lulz

A U.K. teenager has been charged with five criminal offenses in connection with computer crimes associated with the LulzSec hacking group.

According to London police, Jake Davis, an 18-year-old man, was charged yesterday with gaining unauthorized access to a computer system, encouraging and assisting criminal offenses, and conspiracy to carry out a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the Web site of the U.K.'s Serious Organized Crime Agency. He has also been charged with two other counts of conspiracy, both tied to the U.K.'s Computer Misuse Act.

London's Metropolitan Police didn't say … Read more

With the Defcon 19 hacking conference set to begin in Las Vegas next week, hacking group/movement/"idea" Anonymous is touting its own "social network," a site with the Googly moniker Anon+.

@YourAnonNews recently sent out a tweet advertising the effort, which seems to be an attempt to create an anonymous, open-source communications platform that will allow for an Internet space somehow immune to government shutdown and corporate censorship. Here's the tweet:

As you no doubt noticed, the tweet includes … Read more

The British Metropolitan Police said today that they have arrested a 19-year-old who uses the nickname "Topiary" and is believed to be a key member of the LulzSec hacking group.

"The man arrested is believed to be linked to an ongoing international investigation into the criminal activity of the so-called 'hacktivist' groups Anonymous and LulzSec, and uses the online nickname 'Topiary,' which is presented as the spokesperson for the groups," Scotland Yard said in a statement. "He was arrested at a residential address in the Shetland Islands and is currently being transported to a police … Read more

Anonymous is lashing out today at the FBI and especially at PayPal, urging users of the electronic payments site to dump their accounts.

In its latest "official communique" on behalf of itself and Lulz Security, the hactivist group condemned the FBI for its recent arrests of those charged in connection with hacking attacks by Anonymous in December against PayPal and a host of other companies.

Complaining that the Anonymous "suspects" may face a fine of $500,000 and a possible 15 years of jail time, the group criticized the FBI for equating "adding one's … Read more

The FBI rolls out a massive raid across the United States in connection with the "Anonymous" hacking investigation. Google's Eric Schmidt will defend HTC at all costs and if you can't wait for the inevitable Mac OS X Lion release, it's already out on the internet. Because that won't get you in trouble at all.

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Amazon lets students rent textbooks

Hackers attack News Corp.

Apple Mac OS X Lion launch tomorrow

CNN live news comes to mobile

Google buys g.co

The LulzSec hacker group has turned its sights on Rupert Murdoch's U.K. newspaper The Sun, hacking the site to direct visitors to a fake article claiming the media mogul had died and releasing information on journalists.

The group announced on Twitter that "The Sun's homepage now redirects to the Murdoch death story on the recently-owned New Times website. Can you spell success, gentlemen?"

The New Times site was inaccessible this afternoon, but screenshots captured before it was taken off line show a headline that says "Media Moguls Body Discovered" and a story that … Read more

Cyberattacks from Anonymous and LulzSec and breaches against everyone from Sony to Lockheed Martin turned the second quarter into "one of the worst on record," according to a new report from Panda Security.

Released this week, Panda's second-quarter report (PDF) examined the security landscape from April to June and highlighted a string of alarming incidents.

Pointing to the attacks by Anonymous and LulzSec against the likes of Sony, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Spanish police, and several government sites, Panda said that the line between "hacktivism" and criminal behavor has gotten fuzzier.

Panda clearly questioned the methods of the new breed of hackers, saying that Anonymous calls its actions "peaceful protests," even though such actions are illegal. Also mincing no words with LulzSec, Panda said that "if you took the most irresponsible and brainless members of Anonymous and put them all together, they would be considered the most refined gentlemen compared to LulzSec."

Though LulzSec recently announced that it would be ending its attacks, the group urged other hackers to carry on the fight via operation Anti-Security, or AntiSec.… Read more

For the third time in a week, hackers have released information pilfered from compromised online accounts of Arizona law enforcement officers.

Under the "AntiSec" umbrella, the combined Anonymous-LulzSec hacker group is targeting government agencies, financial institutions, and other high-profile targets. AntiSec first released e-mails, phone numbers, passwords, and other information belonging to the Arizona Department of Public Safety on June 23. The hackers said they are targeting the police organization to protest "racial-profiling anti-immigrant" policies, specifically SB1070, which makes it a crime to be in Arizona without documentation proving United States residency.

Earlier this week, AntiSec … Read more