Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LulzSec brought down by own leader

foxnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 139 posts

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#101

Post by tathagatadg »

redthrowaway wrote: post #97
TheCapn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

Great distinction of cyberwarfare and hacktivism ... its unfortunate that both get shown in the same light while they clearly have different motive behind them.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#102

Post by codesuela »

No surprise here considering that 25% of hackers cooperate with law enforcement[1]. These people aren't hardened members of violent crime organisations like Gangs or various mobs and are probably very easy to "break". On the other side hackers tend to trust each other way to much and share personal details inside their group which makes infiltration very easy. Sure you can be behind 7 proxies when you hack something but that doesn't matter as soon as you start talking to your hacker buddies about your personal life without using OTR or even bothering to sign into chat services with a proxy. As soon you start sharing details about how you're in love with a girl or that you feel depressed or you are about to order pizza at place X it's pretty much over for you.

These hacker groups are like a clique a social circle of friends but most "hackers" don't think that their "friends" will rat them out in a second. Most of them probably have never been interrogated or even any contact with law enforcement and therefor very easy to intimidate.

[1]http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/06/us-hackers-...

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#103

Post by troutwine »

hack_edu wrote: post #99
gavinlynch wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

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

Elaborate, please?

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#104

Post by freshhawk »

troutwine wrote: post #103
hack_edu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Luckily for them and, in my opinion, you and me as well. Elaborate, please?

I wouldn't, troutwine is probably informing as well!

Why else would one pretend to be so dense except to get you to go on the record as supporting Anonymous?

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#105

Post by hack_edu »

troutwine wrote: post #103
hack_edu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Luckily for them and, in my opinion, you and me as well. Elaborate, please?

In short, Anonymous targets and humiliates authoritarians and those who service them. This is at the core of my morality.

Their hacks illustrate the glaring weaknesses of our technology and that the incompetence in infosec so often spawns from negligence at the highest of levels in the industry. Despite this, powers that be (nation-states, militaries, and regional law enforcement) invest nearly nothing in securing their (public) assets. They demonstrate that organizations like Sony, the State Department, and the Pentagon can go months without even knowing of full-root breaches, only to wait yet more months to inform the public.

Luckily, Anonymous does all this for the sake of Teh Lulz (public humiliation), rather than corporate or state espionage.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#106

Post by eli »

corford wrote: post #54
ebbv wrote: post #7

Oh 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...

Give credit where its due: Fox News broke this story. The Guardian report appears to be based solely on the earlier Fox story and public documents.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#107

Post by tlb »

kyledrake wrote: post #15

This 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.

It may include damage to reputation -- Sony could easily claim hundreds of millions there.

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#108

Post by eridius »

hack_edu wrote: post #105
troutwine wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Luckily for them and, in my opinion, you and me as well. Elaborate, please?

In short, Anonymous targets and humiliates authoritarians and those who service them. This is at the core of my morality. Their hacks illustrate the glaring weaknesses of our technology and that the incompetence in infosec so often spawns from negligence at the highest of levels in the industry. Despite this, powers that be (nation-states, militaries, and regional law enforcement) invest nearly nothing in securing th…

> Luckily, Anonymous does all this for the sake of Teh Lulz (public humiliation), rather than corporate or state espionage.

Or so they say. There seems to be an awful lot of blind trust that Anonymous (or people claiming to be Anonymous) really do have the goals that they've stated. If Anonymous, or a splinter group, goes after some random company, ostensibly to humiliate them, what's to say they're not being paid by the company's rivals?

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#109

Post by [deleted] »

eridius wrote: post #108
hack_edu wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, Anonymous targets and humiliates authoritarians and those who service them. This is at the core of my morality. Their hacks illustrate the glaring weaknesses of our technology and that the incompetence in infosec so often spawns from negligence at the highest of levels in the industry. Despite this, powers that be (nation-states, militaries, and regional law enforcement) invest nearly nothing in securing th…

> Luckily, Anonymous does all this for the sake of Teh Lulz (public humiliation), rather than corporate or state espionage. Or so they say. There seems to be an awful lot of blind trust that Anonymous (or people claiming to be Anonymous) really do have the goals that they've stated. If Anonymous, or a splinter group, goes after some random company, ostensibly to humiliate them, what's to say they're not being paid by…

[deleted]

Re: LulzSec brought down by own leader

#110

Post by mkramlich »

driverdan wrote: post #75

As a former blackhat and ID thief who used to spend a lot of time in "underground" chatrooms and forums this doesn't surprise me at all. This is a standard pattern LE follows. Start with small arrests, work your way up, get someone at the top level to be an informant, take everyone down. Works for any type of group. This always works because people are foolish and too trusting. The best rule is to assume everyone is…

> The best rule is to assume everyone is LE trying to catch you.

This sounds wise. But I'd argue that it's wiser to not be engaging in activities where you even have to worry about that. If your rule is the best rule, my rule is even better. :P

Post reply on HN