Two UK Lulzsec Suspects Plead Guilty To DDoS Charges

judgecorp writes "Two teens have pleaded guilty to taking part in Lulzsec attacks on the U.S.'s CIA and Britain's SOCA. Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis, aged 19 and 18 respectively, admit to denial of service attacks. Cleary has also been charged in the U.S., but is unlikely to face extradition." However, "... both Cleary and Davis denied allegations they posted 'unlawfully obtained confidential computer data' to public websites including LulzSec.com, Pirate Bay, and PasteBin, in order to encourage offenses contrary to the Serious Crime Act." Two others involved pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Comments

Age

[Dexter Herbivore]

I get the feeling that the bulk of Lulzsec will be about their age or lower.

Re:Age

[mtinsley]

Seems likely. Young and impressionable makes for good cannon fodder for those who are actually running the show.

Re:Age

[Dr_Barnowl]

They may even have just cherry picked the only ones they could find of legal age. I can't believe they only had evidence on two of them.

Are they actually...

[Opportunist]

Or are they just two of the many who were gullible enough to participate in a LOIC attack and are now presented as the big bad hackers since that's pretty much all we can get our hands at?

Somehow it smells a bit like presenting a few street dealer busts as the big hit against drug cartels...

Re:Are they actually...

[AHuxley]

The older people in most groups have be turned at some stage and are free but owned for life, are active undercover assets or can be turned before arrests.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/18/patriot_games hints at larger undercover operations in the 1990's surrounding groups in the USA. Infiltration, undercover agents and informants. Go back to the 1960's - no peace or rights group in the community was going to be active without a file.
The idea that the internet was not going to get the same careful monitoring seems to be based on the hardware needed.
They just need to bait people with a good story and well meaning site. Skills and names drift in. New informants created, a show trial and promotions enjoyed.

DDoS is Hacking

[TemperedAlchemist]

And making instant noodles is cooking.

I can't believe their wasting their time to go after these teenage kids. There's plenty more where they came from, and ruining their future is only going to give the pro-lulzsec crowd ammunition. It's a really dumb move, and certainly not what I would do if I were the prosecution. Then again, I'm fairly my having a brain excludes me from being part of those clowns.

What these people who do their best to take down groups like LulzSec, Anonymous, etc. don't understand is that you can't take them down. This isn't a militia, a terrorist organization, or a code monkey who wants to get back at the work that laid him off: this is an idea, and a very powerful one. Anonymous's very nature is that it is anyone and everyone, there is no centralized network. LulzSec does not elect presidents, and they do not have a chain of command.

The idea is that individual liberty and the common good is important above all else. Censorship and tyranny stands in the way of this goal, and the only thing these companies are doing is adding fuel to the fire, by proving they're the very entities that need to be stopped.

The only way anyone could possibly put this to an end is if they arrested and detained every free thinker, anyone who believe in liberty and the free exchange of information, and anyone who won't bend over backwards when Uncle Sam comes to violate our rights and freedoms. We have a word for that, it's called a dystopia.

Re:DDoS is Hacking

[SuricouRaven]

It's just the classic intimidation method of law enforcement. You can't catch them all, so you just catch a couple, and them utterly destroy their lives in order to make a public example of them. Then that example serves to scare other potential criminals straight.

Re:DDoS is Hacking

[Thanshin]

Has that method ever worked in the history of mankind?

Fear doesn't create compliance, just secrecy. And harm (physical or otherwise) doesn't only create fear, but also hate. So they are turning an existing enemy into a better hidden and more hateful enemy. What a fantastic result, they must be proud of their strategical prowess.

Re:DDoS is Hacking

[Kjella]

I can't believe their wasting their time to go after these teenage kids. There's plenty more where they came from, and ruining their future is only going to give the pro-lulzsec crowd ammunition. (...) I'm fairly my having a brain excludes me from being part of those clowns. What these people who do their best to take down groups like LulzSec, Anonymous, etc. don't understand is that you can't take them down. This isn't a militia, a terrorist organization, or a code monkey who wants to get back at the work that laid him off: this is an idea, and a very powerful one.

No, they're the same kind of rebel teenagers that used to do vandalism and tagging and in general rage against the machine when I grew up. They got no plan, no agenda except to strike out randomly and cause mayhem, with gang leaders shouting "let's flip that car" but little more than that, a mindless beast with zero attention span. Script kiddies and their wannabe groupies that would like to be script kiddies are exactly the same in online form, and I don't mind the police giving them a good slap and telling them to grow up. Go back to what you wrote, when did you last see very powerful clowns? Even when they do cause mayhem, they're still just clowns.

Re:Hacking is not Cracking

[ledow]

Don't be a prat.

"I didn't break into your house to get photos of your wife, you used a lock that wasn't compliant to British Standard BS3621 as required by most insurer's and I overpowered the only person in the house who was your granny. I just exploited your vulnerabilities."

Sorry, can't do me for breaking-and-entering, criminal damage, theft, assault, copyright infringement, privacy invasion, ....