FBI arrests LulzSec member "recursion" for Sony Pictures hack

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/fbi-arrests-lulzsec-member-for-sony-pictures-hack.ars

by alvivar • 15 years ago

39 45 15 years ago

patrickod• 15 years ago

It's hardly surprising that these people are being caught. Using a VPN service that resides primarily in the USA, the same jurisdiction in which your attacks are being carried out, seems a bit shortsighted.

laluser• 15 years ago

Exactly. At the level that these guys were playing at, I would assume that they would have protected themselves in a wiser manner

shin_lao• 15 years ago

Actually I'm not surprised. They got too comfortable. They got lazy. Properly covering your tracks is extremely cumbersome and boring.

tripzilch• 15 years ago

Well, there's that and there's using a USA-based VPN service.

They could have picked any other totalitarian police state in the world, Russian, Chinese proxies, they all accept creditcard, and the FBI could have done fuck all to get the logs.

Instead you know USA based companies are required to barf up the logs at the drop of a hat.

It's not just lazy, it's really really dumb.

tsotha4• 15 years ago

Good. Throw the book at him.

sophacles8• 15 years ago

What a great idea! Now we can focus on how evil this guy is, and not have to talk about Sony who in an act of pure altruism is requiring any users of their service to waive their right to hold Sony liable for not bothering to protect things they have a legal obligation actually protect. (Note: under no circumstances is allowing an sql injection attack evidence of anything other than criminal neglect and those who have a susceptible product should be just as liable as those who manufacture faulty vehicles.)

coderdude6• 15 years ago

Quit it with this hippy tech youth crap. The guy committed a crime. Get over it. It's time for him to face justice. I swear, some people are retarded.

9999• 15 years ago

Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Recursion. One of these is not like the others.

sophacles8• 15 years ago

You're right. Neslon Mandela led and participated in a group which committed violent acts of sabotage and resistance (including human right violations according to Mandela himself).

I know you mean Recursion, because you are not on the same side as him, but at least try to pick examples that don't undermine your own freaking point.

maeon3• 15 years ago

Arrest these evil-doers, copying information and defacing images.

In other news, why is the FBI suffering from such a shortage of willing hackers? More hypocrisy after the break.

DNeb• 15 years ago

Hope he's still lul'ing

guelo• 15 years ago

It would be great if they would go to trial so that maybe we could find out how the FBI tracked them down. My suspicion is that it's all an abuse of spying laws intended for terrorism. Unfortunately these guys will probably all plead.

Steko2• 15 years ago

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201138/7643/Proxy-l...

"According to HideMyAss.com, “…services such as ours do not exist to hide people from illegal activity. We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies if it has become evident that your account has been used for illegal activities.”

The service stores logs for 30-days when it comes to Website proxy services, and they store the connecting IP address, as well as time stamps for those using the VPN offerings."

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

Why on Earth would he use hma when tor is readily available and far better at hiding your nefarious deeds? At the very least, if you live in the US, use an extranational vpn. Take some of those "hacking" skills and use your neighbour's wifi, wiping the logs after each session. For the FBI to have an IP address that leads back to you means you're incompetent.

The lack of technological sophistication from these guys just further highlights the negligence on the part of the victims. If someone who knows this little about security can infiltrate your network and steal your secrets, then you have serious problems.

antimora• 15 years ago

In that can how is HideMyAss.com useful? Wasn't the service able to guarantee the anonymity?

brownie• 15 years ago

Not for illegal activity, according to an article on Tech Herald:

"Logs, seized equipment, and testimony from those arrested, seems to be the undoing for those connected to Anonymous and LulzSec. ...According to HideMyAss.com, ...services such as ours do not exist to hide people from illegal activity. We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies if it has become evident that your account has been used for illegal activities

The service stores logs for 30-days when it comes to Website proxy services, and they store the connecting IP address, as well as time stamps for those using the VPN offerings."

Furthermore - if you're using a VPN service to stay anonymous, you're only staying anonymous from whatever you're accessing, not the VPN service itself.

ltamake• 15 years ago

The only service I can think of that doesn't store any sort of data is ipredator.se (which is what I use). I know there are a few more (I think SwissVPN is safe too), but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Jach• 15 years ago

I always thought the main purpose of things like HideMyAss.com are to get around stupid filters installed at your workplace or school. Thankfully neither for me have filters, but I've visited my old high school a number of times and I just throw everything through an ssh connection to my home machine.

infinity• 15 years ago

I wouldn't trust this service, because I can't find any information about who is running this service - at least not in the few minutes I have spend clicking around on their site. Maybe there is some info somewhere, I have not found it.

In another comment a quote from a different article was mentioned regarding the Terms of Service. I could not find a page about the terms of service. Maybe it's me, but I think that these informations should be easy to find on a site.

Some other interesting points about this service are explored in an article by rsnake from ha.ckers.org:

http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100104/anonymous-proxy-woes/

"So yeah, please don’t use CGI proxies, unless you really know what you’re doing. They really very rarely increase your security. Most of the time, they just decrease it, as a matter of fact."

Steko2• 15 years ago

Maybe try 8 proxies next time?

(realize he was not actually behind 7 proxies)

FBI arrests LulzSec member "recursion" for Sony Pictures hack

Related Stories