Lulzsec by Public Enemy

Lulzsec

These days the computer news media uses the terms hacker and cybercriminal more or less interchangeably. That can be misleading. While their meanings overlap, they are not exactly the same thing in all contexts.

The Difference 

A cybercriminal is just what the name implies, a person who uses computer technology to commit a crime for which that person can be prosecuted. The crime usually involves illegally gaining access to one or more computer systems to steal information, take them offline or both, either for malicious purposes or financial gain. Breaking into computer systems involves hacking, so a cybercriminal can be considered a type of hacker.

A hacktivist is "a computer hacker whose activity is aimed at promoting a social or political cause," much like a traditional activist. The term isn't new. (The Oxford English Dictionary dates it to at least 1995.) But a group of hacktivists called Anonymous stole headlines all year, to great approval and simultaneously great criticism. Anonymous released IP addresses of alleged pedophiles and forced child-pornography sites offline. It launched a website called Anonymous Analytics, dedicated to exposing "corrupt companies." It attacked websites like PayPal in a protest to show support for WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange. It even set its electronic crosshairs on NATO after targeting Sony and the Church of Scientology. In short, the Anonymous hacktivists have been very busy little bees in the bonnets of many, many people.

My Hacktivist 

Lulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec

 Some of the most notable targeted websites include Sony Pictures’ internal database, CIA website and FBI’s contractor InfraGard among others. Although the group officially announced its retirement in June 2011 and suspect members of Lulzsec have been taken into police custody numerous related attacks have been reported by its affiliated groups since then.

Background

The group periodically releases stolen information from websites. They post the stolen data on their website in .txt files, on the web app pastebin or in torrents on their page on The Pirate Bay. Releases often are posted on Fridays and thus they made a hash tag called “#fuckfbifriday” that they use to tweet with. They have been known to use Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks and SQL injections to take down websites. The group appears to be mainly motivated by political causes related to economic and social justice, but also seem to appreciate hacking for pure entertainment 

Contribution to Society 

On June 23rd, Lulzsec also released a new set dubbed “Chinga La Migra,” a Spanish phrase meaning “fuck the border patrol,” which reveals hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, personal information of police officers and confidential documents including training manuals and personal email correspondence. In the press release, the group cited the legislation of SB1070 (Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act), a controversial anti-immigration law that was passed in the state of Arizona in April 2011, as their primary motive behind targeting the Department of Public Safety.

The documents classified as “law enforcement sensitive”, “not for public

distribution”, and “for official use only” are primarily related to border

patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to

infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest

movements. 

functioning as a "gadfly"? 

The latest in a string of attacks by a hacker group known as Lulz Security (LulzSec) targeted the Arizona police today. The hackers exposed user names and personal information of law enforcement officers as well as sensitive documents housed on their servers.

While rumors surfaced about a supposed kingpin of LulzSec being arrested by New Scotland Yard this week, their intimidation tactics continue, and we have no idea who the next target will be.

Plato's Apology of Socrates

For some reason, it seems that the government considers hackers who are out to line their pockets less of a threat than those who are trying to make a political point. Consider the case of Andrew Auernheimer, better known as “Weev.” When Weev discovered in 2010 that AT&T had left private information about its customers vulnerable on the Internet, he and a colleague wrote a script to access it. Technically, he did not “hack” anything; he merely executed a simple version of what Google Web crawlers do every second of every day — sequentially walk through public URLs and extract the content. When he got the information (the e-mail addresses of 114,000 iPad users, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel, then the White House chief of staff), Weev did not try to profit from it; he notified the blog Gawker of the security hole. This can be compared to Around 400 B.C., Socrates was brought to trial on charges of corrupting the youth of Athens and “impiety.” Presumably, however, people believed then as we do now, that Socrates’ real crime was being too clever and, not insignificantly, a royal pain to those in power or, as Plato put it, a gadfly. Just as a gadfly is an insect that could sting a horse and prod it into action, so too could Socrates sting the state.

In my conclusion I believe hactivist should never be prosecuted