Lulzsec's last supper

[Random Probability]

I thought Sabu just did some kind of exclusive interview and basically said Lulzsec was over and done...  Achievements achieved.  end of story.

hrm...

I also liked the bit in the article where they said one of the guys nabbed was part of "Anonymous".  rofl. Had to tie that in there somehow. Lining up the next windmill to fight, I see.  I wonder how much funding they got out of all that?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sure.  But does it make any real functional difference?  The Red Brigades were a real terrorist organization,, up until the Superclandestini coup within their ranks, and after that they became just another mechanism in the Italian "strategy of tension", a tool of the state to further centre-right, pro-American and corporate interests.

The government had the inside scoop on Lulzsecs activities for months, and yet they still let them round around hacking the shit out of everything.  A good question to ask is: why?

It makes a difference in how I view the FBI, and the other folks in lulzsec. As to the why, you can't bust everyone else unless they've actually done something you have proof of.

[Cain]

The problem is, even after Sabu declared "mission over" or whatever, Lulzsec did carry on hacking, most notably, the News of the World's email system, though they were also involved in several other major (and potentially politically sensitive) hacks.

The timeline appears to be this.

Late 2010, Lulzsec form from Anonymous' /i/surgency boards and IRC.  It consists of an inner circle, including Sabu, Kayla, Topiary, Pwnsauce, and a rotating number of assosciates and working cells, such as gn0sis.

After the Gawker hack, in December 2010, a group of online hackers opposed to Lulzsec, including almost certainly members of HBGary and an ex-military type called th3j3st3r, infiltrated the group and gathered large amounts of information on them, which they released in June 2011.  At the same time, Lulzsec started to feel heat for their FBI hack, and Sabu apparently turned sides.

Very shortly after this, a wave of arrests took place, and many members of Lulzsec were taken into custody.  But the arrests died down by September, which is roughly when Lulzsec started hacking again, only this time more quietly.

That is what concerns me, that after an initial wave of arrests, which took out a significant number of people, the FBI stopped, and only left people from the inner circle who had certain privileged skills or resources, (such as Kayla's botnet) in play. 

Why?  The information leaked, in addition to the wave of arrests, should have almost certainly netted all the major players.  The more people you arrest, the more evidence you have, and you can usually get people to offer up information in return for a lighter sentence.

Now, it's well known that various intelligence services will protect hackers in return for getting them information they want or need.  Maybe the FBI themselves were not guilty of this, it is more the purview of the CIA, or NSA, to give protection for such things, given prosecutions and thus correct acquiring of evidence are not their top priority.

But it looks to me like the investigation stalled, and then Lulzsec were fortunately left free to carry out hacking attacks on News International servers.  Rupert Murdoch.  Wall Street Journal.  Fox News.  London Times.  Sure, the phone-hacking news is taking place in the UK, but Corrupt Foreign Practices and all that.  It'd sure be nice to have information to blackmail Rupert Murdoch and his organization with, wouldn't it? And that's just assuming News International was the target, not someone else, another hack that maybe we haven't even heard of.  Lulzsec were part of the Stratfor hack, for example.  Who says they didn't keep a few things back to give the boys at Langley something to chew on?

And maybe Lulzsec went along with it for a bit, but then their members started to question why these particular targets?  Why not x?  People start getting suspicious, then obstinate.  Lulzsec isn't looking so useful anymore, the sudden barriers to investigation are lifted and the arrests start again.

Maybe there is an alternate explanation for why the investigation stalled.  But that it did stall, when it should have picked up pace, and that Lulzsec did carry on hacking, despite many members bailing because of the FBI hacks, both strike me as....odd.  Almost as odd as the corporate/ex-military infiltration of the group early on, at a time when there is big money to be made in protecting corporate and national security clients from cyber-attacks.  It would not be unfair to say that if the 2000s saw a counter-terrorism spending boom, then the 2010s saw a counter-cyberwarfare spending one.  At the very least there is the question of moral hazard in the actions of said infiltrators.

Another aspect that is not clear is when the infiltrators dropped dox and when Sabu turned sides.  Which happened first?  Exactly how much contact was there between the A-team and their friends in government?  Were they aware of aspects of the investigation?  Did they know Sabu had turned?

