Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Story of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman

Author:Gabriella Coleman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: ScreamQueen, kickass.to
ISBN: 9781781685839
Publisher: Verso
Published: 2014-10-07T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

LulzSec

LulzSec—a crew of renegade hackers who broke away from Anonymous and doubled as traveling minstrels—appeared a few months after the infamous HBGary Federal hack. Crewed by the same individuals who had vindictively hacked Aaron Barr, LulzSec’s startling fifty-day catalytic run began in early May 2011 and abruptly ended in mid-June, soon after one of their own, Sabu, was apprehended and flipped in less than twenty-four hours by the FBI. Among their targets were Sony Music Japan, Sony Picture, Sony BMG (Netherlands and Belgium), PBS, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the US Senate, the UK Serious Organized Crime Agency, Belthesda Softwares, AOL, and AT&T. Despite the avalanche of activity—and numerous intrusions—LulzSec, when compared to Anonymous, was more manageable and contained, at least from an organizational perspective. Its members hacked with impunity, finally making good on the 2007 Fox News claim that Anonymous was comprised of “hackers on steroids.”

LulzSec members played their role knowing full well they were performing for a diverse audience. Even the haughtiest of security hackers who had earlier snubbed Anonymous cheered on LulzSec. Old-school black hates lived vicariously through LulzSec, in awe of its swagger, its fuck-you-anything-goes attitude, and its bottomless appetite for exposing the pathetic state of Internet security. Journalists could not get enough of their antics, nor could they really keep up. With so many intrusions, exfiltrations, and data dumps, LulzSec blew out the usual three-day news cycle. For much of its reign, LulzSec taunted journalists with the lure of information and then gave them the silent treatment—with one notable exception: Parmy Olson of forbes.com. These hackers (almost) exclusively fed her info about their dealings and, to retain her privileges, she was discrete about the arrangement.1

Although they gave Parmy Olson enough information so she could write her stories, LulzSec’s main gateways to the world were their website, their Twitter account, and the website pastebin.com, where all their dumps were mirrored and their proclamations released. Pastebin is typically used by programmers to post small snippets of text, source code, or configuration information for a short period of time. It generates a unique URL that can then be pasted into IRC for others to view. Instead of pasting multi-line text into IRC channels—something that will get you kicked out of a channel for “flooding”—you can simply provide the link. These generated links are typically unmemorable random characters and typically expire after some time. Pastebin.com is only one among a multitude of Pastebin sites, so why LulzSec chose this medium is a bit of a mystery. One convenient property of using a Pastebin is that once the text is on the site, then the site is hosting the text, so LulzSec didn’t need to host any infrastructure for their missives. Their Twitter account amassed followers in bulk, sometimes twenty thousand per week. Penned by their resident trickster, Topiary, he crafted delightful updates, often maintaining a maritime character.

The LulzSec team was sailing the high seas—venturing deep into international waters with a pirate flag hoisted high, putting on a show for others to watch.

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