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LulzSec brought down by own leader

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Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#91

Post by gavinlynch »

celticninja wrote: post #64
Karunamon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably lots of phone calls, some random unsolicited pizza appearing on his doorstep, and all kinds of slander on every chan board ever made. Oh, you mean IRL? Dunno. You'd think they'd have cut him a deal for helping them out.

They will have cut a deal with him already, however that deal usually means reduced jail time in an easy prison, he still has to be charged with the offences. His "good behaviour" is then taken into account by the prosecuting authorities when sentencing him. They arrest him and publicise his arrest as psyops, any other hackers out there see that the #1 from lulzsec was caught and turned therefore who knows how many l…

It's not just the assistance to authorities, but the fact that he brought actionable intelligence that brought arrests towards others. His getting other LulzSec members arrested and prosecuted is key to diminishing his own sentences.

Other hackers have offered help and not proven useful, only to find themselves up a creek with little to no lightening of their sentences.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#92

Post by gavinlynch »

hack_edu wrote: post #26

Funny tht right around the time he was arrested, Lulzsec declared they were done and sailing off in their Lulzboat. Then they reappeared a few months later, probably started back up after Sabu went to the narcs. Luckily this was only after Anonymous put together their new decentralized teams that do the footwork now. Lulzsec is just a name now, very little work is done by their namesake anymore. The writer is a bit c…

"Luckily this was only after Anonymous put together their new decentralized teams that do the footwork now."

"Luckily" ?

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#93

Post by InclinedPlane »

tlear wrote: post #18

We 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.

This is mistaken.

Committed/careful/smart organizations already exist. But they aren't motivated by publicity and lols. They make serious money through industrial espionage and financial fraud, and they stay as under the radar as possible. Everyone who has a credit or debit card has likely experienced having that information being stolen in one way or another. Those activities aren't just accidents or pranks by bored teens.

Organized crime is well invested in these sorts of things, and for every one incident you hear about there are dozens or hundreds you don't.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#94

Post by rajpaul »

Zarathust wrote: post #53
JonnieCache wrote: post #43

I 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

Not 0-day, but you might find it interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkMarket

DarkMarket was an English-speaking internet cybercrime forum created by Renukanth Subramaniam in London that was shut down in 2008 after FBI agent J. Keith Mularski infiltrated it using the alias Master Splyntr, leading to more than 60 arrests worldwide. Subramaniam, who used the alias JiLsi, admitted conspiracy to defraud and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison in February 2010.

The website allowed buyers and sellers of stolen identities and credit card data to meet and conduct criminal enterprise in an entrepreneurial, peer-reviewed environment. It had 2,500 users at its peak.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#96

Post by gavinlynch »

jcromartie wrote: post #20

> the unemployed, 28-year-old father of two allegedly commanded a loosely organized, international team of perhaps thousands of hackers Sounds like he was pretty busy.

When you're unemployed all you have is time. I think he only had partial custody for his kids.

It lets you fit railing against governmental entities and directing 20-somethings--who also don't have full time jobs--seamlessly into your schedule, all with convenience from your government subsidized housing.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#97

Post by redthrowaway »

TheCapn wrote: post #87
redthrowaway wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they would, they'd just be smarter about it. The point of hacktivism is publicity. If no one knows what you're doing, you're not being particularly effective.

I want to refute your point with the mention of Stuxnet. Please correct me if I'm wrong but up until now there are no groups that have owned up to the virus. There's evidence and much speculation to point it towards Israel gov't but no definitive proof. A lot of the content that surrounded Stuxnet also hints to further organizations existing behind the veil. There were at a minimum 3 0-day exploits present in the vir…

Stuxnet was cyberwarfare, not hacktivism. The point of Stuxnet was to disable infrastructure, whereas the point of much of what Anon does is to get attention. Now, granted, that doesn't require the ego-driven hacks and braggery that we've seen from them, it simply requires getting in, getting out, and posting the data anonymously then promoting and publicizing the data, not the hackers. I suspect you may start to see more of the hacker cells aligned with anonymous take this approach in the future to minimize the heat that they feel personally.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#99

Post by hack_edu »

gavinlynch wrote: post #92
hack_edu wrote: post #26

Funny tht right around the time he was arrested, Lulzsec declared they were done and sailing off in their Lulzboat. Then they reappeared a few months later, probably started back up after Sabu went to the narcs. Luckily this was only after Anonymous put together their new decentralized teams that do the footwork now. Lulzsec is just a name now, very little work is done by their namesake anymore. The writer is a bit c…

"Luckily this was only after Anonymous put together their new decentralized teams that do the footwork now." "Luckily" ?

Luckily for them and, in my opinion, you and me as well.

Edit: Feel free to downvote, please tell me why my opinion is not a valid contribution to the discussion.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#100

Post by hack_edu »

gavinlynch wrote: post #98

One question: If the FBI knew of additional hacks that could expose things such as customer credit card numbers, should they have intervened? Did they intervene?

If they were involved an operation to export thousands of guns to Mexican drug gangs[1], surely killing hundreds in the process, then yes. If they knew, they probably wouldn't intervene. Even still, few (any?) Lulzsec attacks actually leaked unencrypted credit card data. Even then, the damage done by exposing credit cards is pretty negligible anyway.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

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