British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=22280

by nextparadigms • 15 years ago

136 33 15 years ago

dailytech.com

citricsquid• 15 years ago

I read this article earlier. I don't understand the following line from the chatlog:

> Topiary: better not hit me on April fool's day

is this a joke that has gone over my head, or are the logs indeed from March?

Edit: looks like I'm a fool, the logs are indeed from March and are unrelated to this incident. I thought the article was using them as proof of this incident being part of "duping" the police, but it's actually being used to show Topiary from England != Lulzsec topiary. My mistake. Will leave comment in case anyone else makes the same mistake.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

Yeah, it was all a little unclear. I'm still not sure whether LS's Topiary stole the name from a troll, or a troll started using Topiary's name.

Not that it matters... In the end, it looks like the real Topiary is in a different country altogether from where the arrest was made.

Absolutely hilarious.

How long before the police discover their mistake, I wonder?

gjm11• 15 years ago

Not quite so hilarious for the person who (if this story is right) has been arrested for things he didn't do.

DNeb• 15 years ago

Sad to watch them try to send another guy to jail for what they did. "No honor among thieves" came to mind.

delinka• 15 years ago

I rather see it as highlighting a weakness in the system. Arresting someone on suspicion without evidence tying the human to the twitter account and to the actual crime is a sad state of affairs. People should be made aware that this kind of thing cam happen with little recourse for the mistakes of the police.

GHFigs• 15 years ago

I don't know precisely how it works in Scotland, but presumably they had evidence sufficient to obtain a warrant for the arrest. Are you really saying the police should have to prove guilt before arresting suspects?

mc32• 15 years ago

Wouldn't the analog(ue) be framing? Just because one can frame people (on-line or IRL) doesn't mean the system is flawed. It just means there are people out there willing to have someone else be the fall-person as an end, or as a distraction to buy time in order to escape (or allow the trail of evidence to tail off/go cold.)

nikhilgk• 15 years ago

Makes one wonder if their monikers are really tightly tied to real persons. Maybe the core group uses their names interchangeably and when one of them is ousted with a raid, some one else from the group assumes the online identity.

r00fus• 15 years ago

You would make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.

chopsueyar• 15 years ago

Wesley?

ahi• 15 years ago

Not all that surprising. Eventually the LulzSec people will get popped inadvertently, but they'll run law enforcement in circles for quite a while before it happens. LulzSec and Anonymous thrive on ambiguity and confusion so they can keep piling on the lies and deception. They have no need to get their story straight, just keep law enforcement in a cloud of doubt. This entire chatlog could be bullshit, a little disinfo to muddy the waters. If Swedish Topiary gets popped you release some logs revealing yourself to be Shetland Topiary trolling the Swede.

jgrahamc• 15 years ago

The explanation in this article seems pretty tenuous and the title could at least do with being "British police might have been duped by LulzSec into arresting the wrong person".

hello123_345• 15 years ago

my 5 cents:

* the antilulzsec movement is missleading information created by lulzsec themselves

* chatlogs are just text. they do not prove anythinh

* i guess they raided the guys home not without reason...

SoftwareMaven• 15 years ago

If I were betting, I'd be with you on this, even though the reason to raid may have been deliberately planted misinformation from lulzsec.

rhizome• 15 years ago

It might be helpful to know what ISP this guy used.

wbhart• 15 years ago

Wasn't topiary supposedly the guy who was doing the interview during which the WBC got hacked? If so, they have his voice on tape. Certainly wasn't British. At the time I thought French, but Swedish would fit.

The slightly annoying thing is that we may never know. The real topiary is not going to reappear if they've arrested the wrong guy. The police are certainly not going to give up their arrest. And presumably they've got this guy in custody on something. So I assume they can make the charges stick. I'm sure they've arrested him under his real name for something he actually did, not topiary for being a member of Lulzsec.

The public certainly don't care. It only matters that justice appears to be done.

So it looks to me like everyone is happy (except the guy who got arrested of course).

astine• 15 years ago

If he's really from Shetland he wouldn't sound British. He might sound Swedish though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetlandic

mattmanser2• 15 years ago

That's english with a few more words, they still sound scottish, not swedish.

From a bit of youtubing and googling the few clips I've heard are instantly recognizable as scottish, with a few words you don't understand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij60XUvWjZY&feature=playe...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVxNxnXo7-c&playnext=1...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx5MgoL5tQ8

The UK has a phenomenal amount of dialects, they're all British though and even a Londoner can tell the difference between a Swedish accent and a British one.

hugh32• 15 years ago

The real topiary is not going to reappear if they've arrested the wrong guy

He might. Why? For the lulz, of course.

aw3c2• 15 years ago

Contrary to what the headline suggests, this is just speculation.

rmason• 15 years ago

Or maybe Topiary's friends are trying to convince the police they got the wrong guy and get some added publicity at the same time?

dwyer• 15 years ago

More than likely. The conversation seems like a movie script. Too cut and dry; everything spelled out for the audience.

> Topiary: (as you know I stole this nickname from a troll last December, didn't work out so well)

Give me a break.

zhazam• 15 years ago

This seems likely - the "police are dumbasses" mentality, and popular image of LulzSec as clever hackers really doing it for "lulz", allow them to present stories like this -and- gain support.

Not to dismiss the possibility entirely, of course - but it is awfully consistent with their previous attempts to hide the fact that they're on a sinking ship.

rektide• 15 years ago

Going after people running Low Orbit Ion Cannon and expecting to get top brass is... incredible wishful thinking.

rdtsc• 15 years ago

I think they just need to get someone. Doesn't really matter who. Find some random gullable 13 year old wanna-be-hacker kid that ran LOIC for a while. Parade him in front of the media and judges, send him off to juvie, handshakes and bonuses for everyone involved... Police, prosecutors, media, all get to pat theselves on the back. That is what this is really about.

hugh32• 15 years ago

Which itself achieves a positive outcome, by communicating to the next gullible 13-year-old who might be thinking about doing something stupid to someone else's computer that there might be real-world consequences to it.

British Police Duped by LulzSec Into Arresting the Wrong Guy?

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