7 ms·

Top LulzSec hackers arrested, group leader reportedly working for FBI

121 points by zacharye 15y ago

zackzackzack 15y ago
Has this been confirmed? Can it be confirmed? This is Fox News, which is not a reliable source of information to me, especially not about anything related to technology. What is the chance that they just wanted a good press release on a slow news day and the FBI decided to play along?
- jbooth 15y ago
  The quote was from a law enforcement official that they'd arrested the various people, here's the BBC if you'd rather: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17270822 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17270822
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  You're welcome to take your news from whatever source you like. But on what basis do you decide that Fox News is less reliable than other MSM, e.g., ABC or NY Times? As far as I can see, they've all got their biases. If you've convinced yourself that one is propaganda while the others are shooting straight (you didn't say that explicitly, but it seems to be implied), then I'm afraid that you're swallowing some serious propaganda as a result. (I don't mean to defend Fox, but to indict all the MSM)
  - acheron 15y ago
    Pretty much. Anyone who singles out Fox as any worse than any other media outlet is just showing their own ignorance.
    - cbs 15y ago
      And, anyone who blanketly equates the biases of news organizations is falling for a false equivalency.
      - sbmassey 15y ago
        All mass media outlets should be considered suspicious, even if you happen to mostly agree with their bias. That's not so much 'false equivalency', as an understanding that broadcasters with a large audience are inevitably going to be used by people with cash and an agenda to get their message across.
  - vibrunazo 15y ago
    I think it's less a problem of bias but more a problem of continued bad journalism practices (tabloid-like mistakes). Many others are also guilty of bad journalism regardless of their political bias. But Fox News has it up to a level that it's hard to believe anything they publish without first looking for a second source.
  - celticninja 15y ago
    Well I think this argument would work except that you chose Fox News as your starting point. Yes the MSM all have agendas, however very few of them push it as hard a FN does theirs. Remeber, FN were the ones who went to court to protect their right to lie and not provide "news" but editorially biased content. http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12622846756814921333 http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1262284675681492...
- shareme 15y ago
  Federal court NY District unsealed the charges this morning..as people were arrested
  - david_shaw 15y ago
    Has this been confirmed? The FBI released an official document of confirmation this morning: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/six-hackers-in-the-united-states-and-abroad-charged-for-crimes-affecting-over-one-million-victims http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/six-hackers-i...
cskau 15y ago
I'd say there is quite a difference between working for the FBI and as the title says working with the FBI. According to the article the case here seems to the latter and not as the title here make it seem the former.
- kirinan 15y ago
  In the article title it says for the FBI, but in the article itself it says with the FBI. In this case, I think its just semantics because it was a sting operation so while he was working with them, he was also working for them as well. To add a point to the article, I think they went too far in their operations saying to "open up on any government operation". Civil Disobedience, and taking down websites is one thing, leaking sensitive information is an entirely different story. This is also Fox news, so I don't know how bias or if this story is even the truth, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt.
  - tvon 15y ago
    Colloquially speaking, "for" means the FBI is making matching contributions to his 401k, "with" means he is cooperating. Technically speaking, either word works, but you need more than the OED to properly communicate meaning.
    - KC8ZKF 15y ago
      You also have to read an article to understand its contents. Headlines have never been, and should not be, anything more than a headline. And, I disagree with your analysis of "for." I am an english speaker living in the northeastern United States, and hear "for" differently than you describe.
      - cube13 15y ago
        In this context, "working for" usually indicates that the person in question is under the FBI's payroll. "Working with" usually indicates that they're a witness of some sort helping with the investigation. You wouldn't say that a murder witness is "working for the police", you would say that they were "working with the police".
pavelkaroukin 15y ago
Friend of friend of friend told that somebody he knows was arrested in Europe and extradited to USA with fraud charges. Initial sentence prosecutor was asking was something like 30-40 years. Recently I find out that this guy's sentence was reduced to 8 months for cooperation with FBI (and on top of it he have to reimburse some pretty significant amount of money to US government or something like that)... So... Not that bad if you start cooperate with FBI. I would expect most of LulzSec gang to be disclosed pretty soon (except ones, who had enough wise to not disclose their private info to this guy from article)
SNK 15y ago
So the FBI has been waging war against the US government; interesting.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  If you read the article, the leader was not a proper member of the FBI. He merely collaborated with them.
  - marshray 15y ago
    If these reports are to be believed, Sabu was working on an FBI-provided laptop with direct 24-hour FBI surveillance of everything he was doing when he hacked Stratfor and dumped their emails to Wikileaks. Other parts of Anonymous disowned Sabu afterwards (see pastebin) for attacking Stratfor, which they considered a news organization and off limits. The Stratfor leak involved almost 1M email addresses and ~100K credit card numbers. A lot of them are said to be bigshots in DC military/security circles. No, I can't explain it either.
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago
      I believe the word you are looking for is "incompetence". Our law enforcement organizations spend years and millions of dollars to infiltrate, track down, and bring to justice criminals. Who do they target? Organized crime? Hostile foreign nations? Fraudsters? Nope, they go after lulzsec and IP "pirates". I don't have a ton of sympathy for either lulzsec or kim dotcom but I can't help but feel that the FBI et al are screwing the pooch here and arresting the moral equivalent of pot dealers while the true terrorists and mobsters go free.
      - sliverstorm 15y ago
        On the other hand, it could turn out to have been valuable practice in the event China gets really serious about cyber attacks. Besides, I would guess there's a rather limited amount of work the FBI's cyber crime unit can do to help bring in mobsters.
Sniffnoy 15y ago
So this confirms that the earlier Topiary arrest was mistaken, then?
- gavinlynch 15y ago
  Incorrect. Topiary was certainly arrested, this article does nothing to contradict that. You may have skimmed that last sentence and been confused. It does not state that Topiary was arrested, merely that the 5 taken in today were arrested for their involvement with the likes of Topiary.
driverdan 15y ago
Flagged for being blogspam of original article. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3670930 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3670930
drhowarddrfine 15y ago
I heard the best term for these Anonymous crackers by someone interviewed on NPR today. "Lynch mobs". Very apt. He was describing them as people who go out to lynch those they don't agree with.

