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British police have reportedly arrested a Lizard Squad member

21 points by Varcht 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago
3 months later: "LizardSquad informant working for FBI for the past 6 months". The LizardSquad thing seems to have a lot of parallels with Lulzsec. Both groups "appeared all of the sudden" on the online scene. Both tried to make a lot of noise in the shortest time possible, seemingly "just for fame", with no long term plan or vision for why they started doing that in the first place. Both started giving interviews to the media. It almost reminds me of all those fake terror plots the FBI is creating to keep people scared, by finding naive people to turn them into terrorists, and then "set them loose" onto the world, to remind people terrorists - or in this case, cybercriminals - still exist. Maybe I'm just way off the mark here. Hopefully I am.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Eventually you believe your grocer is FBI and stop eating fresh food. Any dipshit can run LOIC but it must be an FBI plot. FFS.
  - TrainedMonkey 12y ago
    I think it is ridiculous to point fingers at this point, but he has a point - something is fishy about Lizard Squad. Here are the facts that I know of: 1. Lizard Squad is fairly new. 2. They managed to bring down PSN and XBL. 3. They make some noise in the tor community with their nodes. 4. They are complete amateurs at OPSEC and they love talking to the reporters. You can accomplish #2 and #3 by either being good or having money to buy botnets.
    - nemo 12y ago
      re: 1 The Lizard script-kiddies have been around for a while: http://krebsonsecurity.com/?s=darkode&x=0&y=0 http://krebsonsecurity.com/?s=darkode&x=0&y=0 They have been working on building a group of script-kiddies who learn how to DDOS for a couple years at least. That's enough time to get enough bots to DDOS PSN and XBL. They announced a business to hire out their DDOS "services" just after the PSN/XBL attacks. They are a bunch of script-kiddies with knowledge of one skill, DDOSing, which has a very low learning curve. It goes with the territory that they'd be complete amateurs at OPSEC. They were hyping themselves as part of a money making scheme, of course they were looking for as much media attention as possible.
- colechristensen 12y ago
  The FBI does have a history of finding impressionable people, encouraging them to misbehave, getting a few to be informants and arresting the rest. While definitely misguided it seems to me that the heart of what many of them are trying to do is in the right place. One example of many: http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/newburgh-four-terrorism-case-was-fbi-entrapment-hbo-film/ http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/newburgh-four-terrorism-case-wa...
  - davekeck 12y ago
    How does that example show that their "heart ... is in the right place"? All of the men made it clear that they would only participate if no one got hurt, and one of them was doing so to fund his brother's cancer treatment. If you're broke and faced with the death of a beloved family member, and then someone comes along and offers you $250k and a guarantee that no one gets hurt, it's hard for me to believe that most people wouldn't participate.
sjreese 12y ago
this is a vendetta between two people, not the lizard squad..Member 1 has a hater that will use any ruse to attack the other.. of course British justice is ripe for this sort of thing. It too has a long history of needing IRA arrests. And accepting testimony questionable from sources listing to the RADIO is the best case in point. PSN and XBL down is big (uninsured losses in the millions) and will change everything about OpSec.
- objclxt 12y ago
  I really don't understand what you're saying? How does the IRA come into this (as far as I can tell, they don't)? And I don't see how PSN or Xbox Live being down will "change everything about OpSec"...as far as I know, it's a fairly standard DDoS attack.
  - sjreese 12y ago
    those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.. lets use SQL : SELECT the IRA as a stand in for the excesses of the police state. From the police need to look good Where the pressure to look good in arrest statistics.. Having no possible leads in (use any questionable source with an axe to grind.) Now for OpSec think cloudent , rackspace . HIPA, Sarbanes Oxley, FCPA, Reg Z, IPN data all of these gives us the SONY DATA with EMails That said how does OpSec deal with all that data when none of it can be store together or in a standard format known to data management public. ( sorry cloud people )
  - mvc 12y ago
    During the troubles, in the wake of pub bombings, British police sometimes arrested and/or convicted people with flimsy evidence, eventually having to pardon them many years later when the convictions were quashed. For example, google The Guidford Four, or The Birmingham Six. I think the parent is suggesting that in both cases, the politicians were demanding an arrest of someone, preferably the people who did it, but failing that, anyone who might have done it.
SixSigma 12y ago
Even if it was an alias it would be perfectly legitimate to appear on bail and court documents. We have a system based on: the name by which you are known Which make Real Name requirements on social media unprovable. If I am called Troll Golightly on Facebook and just one friend then I can legitimately state that my name is Troll.

