It will be a while before we have a real sense of how "crippling" this rollup really was.
LulzSec brought down by own leader
51–60 of 139 posts
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course you can't kill an idea. Wait, what was the idea again?
The 21st century equivalent of setting a poop-filled bag on fire on someone's porch, or something along those lines. But without actually requiring anything so taxing as getting up from the computer, going outside, and running.
The only difference is that instead of people thinking that it is a harmless prank they will send in homeland security/swat team/etc with loaded weapons.
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#53I reckon a huge proportion of blackhats in the scene are working for the feds. Some kid with no record gets thrown in a van by men with guns, and the full force of police psychological manipulation is brought to bear on them. They get told they're irrevocably destined for a lifetime of being brutally raped in the showers. Is it any surprise that these young men with no experience of foul-play or maliciousness outside…
Groups allow information trading. It is basically essential if you want to cash for your hacking activities, such as carding and 0-day selling. I am not totally familiar with "the scene", but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of incentives for hackers to regroup
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#54Oh Fox News. Even when reporting on something legitimately interesting and out of the ordinary, they have to use very un-journalistic phrases like "...allegedly commanded a loosely organized, international team of perhaps thousands of hackers ..." "Perhaps thousands"? Perhaps millions! Perhaps five. Ugh.
There's a slightly less breathless and more coherent report here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/06/lulzsec-sab...
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#55Any idea why they don't mention the nationality of Hector Xavier Monsegur? His name sounds like Spanish or French but it could be otherwise. In the end, it's confusing and I can't really get a geographical idea of the Lulzsec thing.
Why does it matter?
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#56We are still in the stage of these groups being very amateurish. It will take few rounds of purges until really committed+careful+smart organizations emerge.
Just because unlucky/stupid/lazy criminals are getting caught doesn't mean lucky/smart/cautious criminals are not already at work.
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#57Any idea why they don't mention the nationality of Hector Xavier Monsegur? His name sounds like Spanish or French but it could be otherwise. In the end, it's confusing and I can't really get a geographical idea of the Lulzsec thing.
US national - NY.
Apparently he's Puerto Rican but lives in NY (at least according to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/06/lulzsec-sab...).
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be implying that assisting law enforcement is always ethical. It's not, just like breaking the law is not necessarily unethical.
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The difference w/ terrorism is that it intentionally targets civilians. It is always odious. The ends do not justify the means.
Note: there is a lot of grey in the world, but intentionally targeting the innocent is black & white.
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#59So a guy hacks github, he's a hero. A guy hacks a bunch of media organizations, and he's a villain. I really don't understand the groupthink these days. How is one of these okay, and the other not?
Your error is assuming there is groupthink.
Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader
#60This article claims billions of dollars in damage. If this is what the FBI is saying, they are wrong. Lulzsec damages don't even approach a million dollars, most likely. Billions of dollars is how much money it costs to do things like provide universal health care for a small state. The FBI should investigate real cases and not treat a bunch of merry pranksters like they're a bunch of super terrorists.
Costs in hacking cases are mostly measured by time spent investigating & repairing * fully loaded employee costs. If you have to dump a bunch of servers and reload everything and audit your backups the costs rise very quickly.
Plus, takeout for the guys working the case.