Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

U.K. Arrests Two More Suspected Members of LulzSec


The summer that started out dominated by news of attacks by the hacker gang LulzSec/Anonymous is closing with news of more arrests of alleged members of the group by police in the U.K.

Scotland Yard says it has nabbed two more people that it says are members of the group; one of them is said to be connected to crimes committed under cover of the online identity “Kayla.”

In a statement, police did not release the names of the two men arrested. They are aged 20 and 24, and one comes from the town of Mexborough, while the other comes from Warminster. The arrests were conducted in cooperation with local police and the FBI. In one case, a home was searched and computer equipment taken.

It was the second pair of arrests in as many days. On Thursday, police arrested two others as part of the growing worldwide investigation into the activities of LulzSec and Anonymous.

And yet the hacker crimes continue, seemingly unabated. Anonymous has dubbed today “Texas Takedown Thursday” or #TTT on Twitter. The target: Law enforcement agencies in the state of Texas, in apparent retaliation for the arrests earlier this summer of 16 people said to be associated with Anonymous.

The group says it has leaked about three gigabytes worth of email and other data from private email accounts it says belong to certain police officials in Texas. It also claimed credit for defacing a Web site belonging to the Texas Police Chiefs Association.

It’s the second such targeting of police officers in a particular state. In June, the group went after the Arizona State Police, posting home addresses of officers.

LulzSec and Anonymous, in their various contortions, have had a busy summer. The group and its sympathizers started out making Sony’s existence miserable, on the heels of an attack on the PlayStation network; the attack brought the network down for several weeks.

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Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus