One should be wary of knee-jerk responses in this twisting tale but, in one move, it looks as if Lulzsec has simultaneously poisoned two strands of online protest.
WikiLeaks claimed to expose suppressed information, and Anonymous operated a witty online protest campaign against governments and corporations which it said were blocking freedom of expression. Lulzsec has taken elements of both of these, and built them into a mad cycle of online vandalism which few people would now support.
These exploits made WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, a hero to many – and now a martyr, while he remains on bail, appealing his extradition to Sweden, and awaiting more efforts by the US authorities to nail him.
Unsurprisingly, online protesters leapt to his defence, and these included Anonymous, a group that emerged from message board 4chan and since 2008 has specialised in attacks on corporate copyright, as well as government censorship.
Anonymous spread its net further with promises to attack nation states, including Iran, Zimbabwe and Tunisia. Taking down government sites in Yemen and Egypt, Anonymous capitalised on public role of online activity in the Arab spring uprisings.
Anonymous announced attacks on Ben Bernake, head of the US federal Reserve, and took down the CIA’s public site. These were politically motivated attacks, but no one was hurt.
By comparison, Lulz Security, claims an attitude of irresponsibility, “duing it for the Lulz”, and for the comedy value of embarassing establishment figures’ poor security online.
One could argue that embarassing the NHS will be a good thing long term – and more likely to get the organisation to wake up and get its act together than any approach through the correct channels.
But finding and publishing individuals’ user names and passwords from Writerspace and other sites goes several steps beyond that.
And today, Lulzsec has published online the personal details of Arizona police officers, an action it claims is a protest against the state’s immigration law.
How is publishing the home phone number of Officer Quackenbush, or whoever, an attack on Arizona’s policy? It is an attack on Officer Quackenbush. And is his wife’s name suppressed information that the public have a right to know? No. Publishing that is an intrusion on his privacy.
Lulz can still be amusing, of course. It claimed on Twitter to have attacked the sun – the celestial body, not the newspaper – saying “that bitch was down all night”.
But its actions have gone beyond a joke, and in the process have poisoned emerging Internet traditions of whistleblowing and peaceful protest.
Troubled chip giant Intel will invest more than $28 billion to construct two new chip…
In Q3 Apple rejoins ranks of top five smartphone makers in China, as government welcomes…
IT spending growth in 2025 comes as CIOs move from proof-of-concept, and begin investment into…
Industry supply chain analyst says Apple cut orders for the iPhone 16 for Q4 2024…
Heavy fine for LinkedIn, after Irish data protection watchdog cites GDPR violations with people's personal…
UK competition regulator begins phase one investigation into Alphabet's partnership with AI startup Anthropic