121 points by zacharye 15y ago

Has this been confirmed? Can it be confirmed? This is Fox News, which is not a reliable source of information to me, especially not about anything related to technology. What is the chance that they just wanted a good press release on a slow news day and the FBI decided to play along?

jbooth 15y ago
The quote was from a law enforcement official that they'd arrested the various people, here's the BBC if you'd rather: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17270822 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17270822
CWuestefeld 15y ago
You're welcome to take your news from whatever source you like. But on what basis do you decide that Fox News is less reliable than other MSM, e.g., ABC or NY Times? As far as I can see, they've all got their biases. If you've convinced yourself that one is propaganda while the others are shooting straight (you didn't say that explicitly, but it seems to be implied), then I'm afraid that you're swallowing some serious propaganda as a result. (I don't mean to defend Fox, but to indict all the MSM)
- acheron 15y ago
  Pretty much. Anyone who singles out Fox as any worse than any other media outlet is just showing their own ignorance.
  - cbs 15y ago
    And, anyone who blanketly equates the biases of news organizations is falling for a false equivalency.
    - sbmassey 15y ago
      All mass media outlets should be considered suspicious, even if you happen to mostly agree with their bias. That's not so much 'false equivalency', as an understanding that broadcasters with a large audience are inevitably going to be used by people with cash and an agenda to get their message across.
- vibrunazo 15y ago
  I think it's less a problem of bias but more a problem of continued bad journalism practices (tabloid-like mistakes). Many others are also guilty of bad journalism regardless of their political bias. But Fox News has it up to a level that it's hard to believe anything they publish without first looking for a second source.
- celticninja 15y ago
  Well I think this argument would work except that you chose Fox News as your starting point. Yes the MSM all have agendas, however very few of them push it as hard a FN does theirs. Remeber, FN were the ones who went to court to protect their right to lie and not provide "news" but editorially biased content. http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12622846756814921333 http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1262284675681492...
shareme 15y ago
Federal court NY District unsealed the charges this morning..as people were arrested
- david_shaw 15y ago
  Has this been confirmed? The FBI released an official document of confirmation this morning: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/six-hackers-in-the-united-states-and-abroad-charged-for-crimes-affecting-over-one-million-victims http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/six-hackers-i...

