Lulzsec's last supper

[Doktor Howl]

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

Could be the intelligence agencies are coopting the idea of anonymous.  I wonder who that would be aimed at?

[Triple Zero]

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

Why, trapping Assange is not an end goal either.

And Cain thanks for that elaborate explanation, very interesting! And I must admit I'm disappointed that LulzSec seems to have been infiltrated from so early on.

I didn't realize LulzSec was behind the Stratfor leaks, though. I thought it was just "anonymous".

Also what are your thoughts on th3j3st3r? I can't stand the guy, personally. He's still active, too, mainly taking down ("tango down") muslim extremist sites and stuff like that, but the way he relentlessly went after LulzSec and spoke out against Wikileaks, it's like he wants to paint himself as some weird type of "US patriot hacker" or something. But then why the whole charade. Why the l33tsp34k and the "jester" image, I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's a lot of conflicting signals coming from him. Or maybe it's just that I can't fathom how an activist hacker would speak against LulzSec and Wikileaks after they just exposed the corruption that they did. Though obviously he's not just an "activist hacker", but rather part of this whole operation, in some way, but it's still a very paradoxical character. A bit like how HB Gary was a business man on the one hand, but some of his behaviour was very childish. On the one hand th3j3st3r appears to be an activist hacker with an evil grinning joker image as an avatar, on the other hand he's an ex-military guy with a patriotic bend towards the part of the USA that is rotten to the core, meaning he MUST be paid because I can't see how you can have all this knowledge and talent (which he does--unless it's a team of people) and not at least somewhat realize how rigged the game is, how his "patriotism" is not benefitting 99% of his countrymen, at all. But people are willing to overlook that as long as you give them a fat paycheck.

[Cain]

Assange seems canny enough to know he can't get caught planning hacks and leaks, he can only receive them once he gets them.  After that, his journalistic credentials protect him, and he's protecting a whistleblower.

Of course, the US does have a nasty habit of both underestimating and massively overestimating their enemies, ie; "Bin Laden is weak and cowardly...but also might blow up the world!"  There's a propaganda element to this, but I've seen it occur enough in different domains to suspect its a general operating assumption of US intelligence and policing (and military) agencies.

I can't say I honestly know that much about th3j3st3r, except the speculation I've seen on the web.  Strikes me as another basement dwelling war-tard, only with some actual skills in the field of hacking.  I'd be surprised to find out he was actually ex-military, but he probably tried to get in, or works/worked in some other field with a uniform and a patina of authority, and hacks in his spare time.  He might be a consultant of some kind, for some national security state operation or corporation or another...but the whole badass hacktivist uber-patriotic soldier web-ninja persona strikes me as, well, childish, even by the standards of HB Gary and so on, and so I would tend to class him as a loner with a grandiose view of himself.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Assange should be smart enough for that, but he also should have been smart enough to avoid giving any government any trivial scrap of misconduct to use against him legally, and we all know how that one worked out.

As for him being an "end goal," you have to remember that the government still looks at the world in terms of hierarchy and leadership, so people like Sabu and Assange get all kinds of status in their minds as "end bosses" that they really don't deserve. We've already seen that the US government is willing to blow a whole lot of resources on trying to get him, and the way they've dealt with Manning indicates that they care a lot more about the military leaks than they want anyone to think. So, yeah, I could see them sacrificing a corporate ally in an attempt to nail him for good, especially if it turns out Stratfor or someone on its board recently fell from grace within government circles for some reason.

[Doktor Howl]

As for him being an "end goal," you have to remember that the government still looks at the world in terms of hierarchy and leadership, so people like Sabu and Assange get all kinds of status in their minds as "end bosses" that they really don't deserve. .

Yeah, The War Nerd did a good piece once on the fallacy of "Mr Big".

[Triple Zero]

I can't say I honestly know that much about th3j3st3r, except the speculation I've seen on the web.  Strikes me as another basement dwelling war-tard, only with some actual skills in the field of hacking.  I'd be surprised to find out he was actually ex-military, but he probably tried to get in, or works/worked in some other field with a uniform and a patina of authority, and hacks in his spare time.  He might be a consultant of some kind, for some national security state operation or corporation or another...but the whole badass hacktivist uber-patriotic soldier web-ninja persona strikes me as, well, childish, even by the standards of HB Gary and so on, and so I would tend to class him as a loner with a grandiose view of himself.

there's also the part that nobody has any dox on him, no info, except the bits he decided to release/leak himself (about being ex military, mainly). Of course it's perfectly possible to stay anonymous, especially if you're not up against the FBI but just a bunch of LulzSec hackers. But I find it strange, because just about any Anonymous fanboy with some seeking/social-engineering/stalking skills must have thought about trying to unmask th3j3st3r because he was TROLLING them badly, being arrogant, pompous, inflammatory, laughing in their faces. I'm certain that many, many people must have tried from all sorts of angles but really nothing came out.

