LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested • Hacker News Board

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#21

Post by redthrowaway » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:12 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #20

yalue wrote: post #5

I find it hard to believe that European kids care that much about the CIA or Arizona's immigration laws. Yet many of these alleged LulzSec arrests seem to be in Europe.

I'm personally a bit curious as to why it's only been European (only UK perhaps?) people. I'd think the FBI would in on it too.

They will be. This latest round of arrests by the FBI were made based on the PayPal attacks, which were ages ago. LulzSec didn't even start going until months later, and the attacks that would have really pissed off the FBI happened just recently. The FBI is big and slow, but they'll get around to it if they have any evidence of members in the US.

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#22

Post by ellyagg » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:14 PM UTC

schrototo wrote: post #8

yalue wrote: post #5

I find it hard to believe that European kids care that much about the CIA or Arizona's immigration laws. Yet many of these alleged LulzSec arrests seem to be in Europe.

I think every wannabe-hacker wants to "hack" the CIA and Arizona's racist laws have been covered extensively on comedy programs like The Daily Show which I'd imagine are popular with anti-authoritarian internet-savvy youths worldwide.

Of course, if it were really about their problems with "racist" immigration laws, many countries in Europe have stronger and more strictly enforced immigration policies.

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#23

Post by Aloisius » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:15 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #6

The other day his Twitter feed was cleaned up and a single tweet remained: http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary/status/94225773896015872 reading "You cannot arrest an idea". I guess he saw this coming.

You may not be able to arrest an idea, but you sure can give its owner more jail time for destroying evidence. What was he thinking?

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#24

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:18 PM UTC

colinplamondon wrote: post #10

zgorgonola wrote: post #7

Interesting that this arrest follows just a week after a series of other arrests in USA/UK/NL regarding LulzSec and Anonymous: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/07/20/arrests-lulzsec-a... Not a good time to be a hacktivist

Hacktivists? These guys are breaking into private companies and stealing property. They're criminals .

[deleted]

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#25

Post by driverdan » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:18 PM UTC

I'm curious what led to all the arrests. It's not that hard to hide your identity if you truly want to be anonymous.

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#26

Post by sausagefeet » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:19 PM UTC

For computer crime do they have to be able to draw a direct line from the act to the person's computer? Also, does a persons computer legally mean they committed the crime? What I'm getting at is, could a group like LulzSec guarantee lighter sentences for themselves if a line could be drawn from the crime to the group but you couldn't determine who actually hit the keyboard?

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#27

Post by dlss » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:20 PM UTC

chippy wrote: post #18

I am very curious as to the methods of how they caught him. Anyone care to guess, or know?

Well, since no one else is wading in here's what look like the usual suspects to me:

- obvious digital connection (forgot to use tor / ipredator / hacked vpn)

- timing attacks (keeping normal waking hours for his home country, using a vpn instead of tor)

- word frequency attacks (since he wrote a lot of press releases, his word choices may have been cross correlated with a personal blog)

- bragging to a friend

- getting flagged after showing up at a political/high-suspicion meet up (which might be enough to allow for a timing attack)

- voice analysis from interviews he did w/o a voice transformer being matched to other audio

- opsec blunders (loose lips when talking to press / on IRC / wherever anon talks)

Anyone else have any guesses?

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#28

Post by cowboyhero » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:21 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #6

The other day his Twitter feed was cleaned up and a single tweet remained: http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary/status/94225773896015872 reading "You cannot arrest an idea". I guess he saw this coming.

Almost positive that's a direct quote toward the end of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta.

Which kinda makes me grin and roll my eyes at the same time.

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#29

Post by fragsworth » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:23 PM UTC

Aloisius wrote: post #23

jgrahamc wrote: post #6

The other day his Twitter feed was cleaned up and a single tweet remained: http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary/status/94225773896015872 reading "You cannot arrest an idea". I guess he saw this coming.

You may not be able to arrest an idea, but you sure can give its owner more jail time for destroying evidence. What was he thinking?

I don't think anyone can claim the evidence was destroyed. All of their posts have been archived in many places.

Re: LulzSec's 'Topiary' arrested

#30

Post by fragsworth » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 6:25 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #25

I'm curious what led to all the arrests. It's not that hard to hide your identity if you truly want to be anonymous.

I would imagine it is pretty hard to make no mistakes. He might have accidentally logged into his twitter account (or some other account known to be his) through the wrong browser, which allowed them to see his real IP address.