your attitude convey the wrong message. You don't like Sony, I get it. But you think it's OK to hack people and destroy property as long is it's against someone you don't like and that is not OK.
      - bandushrew 15y ago
        If I had taken the possessions of thousands of people, and promised to keep them safe in my house, and then a burglar broke in and stole everything. I deserve to be condemned. sure, the burglar should be punished for the simple crime of theft that he committed. but I took the possessions of thousands of people and failed to make them secure, despite promising to do so. Especially if I took all those possessions and then used a 5 dollar lock from the local shop, instead of investing in something that may actually make secure the possessions I promised to keep safe.
        15y ago

9999 15y ago

Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Recursion. One of these is not like the others.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
sophacles 15y ago
You're right. Neslon Mandela led and participated in a group which committed violent acts of sabotage and resistance (including human right violations according to Mandela himself). I know you mean Recursion, because you are not on the same side as him, but at least try to pick examples that don't undermine your own freaking point.

maeon3 15y ago

Arrest these evil-doers, copying information and defacing images. In other news, why is the FBI suffering from such a shortage of willing hackers? More hypocrisy after the break.

DNeb 15y ago

Hope he's still lul'ing

guelo 15y ago

It would be great if they would go to trial so that maybe we could find out how the FBI tracked them down. My suspicion is that it's all an abuse of spying laws intended for terrorism. Unfortunately these guys will probably all plead.

Steko 15y ago
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201138/7643/Proxy-logs-helped-FBI-track-and-arrest-LulzSec-member http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201138/7643/Proxy-l... "According to HideMyAss.com, “…services such as ours do not exist to hide people from illegal activity. We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies if it has become evident that your account has been used for illegal activities.” The service stores logs for 30-days when it comes to Website proxy services, and they store the connecting IP address, as well as time stamps for those using the VPN offerings."
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Why on Earth would he use hma when tor is readily available and far better at hiding your nefarious deeds? At the very least, if you live in the US, use an extranational vpn. Take some of those "hacking" skills and use your neighbour's wifi, wiping the logs after each session. For the FBI to have an IP address that leads back to you means you're incompetent. The lack of technological sophistication from these guys just further highlights the negligence on the part of the victims. If someone who knows this little about security can infiltrate your network and steal your secrets, then you have serious problems.

antimora 15y ago

In that can how is HideMyAss.com useful? Wasn't the service able to guarantee the anonymity?

brownie 15y ago
Not for illegal activity, according to an article on Tech Herald: "Logs, seized equipment, and testimony from those arrested, seems to be the undoing for those connected to Anonymous and LulzSec. ...According to HideMyAss.com, ...services such as ours do not exist to hide people from illegal activity. We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies if it has become evident that your account has been used for illegal activities The service stores logs for 30-days when it comes to Website proxy services, and they store the connecting IP address, as well as time stamps for those using the VPN offerings." Furthermore - if you're using a VPN service to stay anonymous, you're only staying anonymous from whatever you're accessing, not the VPN service itself.
- ltamake 15y ago
  The only service I can think of that doesn't store any sort of data is ipredator.se (which is what I use). I know there are a few more (I think SwissVPN is safe too), but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
Jach 15y ago
I always thought the main purpose of things like HideMyAss.com are to get around stupid filters installed at your workplace or school. Thankfully neither for me have filters, but I've visited my old high school a number of times and I just throw everything through an ssh connection to my home machine.
infinity 15y ago
I wouldn't trust this service, because I can't find any information about who is running this service - at least not in the few minutes I have spend clicking around on their site. Maybe there is some info somewhere, I have not found it. In another comment a quote from a different article was mentioned regarding the Terms of Service. I could not find a page about the terms of service. Maybe it's me, but I think that these informations should be easy to find on a site. Some other interesting points about this service are explored in an article by rsnake from ha.ckers.org: http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100104/anonymous-proxy-woes/ http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100104/anonymous-proxy-woes/ "So yeah, please don’t use CGI proxies, unless you really know what you’re doing. They really very rarely increase your security. Most of the time, they just decrease it, as a matter of fact."

Steko 15y ago

Maybe try 8 proxies next time? (realize he was not actually behind 7 proxies)