In a separate statement Police said they have arrested Mr Big
- "we have been looking for a Mr Big behind lots of crimes in London and now we have found him after an extensive search of the phone book"
British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
11–20 of 35 posts
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#12Sad to watch them try to send another guy to jail for what they did. "No honor among thieves" came to mind.
I rather see it as highlighting a weakness in the system. Arresting someone on suspicion without evidence tying the human to the twitter account and to the actual crime is a sad state of affairs. People should be made aware that this kind of thing cam happen with little recourse for the mistakes of the police.
I don't know precisely how it works in Scotland, but presumably they had evidence sufficient to obtain a warrant for the arrest. Are you really saying the police should have to prove guilt before arresting suspects?
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#13my 5 cents: * the antilulzsec movement is missleading information created by lulzsec themselves * chatlogs are just text. they do not prove anythinh * i guess they raided the guys home not without reason...
If I were betting, I'd be with you on this, even though the reason to raid may have been deliberately planted misinformation from lulzsec.
It might be helpful to know what ISP this guy used.
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#14I read this article earlier. I don't understand the following line from the chatlog: > Topiary: better not hit me on April fool's day is this a joke that has gone over my head, or are the logs indeed from March? Edit: looks like I'm a fool, the logs are indeed from March and are unrelated to this incident. I thought the article was using them as proof of this incident being part of "duping" the police, but it's actua…
Yeah, it was all a little unclear. I'm still not sure whether LS's Topiary stole the name from a troll, or a troll started using Topiary's name. Not that it matters... In the end, it looks like the real Topiary is in a different country altogether from where the arrest was made. Absolutely hilarious. How long before the police discover their mistake, I wonder?
Not quite so hilarious for the person who (if this story is right) has been arrested for things he didn't do.
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I rather see it as highlighting a weakness in the system. Arresting someone on suspicion without evidence tying the human to the twitter account and to the actual crime is a sad state of affairs. People should be made aware that this kind of thing cam happen with little recourse for the mistakes of the police.
I don't know precisely how it works in Scotland, but presumably they had evidence sufficient to obtain a warrant for the arrest. Are you really saying the police should have to prove guilt before arresting suspects?
The police (here in Scotland or pretty much anywhere) can arrest someone on suspicion of something with pretty minimal evidence, you don't need a warrant but once you have arrested them you then have to either charge them or release them within a relatively short space of time (our rather draconian anti-terror laws which mean they can be held for weeks without charge wouldn't apply here).
It makes no sense for them to arrest him without evidence. The two options for who arrested him are local or national police.
If it were the local police why would local police on a sparsely populated island with little crime go and arrest someone and accuse them of being a hacker with no evidence knowing that he'd be out in a day? It makes no sense to do so and if you did do it you certainly wouldn't go public with the arrest knowing you had no evidence.
On the other hand if you're national police working in cyber crime out of London, to make the arrest you've got to convince someone to pay to fly two officers six hundred miles north and them and the suspect back. Given that UK police are being asked to make massive budget cuts and are under significant scrutiny (particularly the Met who would likely be heading this) because of the phone hacking, that trip isn't getting signed off without someone convincing a senior officer that there was something to it.
So the chances of there being no evidence is basically nil. The evidence they have may be misinformation, or they may have misinterpreted it, but they will have believed that this guy was involved.
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#16Sad to watch them try to send another guy to jail for what they did. "No honor among thieves" came to mind.
I rather see it as highlighting a weakness in the system. Arresting someone on suspicion without evidence tying the human to the twitter account and to the actual crime is a sad state of affairs. People should be made aware that this kind of thing cam happen with little recourse for the mistakes of the police.
Wouldn't the analog(ue) be framing? Just because one can frame people (on-line or IRL) doesn't mean the system is flawed. It just means there are people out there willing to have someone else be the fall-person as an end, or as a distraction to buy time in order to escape (or allow the trail of evidence to tail off/go cold.)
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#17Wasn't topiary supposedly the guy who was doing the interview during which the WBC got hacked? If so, they have his voice on tape. Certainly wasn't British. At the time I thought French, but Swedish would fit.
The slightly annoying thing is that we may never know. The real topiary is not going to reappear if they've arrested the wrong guy. The police are certainly not going to give up their arrest. And presumably they've got this guy in custody on something. So I assume they can make the charges stick. I'm sure they've arrested him under his real name for something he actually did, not topiary for being a member of Lulzsec.
The public certainly don't care. It only matters that justice appears to be done.
So it looks to me like everyone is happy (except the guy who got arrested of course).
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#18Contrary to what the headline suggests, this is just speculation.
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#19Makes one wonder if their monikers are really tightly tied to real persons. Maybe the core group uses their names interchangeably and when one of them is ousted with a raid, some one else from the group assumes the online identity.
You would make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
Re: British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?
#20Or maybe Topiary's friends are trying to convince the police they got the wrong guy and get some added publicity at the same time?