The day he was arrested, Anonymous's "Sabu" helped the FBI

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/05/literally-the-day-of-his-arrest-hacker-sabu-helped-the-fbi.ars

by iProject • 14 years ago

56 19 14 years ago

mahmud4• 14 years ago

I read elsewhere that he is the sole guardian of the two daughters of his aunt who's in jail. They're aged 6 & 10, IIRC. The kids have no one else and they would be shipped off to state custody if he ever goes away. Under those circumstances, I understand him wanting to go home before they come back from school.

roguecoder• 14 years ago

Except that he was willing to break the law in the first place, including using home computers where those girls live.

There are other explanations that would cover both his initial Anonymous activities and his rapid cooperation with the police, like enjoying the attention and power that comes with getting one over on other people.

billpatrianakos2• 14 years ago

People don't really think of the consequences until shit gets real. His reaction is totally understandable. I know a lot of us would try to be tough and claim we wouldn't cooperate with the Feds and sellout but when the FBI busts in and you're in cuffs lets see how tough we all are. I know I'd take a deal in a second.

In the same way that trolling forums posting racist, awful things is easy from behind a computer screen the same is true for "cybercrime". I once committed a pretty serious felony and it was easy to do because it wasn't a violent crime and it didn't feel like theft. It felt like a victimless crime. Crimes that seem victimless are really easy to commit. Anyone who meets me cannot believe I'm anything but an upstanding respectable citizen but I also didn't think of consequences before I did what I did. So I can understand how he could not think of his kids before he started hacking. When I got caught I took a deal too. It's something you just can't understand until you've been there.

JoachimSchipper2• 14 years ago

Truly, there is no honor among thieves.

This surprises me, actually: he was willing to invest a ton of time and effort in this, but rolls over at the first sign of trouble? It's not like it's surprising that he eventually got caught...

Anderkent• 14 years ago

And it's not surprising that once he was caught, the FBI could easily leverage his two daughters to terror him into cooperating?

gregbair• 14 years ago

It is surprising that as sole guardian of the girls, he would run the risk of them going into the state foster system just so he could get (illegal) lolz online. That's very irresponsible and I have no sympathy for him.

jakejake• 14 years ago

It doesn't really surprise me at all. I don't imagine most members of anonymous to be hardened criminals who are ready to go to prison.

JoachimSchipper2• 14 years ago

They are fond of the term "activists", and I've certainly seen e.g. Greenpeace's activists willingly risk prison.

sliverstorm2• 14 years ago

Plus, he never even met his cohorts. It is much easier to turn over a name on the screen than a face.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

It is a funny thing about people, sometimes they believe things that aren't true. You have teens who do crazy stuff because they don't believe they will fail and die. And you have criminals who do things believing that they will never get caught. Heck you have soldiers believing they can dispassionately kill other humans and not be affected by it. And when reality intrudes on the self deception, the results are even more unpredictable.

So we can't know what Hector's state of mind was, but we know that when he was confronted with prison time and the immediate loss of freedom he responded by mitigating that with co-operation. If you compare the impact on his personal life of that choice, versus 'taking one for the team', well it seems he made the right choice for Hector.

I suspect that recruiting people who would make the right choice for 'the cause' would require a different strategy than what is currently employed by the Anonymous community.

The day he was arrested, Anonymous's "Sabu" helped the FBI

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