Missing From The Story: LulzSec Informant Sabu Released Early Because He Got LulzSec To Hack FOR The FBI

from the time-served-indeed dept

Earlier this week, there were plenty of reports about how Hector Xavier Monsegur, also know as "Sabu," the leader/turned informant of the Anonymous spinoff hacking project LulzSec, was released from jail early for his "extraordinary cooperation" with the FBI. Technically, this was at his sentencing, and he was given "time served" (amounting to about 7 months in jail). Most folks have noted that the "extraordinary cooperation" involved handing over the names and information on other LulzSec members, including Jeremy Hammond, who was recently sentenced (by the same judge) to 10 years in prison.

However, that seems to leave out the other, increasingly troubling, aspect of the Sabu story -- which was that he didn't just "cooperate" with the FBI in fingering various LulzSec members, he actually gave them orders (which first came from the FBI) on who to hack, including key government computers in a variety of foreign countries. It seems likely that this was the "extraordinary cooperation" that helped Sabu secure a much shorter sentence.

Two of the other individuals that Sabu helped authorities arrest and prosecute have commented on Sabu's deal. Jake Davis highlights how Sabu was a huge "get" for the FBI, since they didn't seem to understand much about internet hacking without Sabu to lead them through everything -- and he wonders if this will lead others to rush to become informants as well. In fact, Davis points out that the whole reason for the light sentence is probably to encourage more informants -- though, it could equally be argued that it's not just to encourage more informants, but more people who can help the FBI secretly hack into targets.

Meanwhile, another LulzSec member, Ryan Ackroyd, who was recently released after serving 9 months of a 30-month sentence, pointed out that while the sentence is unsurprising, it's somewhat ridiculous given Sabu was in many ways "the worst" of the bunch:

"Sabu was the worst one out of us all, he should have been given the largest sentence. He was the one stealing from people's bank accounts, credit cards and PayPal so that he could pay his bills and buy new things. Sabu talked people into hacking things for him and when he got caught he decided to snitch on these people, for something he asked them to do, in order to save himself."

Either way, no matter what you think of the situation and Sabu, it seems worth remembering that he didn't just help find other LulzSec members, he got them to hack specific FBI targets.

Filed Under: extraordinary cooperation, fbi, hacking, hector xavier monsegur, jake davis, jeremy hammond, leniency, lulzsec, ryan ackroyd, sabu, time served

Victims Of GCHQ's Denial Of Service Attacks Start Asking Who Are The Real Criminals?

from the doesn't-seem-right dept

Earlier today, we wrote about the latest Snowden docs, in which it was revealed that the UK spy agency, GCHQ, was engaged in DDoS attacks on people participating in Anonymous chats and other events, while also helping to identify certain participants, leading to their eventual arrests and convictions. Basically, it looks like GCHQ was engaged in widespread DDoSing, while at the same time helping to convict some kids for doing their own DDoSing. We've already questioned whether or not GCHQ is even supposed to be doing that to UK citizens (they're supposed to be focused on foreign targets), but some of those convicted are already questioning how it's right that they were convicted of the same thing that the GCHQ itself was doing to them.

Chris Weatherhead was sentenced to 18 months in prison for participating in a DDoS against Paypal, Mastercard and Visa (one of the first big Anonymous DDoS attacks, in response to those 3 companies cutting off payments to Wikileaks). Now he's pointing out that GCHQ was DDoSing his own servers, and he wonders how that's right:

My Government used a DDoS attack against servers I owned, and then convicted me of conducted DDoS attacks. Seriously what the fucking fuck?

— Chris Weatherhead (@CJFWeatherhead) February 5, 2014

Meanwhile, another Anonymous participant, Jake Davis, who was arrested and banned from the internet seems equally angry about things for pretty good reasons:

I plead guilty to two counts of DDoS conspiracy and to my face these GCHQ bastards were doing the exact same thing - http://t.co/Y4vo1qeN4I

— Jake Davis (@DoubleJake) February 5, 2014

Davis has also written a long piece concerning all this that is absolutely worth reading, asking a simple question: who are the real criminals here?

Why do British government spooks so brazenly attempt to inhibit the activities of acephalous online collectives and not, say, the hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church, or chat networks that encourage racism or paedophilia?

Or maybe the more important question: how can they even be permitted to launch these attacks at all? There's no justification for how nonchalant a democratic government can be when they breach the very computer misuse rules they strongly pushed to set in place.

When we look at what Western governments are doing - snooping on our emails, infecting our computers, intercepting our phone communications, following our avatars around in online games, backdooring our public encryption, discrediting our Internet viewing habits, encouraging illicit activity and even engaging in their own illicit activity - we have to ask ourselves: who are the real criminals here?

Others have similarly wondered if GCHQ is going to have to face charges over this, given that these actions appear to be entirely outside of its mandate and mission, and seem more compelled by just general dislike of some kids messing around.

Filed Under: anonymous, chris weatherhead, ddos, gchq, jake davis, legality, uk