Questions like these are uncomfortable, but should be asked.  Given the extremely unethical conduct of intelligence and policing agencies in creating false flag operations, fake terrorist plots, hiring criminal groups and similar over the past decade in particular, the anomalies present in the investigation and timeline of events for Lulzsec should be considered carefully.

I'm not the only one to think Lulzsec was, at least in part being manipulated by a government organization or two.  I remember back in the day, I discussed the possibility with more than a few internet security experts, who concurred, though for different reasons than mine. 

Incidentally, I wouldn't want to be Sabu right now.  His name has been splashed on papers all over the world, and Anonymous have declared him a traitor

Sorry I couldn't explain my reasoning fully yesterday and had to post the Cliff Notes version, but I was kinda rushed off my feet.  The above is an expanded version of the thought process that I was thinking about yesterday, and sometimes I have trouble in elaborating my thoughts quickly.

But now can you see why I might have suspicions?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Loose Lips Sink LULZsec

Whats with these young whippersnapper 'hackers' today? Back in my day, you didn't know shit about your buddy except for his handle... and you wanted to keep it that way! We used to hack from 14.4 modems and we were HAPPY to have them! We had to duct tape bulk erasers to our hard drives and wire a trip switch to fry them if the feds knocked on the door. These kids today....

*grumble grumble unappreciative little snots grumble grumble*

[Telarus]

Much appreciated, Cain.

[Faust]

The funny thing is Anon is playing coy, eveyone was expecting out and out rage. But to maintain an image of an unbeatable faceless beast the official stance has to be "Sabu was our wayword son, and he never would have gotten caught if he hadn't made himself out to be a leader", and that the arrests mean nothing to them.

[Cain]

I believe they said something to the tune of "Lulzsec is an organisation, but Anonymous is a movement", too, which was a fairly subtle response.  I concur that they dealt with it quite well, considering.

[LMNO]

Chapter 30

If you're going to do some Covert Ops in the name of Discordia,
keep your head down, and Keep Your Fucking Mouth Shut.
A mowhawk is as good as a target during Police Action.

The wise spags toss a wrench into the Machine™,
and then walk away.
They strike against Authority, but don't put it on the Internet.
They subvert the paradigm, but don't stick around to watch.
They mindfuck the people, but don't pat themselves on the back.

If two people know a thing, it is not a secret.
Getting away with it means staying away from it.

[Cain]

Or it means being the police.

Cain,
recently been reading Art of the Coup d'Etat, which is a remarkable text on the workings of the modern state, incidentally.

[LMNO]

Damn.  There goes another book up on my "to do" list.

[navkat]

One word: Provocateurs. I honestly don't know why this concept is so far-fetched. Our government has already suspended the holiest of "A Free People" tenets and laws. Why should little things like "entrapment" and "conspiracy against its own people" make anyone cough?

Seems like a brilliant strategy to skim the boldest, brightest, cleverest and most outraged (and therefore, motivated) portion of your "problem" right off the top before the soup's even done cooking. Gather all ye battleships 'round the same port and then BLAMMO!

The only difference between this and Pearl Harbour is that the Japanese could only pull off a stunt like that once.

[Cain]

The FBI were somehow involved in the Stratfor hack

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/06/lulzsec-sabu-working-for-us-fbi

In a US court document, the FBI's informant – there described as CW – "acting under the direction of the FBI" helped facilitate the publication of what was thought to be an embarrassing leak of conference call between the FBI and the UK's Serious and Organised Crime Agency in February.

Officers from both sides of the Atlantic were heard discussing the progress of various hacking investigations in the call.

A second document shows that Monsegur – styled this time as CW-1 – provided an FBI-owned computer to facilitate the release of 5m emails taken from US security consultancy Stratfor and which are now being published by WikiLeaks. That suggests the FBI may have had an inside track on discussions between Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and Anonymous, another hacking group, about the leaking of thousands of confidential emails and documents.

[Placid Dingo]

They want to

Use,

Destroy,

Learn from,

These groups? I can't pick the likely motivation.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

They want to trap Julian Assange into knowingly accepting stolen material and/or helping to plan the theft.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Could be conspiracy... could just be that old Machine humming along as usual.