LulzSec Calls For PayPal Boycott, Spokesman Arrested

An anonymous reader writes "British police have arrested a 19-year-old man believed to be 'Topiary', the official spokesperson of the LulzSec hactivist group. The man was arrested at his home in the Shetland Islands earlier today (July 27), and is being transported to a central London police station." Also today, LulzSec has called for a boycott of PayPal saying “We encourage anyone using PayPal to immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative.”

Comments

Paypal has no rivals

[Superken7]

How easy is it to say "and consider an alternative" without even giving one?

One of the problems with paypal is that it has no rival at all. Even if you do not take into account the fact that paypal is a de-facto standard payment method, there are very few alternatives.
I'm sure lots of people would ditch paypal for lots of reasons. I would. I use google checkout whenever I can, because I particularly have more trust in Google than in paypal, even if checkout is in some ways worse than paypal. But very few people offer checkout support.

I hope this guy knows that (almost) nobody will close their accounts because of his statements, but that this adds more weight on the "trend" that people are more and more dissatisfied with paypal and is seen as something "bad but necessary" and maybe "just good enough" in the eyes of many.

Re:Umm. No credibility

[PopeRatzo]

So, there's a barely coherent, strongly infantile ideological stance here

What do you expect from British law enforcement? These are the guys who took bribes from News Corp. "Barely coherent, strongly infantile" and "ideological" is how they roll.

Rupert Murdoch gets to enjoy his billions but a 19 year-old hacker is public enemy number 1. The Prime Minister is playing footsie with a News Corp hatchet man, but it's "LulzSec" that's the big threat.

Yes, I would say that the British government, and the FBI, are being "barely coherent, strongly infantile and completely ideological"

How did they find him?

[GameboyRMH]

If you don't know how to make yourself untraceable, don't do things that will bring the cops to your door.