FBI Arrests LulzSec, Anonymous Hackers ‘Betrayed By Insider’

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Top members of the infamous computer hacking group LulzSec have been arrested by law enforcement agencies and will face charges in a New York court.

A law enforcement official has confirmed the allegations would be made public on Tuesday in court.

Earlier Fox News reported that three of the five hackers were arrested and the other two were charged with conspiracy. The five are identified in the report as Ryan Ackroyd, aka “Kayla” and Jake Davis, aka “Topiary” from London, two residents of Ireland, Darren Martyn, aka “pwnsauce” and Donncha O’Cearrbhail, aka “palladium”, and Jeremy Hammond aka “Anarchaos,” from Chicago, USA – but it is unclear who will face what charges.

One of the detained, Jeremy Hammond, is believed to have been the main person behind the hack on US security company Stratfor last year. Sources close to the investigation also said Hammond will be charged in a separate indictment, and they described him as a member of Anonymous.

It is reported that the arrests were made possible after turning the group’s “senior leader”, Hector Xavier Monsegur “Sabu”, 28, who is believed to be a cooperative witness after the FBI turned him last June.

According to the court papers, Sabu was an “influential member of three hacking organizations – Anonymous, Internet Feds and Lulz Security – that were responsible for multiple cyber attacks on the computer systems of various businesses and governments in the United States and throughout the world.” He allegedly acted as a “rooter,” a computer hacker who identified vulnerabilities in the computer systems of potential victims.

Following the reports, Anonymous posted on its Twitter feed: “We are Legion. We do not have a leader nor will we ever. LulzSec was a group, but Anonymous is a movement. Groups come and go, ideas remain”

It is unclear what to expect from Anonymous in reaction to the arrests. The hacking group is known for revenge cyber attacks. After 25 Anonymous members were arrested on February 29, the group downed Interpol’s main website. The same thing happened when the CIA website became a victim of Anonymous. The group also downed several large music industry websites in responce to the shutting down of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder Kim Dotcom.

News reports have quoted several FBI officials involved with the investigation as saying “this is devastating to the organization”, and claiming these arrests are “chopping off the head of LulzSec.”

Anonymous were quick to reply, using their twitter AnonyNewsNet handle to say “by no means is this ‘cutting the head off’ of #Anonymous or ‘devastating to the organization’. Do we really have to explain why?”. The same account was also used to post comments about how the betrayal was not news to most of Anonymous members, as “Sabu was pegged for f*cking months as a turncoat”.

The evident change is mentioned a lot and by many – including Gizmodo editor Sam Biddle, who said in his article that he personally “talked to Sabu multiple times, and on each occasion he’s seemed more and more distant, to the point where it was hard to get in touch with him at all. Now, says the FBI, it’s because he was busy ratting out his cadre.”

The irony is painfully evident – the man who every week helped the internet community celebrate #FuckFBIFriday allegedly did so sitting at an FBI desk. His fate is unclear – as is the scope of the Federal investigation, but Anonymous members everywhere seem to have been united by this betrayal, rather than disheartened, as the Feds may have hoped.

RT

RT, previously known as Russia Today, is a global multilingual news network that is funded by the Russian government and has been labelled as a propaganda outlet by the US State Department.

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