While I know LulzSec has been stupid when it came to protecting their identity, yet if th3j3st3r is such a grandiose and arrogant warnerd basement dweller, he never slipped up, never said a word too much, not boasting about his accomplishments in ways that would give himself up, even the reports with chatlogs etc about how he tracked certain LulzSec members, I got the impression from watching Twitter discussions he had related to those reports that even the seemingly careless remarks thrown in were calculated either to send misinformation to LulzSec people trying to read between the lines, or to troll LulzSec into giving away even more.

Almost everything we said about LulzSec how they did not seem to know shit about OpSec--th3j3st3r seemed to really know his shit in that department.

Maybe it's that bit that made me wonder sometimes if maybe it was just a team of people. Hired cyberdefense or whatever. Because a team of people is less likely to brag, if they're smart and keep themselves distanced and just focused on the task at hand, without having to worry about prestige (because they're getting paid) or being arrested (because they're working for the gov).

[Telarus]

That's super interesting, Trip. Almost like a take from the surrealist collectives that produced art under one "pen name".

[Triple Zero]

It's just a consideration, though. But I'd assume they could be doing just that. See if you're an IRL secret agent infiltrator you can't share the job with another person because, you know, people would be able to tell But if you're operating exclusively online, all you need to make sure is that your writing styles are similar enough (or just have one person in the team do the writing). And once you got that covered, I see only advantages to doing it as a team because you got more mindpower, manpower and can keep eachother in check.

This is just speculation though, a thought I had. Cain could be just as right in that it's simply a basement dwelling military wannabe wartard.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I've noticed a lot more vitrol from some in the data security community about anon recently. Particularly the ex-military data security people who are painting them as an Evil that wants to destroy America. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in that position started playing a th3j3st3r-like role. Those guys tend to be closely connected to the FBI etc via Infragard and know security and hacking as well as anyone. Since they're being payed by major corps as consultants or internal IT security, some of them might have a business reason for trying to topple such a group.

I've seen more than a few complimentary comments aimed at th3j3st3r... and giddy cheering at the Sabu and Lulzsec news.

[LMNO]

Of course, the US does have a nasty habit of both underestimating and massively overestimating their enemies, ie; "Bin Laden is weak and cowardly...but also might blow up the world!"  There's a propaganda element to this, but I've seen it occur enough in different domains to suspect its a general operating assumption of US intelligence and policing (and military) agencies.

Cain, I love how you drop these little bits of gold almost offhandedly.  I had noticed something like this, but I could never put my finger on it.  Thanks!

[Random Probability]

I'm with triple zip on this one, but I'll go one further.  I recall a teaser I read a few years back about how the military considers the internet a free-fire zone.  I wouldn't be surprised if th3j3st3r turned out to be a PR front for such a group. From what I've seen of the intel crowd they probably have a good idea who those people really are and they're jealous that they don't have free-fire privileges as well.  Hence all the doomspeech about anon.

I'm also reminded of the "terrorist" craze of the early to mid nineties back when all the feds on the counter-intel desks were scrambling to keep their jobs.  Lots of smoke and mirrors and plenty of fuck ups.  In the end it always turns out that the best "bad guys" were government puppets all along.

[Cain]

It is also plausible that they are a group of some kind, with some kind of funding or official sanction.

The fact is, we know basically nothing about th3j3st3r, except what he/she/they reveal about themselves.  Which means, they could be anyone, from any kind of background. 

[Doktor Howl]

It occurs to me that this sort of smoke & mirrors shit makes things easier for anon, not harder.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It occurs to me that this sort of smoke & mirrors shit makes things easier for anon, not harder.

If anon can remain anonymous, I agree...

I was once a lackey (toady?) for the Legion of Doom. They got a little too loose lipped among themselves and when Fry Guy got caught, they all went down. Fortunately, no one cared about the wannabes 

[Doktor Howl]

It occurs to me that this sort of smoke & mirrors shit makes things easier for anon, not harder.

If anon can remain anonymous, I agree...

I was once a lackey (toady?) for the Legion of Doom. They got a little too loose lipped among themselves and when Fry Guy got caught, they all went down. Fortunately, no one cared about the wannabes 

AFAIK, the members of anonymous don't know who each other are.