FBI Arrests LulzSec and Anonymous Hackers 289
Velcroman1 writes "The FBI arrested two alleged members of the hacking collectives LulzSec and Anonymous on Thursday morning in San Francisco and Phoenix. Search warrants were also being executed in New Jersey, Minnesota and Montana, an FBI official told FoxNews.com. A document purported to come from the FBI leaked online earlier this month called these hacker groups a national security threat. One individual was described as part of the LulzSec group, the other belongs to the group that calls itself Anonymous, the official said. The suspected hacker arrested in California is homeless and alleged to have been involved in the hacking of Santa Cruz County government websites."
Hang Them (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh yes indeed.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh yes indeed.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.
Low-hanging fruit & lazy Feds. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh yes indeed.... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is nothing of greater threat to national security than a HOMELESS hacker. Though I guess it is good as any excuse to get such riff-raft off the curbs. Why just the other day I saw this homeless person and immediately thought; you know, that person is probably a real threat to my countries security and needs FBI involvement to justify their jailing.
It's easier to go after the kiddies than to address the real threats, such as the Russian mafia or whoever is doing the stuff from China.
Oh No!!! Not Our Website!!! How Will We Survive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's part of the hilarity with these lulsec/anonymous kids. They keep picking fights with ginormously powerful entities which would not think twice about tossing them into small cells at the bottom of a deep holes, yet they seem to feel these Death Star Agencies and Corporations will back off due to the punks' mad skillz with internet servers.
In Chicago, they call that "bringing a knife to a gun fight."
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Inspired by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Guess I shouldn't expect much better from Fox News.
Captcha was "wiretaps".
Re:Oh yes indeed.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite the political rhetoric, you don't get arrested for your potential threat, you get arrested for an alleged crime. Pretty simple concept.
If I spray-paint "My mom's a whore call here at 555-1212" on the side of your car, I broke the law. It doesn't matter if I'm homeless or not.
National Security threat modeling (Score:2, Insightful)
If national security can be threatened by Anonymous or Lulz, it seems to me we don't have much in the way of national security.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or the first rounds of kids they picked up in the UK and US started rolling over on others. Which would be a bit... humorous. We know that many of the ones at the top know each others identities. And it wouldn't be entirely surprising, given that they nailed the important kids first. Ideologies can degrade quickly when you're being held by the authorities and looking at a prison term.
The important take-away here is, Anon is not some leaderless collective of political activists. There is a top, and the remaining bulk are just kids that are occasionally used as DDoS drones. Those few people steer the rest to engage in some truly dumb activities, while they attempt slightly more involved "hacks" in the background, figuring that if anyone is ever caught, it'll be the drones.
Authorities got some of the heads, and now they're taking everyone else down, bit-by-bit. Various pretenders will call themselves "Anon" in the future, but the ones you actually know from headlines are a small group of people, and they're being thoroughly routed. As was predicted.
I'm not happy or sad about it, really. I just think it's obvious that the pretentious image of a leaderless, rogue group of genuinely anonymous people acting to right social wrongs is mostly bogus. It just makes good copy.
Re:Oh yes indeed.... (Score:2, Insightful)
As it is, the homeless are often stalked and harassed by the cops(predators like to practice in between the real hunts) and even beaten and manslaughtered by the law or gangs of masked, steroid-addled MMA freaks.
And surprise, surprise - Obama will pull the troops out of Iraq and place them in domestic security, prison, and law enforcement jobs, coincidentally the only jobs that will be left, just in time for the economic meltdown and popular revolt. The combat-hardened half of the population will be turned loose against the half with starving children and no roof over their heads.
That's why true red-blooded Americans must fight on two fronts, with a laptop in one hand and a loaded gun in the other.
Re:Oh No!!! Not Our Website!!! How Will We Survive (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the point is it is funny. That is it. Anonymous is in it for the lulz. If some of the horde gets taken out nobody really cares.
Also "LulzSec" are actually pretty terrible at hacking. Most of it is really low rent exploits and social engineering which is why it is so amusing how much "damage" they have caused. The only thing that makes them a cut above a thousand other minor hackers is that they are publicising it, which is exactly the best way to piss the corporations off. They don't care that much about the intrusions, just that their customers are finding out how unsafe these "trusted" companies are.
P.S. The real dangerous hackers live in non-extradition countries and have thugs with guns at hand. They aren't scared of the FBI.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's PR control by the law enforcement. Arrest a few people here and there and no one really makes a fuss... Arrest hundreds of people at one time and people start questioning what's happening...
Bullshit. Arrest hundreds of people at one time and it's called a "crackdown." The Fibbies have done it before, and they'd do it again in a heartbeat if they knew enough.
And people would applaud it if they did. The Anonymous clowns have done a lousy job of drumming up sympathy for their supposed cause. What they call "protests" come across as stupid childish pranks and vandalism, because nobody took responsibility, nobody stood up for the "cause." (Real sit-ins have people lining up to be arrested and declining bail to fill the jails and make their point.)