Top LulzSec hackers arrested, group leader reportedly working for FBI

http://www.bgr.com/2012/03/06/top-lulzsec-hackers-arrested-group-leader-reportedly-working-for-fbi/

by zacharye • 14 years ago

121 31 14 years ago

Has this been confirmed? Can it be confirmed? This is Fox News, which is not a reliable source of information to me, especially not about anything related to technology. What is the chance that they just wanted a good press release on a slow news day and the FBI decided to play along?

jbooth• 14 years ago

The quote was from a law enforcement official that they'd arrested the various people, here's the BBC if you'd rather: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17270822

CWuestefeld• 14 years ago

You're welcome to take your news from whatever source you like. But on what basis do you decide that Fox News is less reliable than other MSM, e.g., ABC or NY Times?

As far as I can see, they've all got their biases. If you've convinced yourself that one is propaganda while the others are shooting straight (you didn't say that explicitly, but it seems to be implied), then I'm afraid that you're swallowing some serious propaganda as a result.

(I don't mean to defend Fox, but to indict all the MSM)

acheron• 14 years ago

Pretty much. Anyone who singles out Fox as any worse than any other media outlet is just showing their own ignorance.

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

I think it's less a problem of bias but more a problem of continued bad journalism practices (tabloid-like mistakes). Many others are also guilty of bad journalism regardless of their political bias. But Fox News has it up to a level that it's hard to believe anything they publish without first looking for a second source.

celticninja• 14 years ago

Well I think this argument would work except that you chose Fox News as your starting point. Yes the MSM all have agendas, however very few of them push it as hard a FN does theirs. Remeber, FN were the ones who went to court to protect their right to lie and not provide "news" but editorially biased content.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1262284675681492...

shareme• 14 years ago

Federal court NY District unsealed the charges this morning..as people were arrested

david_shaw• 14 years ago

Has this been confirmed?

The FBI released an official document of confirmation this morning: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/six-hackers-i...

cskau• 14 years ago

I'd say there is quite a difference between working for the FBI and as the title says working with the FBI.

According to the article the case here seems to the latter and not as the title here make it seem the former.

kirinan• 14 years ago

In the article title it says for the FBI, but in the article itself it says with the FBI. In this case, I think its just semantics because it was a sting operation so while he was working with them, he was also working for them as well.

To add a point to the article, I think they went too far in their operations saying to "open up on any government operation". Civil Disobedience, and taking down websites is one thing, leaking sensitive information is an entirely different story. This is also Fox news, so I don't know how bias or if this story is even the truth, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

tvon• 14 years ago

Colloquially speaking, "for" means the FBI is making matching contributions to his 401k, "with" means he is cooperating.

Technically speaking, either word works, but you need more than the OED to properly communicate meaning.

jakelear• 14 years ago

The article does have a quote using 'for.' '”They caught him and he was secretly arrested and now works for the FBI,” a unnamed source said to be close to Sabu told FoxNews.com.'

Certainly not a very credible citation, but it shows that the poster didn't generate the sensationalist title from thin air.

pharrington• 14 years ago

An NPR story earlier today said he was arrested and pled guilty, agreeing to a plea bargain with the FBI.

I'm too lazy right now to dig up the link on NPR's site though :(

pavelkaroukin• 14 years ago

Friend of friend of friend told that somebody he knows was arrested in Europe and extradited to USA with fraud charges. Initial sentence prosecutor was asking was something like 30-40 years. Recently I find out that this guy's sentence was reduced to 8 months for cooperation with FBI (and on top of it he have to reimburse some pretty significant amount of money to US government or something like that)...

So... Not that bad if you start cooperate with FBI. I would expect most of LulzSec gang to be disclosed pretty soon (except ones, who had enough wise to not disclose their private info to this guy from article)

SNK• 14 years ago

So the FBI has been waging war against the US government; interesting.

sliverstorm2• 14 years ago

If you read the article, the leader was not a proper member of the FBI. He merely collaborated with them.

marshray3• 14 years ago

If these reports are to be believed, Sabu was working on an FBI-provided laptop with direct 24-hour FBI surveillance of everything he was doing when he hacked Stratfor and dumped their emails to Wikileaks. Other parts of Anonymous disowned Sabu afterwards (see pastebin) for attacking Stratfor, which they considered a news organization and off limits.

The Stratfor leak involved almost 1M email addresses and ~100K credit card numbers. A lot of them are said to be bigshots in DC military/security circles.

No, I can't explain it either.

Sniffnoy• 14 years ago

So this confirms that the earlier Topiary arrest was mistaken, then?

gavinlynch• 14 years ago

Incorrect. Topiary was certainly arrested, this article does nothing to contradict that. You may have skimmed that last sentence and been confused. It does not state that Topiary was arrested, merely that the 5 taken in today were arrested for their involvement with the likes of Topiary.

driverdan• 14 years ago

Flagged for being blogspam of original article. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3670930

drhowarddrfine• 14 years ago

I heard the best term for these Anonymous crackers by someone interviewed on NPR today. "Lynch mobs". Very apt. He was describing them as people who go out to lynch those they don't agree with.

Top LulzSec hackers arrested, group leader reportedly working for FBI

Related Stories