21 points by Varcht 12y ago

3 months later: "LizardSquad informant working for FBI for the past 6 months". The LizardSquad thing seems to have a lot of parallels with Lulzsec. Both groups "appeared all of the sudden" on the online scene. Both tried to make a lot of noise in the shortest time possible, seemingly "just for fame", with no long term plan or vision for why they started doing that in the first place. Both started giving interviews to the media. It almost reminds me of all those fake terror plots the FBI is creating to keep people scared, by finding naive people to turn them into terrorists, and then "set them loose" onto the world, to remind people terrorists - or in this case, cybercriminals - still exist. Maybe I'm just way off the mark here. Hopefully I am.

happyscrappy 12y ago
Eventually you believe your grocer is FBI and stop eating fresh food. Any dipshit can run LOIC but it must be an FBI plot. FFS.
- TrainedMonkey 12y ago
  I think it is ridiculous to point fingers at this point, but he has a point - something is fishy about Lizard Squad. Here are the facts that I know of: 1. Lizard Squad is fairly new. 2. They managed to bring down PSN and XBL. 3. They make some noise in the tor community with their nodes. 4. They are complete amateurs at OPSEC and they love talking to the reporters. You can accomplish #2 and #3 by either being good or having money to buy botnets.
  - nemo 12y ago
    re: 1 The Lizard script-kiddies have been around for a while: http://krebsonsecurity.com/?s=darkode&x=0&y=0 http://krebsonsecurity.com/?s=darkode&x=0&y=0 They have been working on building a group of script-kiddies who learn how to DDOS for a couple years at least. That's enough time to get enough bots to DDOS PSN and XBL. They announced a business to hire out their DDOS "services" just after the PSN/XBL attacks. They are a bunch of script-kiddies with knowledge of one skill, DDOSing, which has a very low learning curve. It goes with the territory that they'd be complete amateurs at OPSEC. They were hyping themselves as part of a money making scheme, of course they were looking for as much media attention as possible.
colechristensen 12y ago
The FBI does have a history of finding impressionable people, encouraging them to misbehave, getting a few to be informants and arresting the rest. While definitely misguided it seems to me that the heart of what many of them are trying to do is in the right place. One example of many: http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/newburgh-four-terrorism-case-was-fbi-entrapment-hbo-film/ http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/newburgh-four-terrorism-case-wa...
- davekeck 12y ago
  How does that example show that their "heart ... is in the right place"? All of the men made it clear that they would only participate if no one got hurt, and one of them was doing so to fund his brother's cancer treatment. If you're broke and faced with the death of a beloved family member, and then someone comes along and offers you $250k and a guarantee that no one gets hurt, it's hard for me to believe that most people wouldn't participate.

sjreese 12y ago

this is a vendetta between two people, not the lizard squad..Member 1 has a hater that will use any ruse to attack the other.. of course British justice is ripe for this sort of thing. It too has a long history of needing IRA arrests. And accepting testimony questionable from sources listing to the RADIO is the best case in point. PSN and XBL down is big (uninsured losses in the millions) and will change everything about OpSec.

objclxt 12y ago
I really don't understand what you're saying? How does the IRA come into this (as far as I can tell, they don't)? And I don't see how PSN or Xbox Live being down will "change everything about OpSec"...as far as I know, it's a fairly standard DDoS attack.
- sjreese 12y ago
  those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.. lets use SQL : SELECT the IRA as a stand in for the excesses of the police state. From the police need to look good Where the pressure to look good in arrest statistics.. Having no possible leads in (use any questionable source with an axe to grind.) Now for OpSec think cloudent , rackspace . HIPA, Sarbanes Oxley, FCPA, Reg Z, IPN data all of these gives us the SONY DATA with EMails That said how does OpSec deal with all that data when none of it can be store together or in a standard format known to data management public. ( sorry cloud people )
- mvc 12y ago
  During the troubles, in the wake of pub bombings, British police sometimes arrested and/or convicted people with flimsy evidence, eventually having to pardon them many years later when the convictions were quashed. For example, google The Guidford Four, or The Birmingham Six. I think the parent is suggesting that in both cases, the politicians were demanding an arrest of someone, preferably the people who did it, but failing that, anyone who might have done it.

SixSigma 12y ago

Even if it was an alias it would be perfectly legitimate to appear on bail and court documents. We have a system based on: the name by which you are known Which make Real Name requirements on social media unprovable. If I am called Troll Golightly on Facebook and just one friend then I can legitimately state that my name is Troll.