cskau 15y ago

I'd say there is quite a difference between working for the FBI and as the title says working with the FBI. According to the article the case here seems to the latter and not as the title here make it seem the former.

kirinan 15y ago
In the article title it says for the FBI, but in the article itself it says with the FBI. In this case, I think its just semantics because it was a sting operation so while he was working with them, he was also working for them as well. To add a point to the article, I think they went too far in their operations saying to "open up on any government operation". Civil Disobedience, and taking down websites is one thing, leaking sensitive information is an entirely different story. This is also Fox news, so I don't know how bias or if this story is even the truth, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt.
- tvon 15y ago
  Colloquially speaking, "for" means the FBI is making matching contributions to his 401k, "with" means he is cooperating. Technically speaking, either word works, but you need more than the OED to properly communicate meaning.
  - KC8ZKF 15y ago
    You also have to read an article to understand its contents. Headlines have never been, and should not be, anything more than a headline. And, I disagree with your analysis of "for." I am an english speaker living in the northeastern United States, and hear "for" differently than you describe.
    - cube13 15y ago
      In this context, "working for" usually indicates that the person in question is under the FBI's payroll. "Working with" usually indicates that they're a witness of some sort helping with the investigation. You wouldn't say that a murder witness is "working for the police", you would say that they were "working with the police".

pavelkaroukin 15y ago

Friend of friend of friend told that somebody he knows was arrested in Europe and extradited to USA with fraud charges. Initial sentence prosecutor was asking was something like 30-40 years. Recently I find out that this guy's sentence was reduced to 8 months for cooperation with FBI (and on top of it he have to reimburse some pretty significant amount of money to US government or something like that)... So... Not that bad if you start cooperate with FBI. I would expect most of LulzSec gang to be disclosed pretty soon (except ones, who had enough wise to not disclose their private info to this guy from article)

SNK 15y ago

So the FBI has been waging war against the US government; interesting.

sliverstorm 15y ago
If you read the article, the leader was not a proper member of the FBI. He merely collaborated with them.
- marshray 15y ago
  If these reports are to be believed, Sabu was working on an FBI-provided laptop with direct 24-hour FBI surveillance of everything he was doing when he hacked Stratfor and dumped their emails to Wikileaks. Other parts of Anonymous disowned Sabu afterwards (see pastebin) for attacking Stratfor, which they considered a news organization and off limits. The Stratfor leak involved almost 1M email addresses and ~100K credit card numbers. A lot of them are said to be bigshots in DC military/security circles. No, I can't explain it either.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    I believe the word you are looking for is "incompetence". Our law enforcement organizations spend years and millions of dollars to infiltrate, track down, and bring to justice criminals. Who do they target? Organized crime? Hostile foreign nations? Fraudsters? Nope, they go after lulzsec and IP "pirates". I don't have a ton of sympathy for either lulzsec or kim dotcom but I can't help but feel that the FBI et al are screwing the pooch here and arresting the moral equivalent of pot dealers while the true terrorists and mobsters go free.
    - sliverstorm 15y ago
      On the other hand, it could turn out to have been valuable practice in the event China gets really serious about cyber attacks. Besides, I would guess there's a rather limited amount of work the FBI's cyber crime unit can do to help bring in mobsters.

Sniffnoy 15y ago

So this confirms that the earlier Topiary arrest was mistaken, then?

gavinlynch 15y ago
Incorrect. Topiary was certainly arrested, this article does nothing to contradict that. You may have skimmed that last sentence and been confused. It does not state that Topiary was arrested, merely that the 5 taken in today were arrested for their involvement with the likes of Topiary.

driverdan 15y ago

Flagged for being blogspam of original article. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3670930 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3670930

drhowarddrfine 15y ago

I heard the best term for these Anonymous crackers by someone interviewed on NPR today. "Lynch mobs". Very apt. He was describing them as people who go out to lynch those they don't agree with.