Man Behind Hacks of Bush Family and Other Celebs Indicted In the US

New submitter criticalmass24 writes: 42-year-old Marcel Lehel Lazar, better known as Guccifer, the hacker that gained unauthorized access to email and social network accounts of high-profile public figures, has been charged in the United States. According to the Department of Justice, "[F]rom December 2012 to January 2014, Lazar hacked into the e-mail and social media accounts of high-profile victims, including a family member of two former U.S. presidents, a former U.S. Cabinet member, a former member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a former presidential adviser. After gaining unauthorized access to their e-mail and social media accounts, Lazar publicly released his victims’ private e-mail correspondence, medical and financial information, and personal photographs. The indictment also alleges that in July and August 2013, Lazar impersonated a victim after compromising the victim’s account." The full indictment can be read online.

Comments

Ain't that a bitch?

[korbulon]

Having complete strangers being able to pry into all your personal data and intercept your private communications.

Why there oughta be a law, mister. There really should.

Do it right next time

[Opportunist]

If you want to invade the privacy of people and sniff through their most intimate of details, get a job with the government.

Re:Do it right next time

[Opportunist]

The difference is maybe that a legitimate government does all that with a warrant and oversight. You know, where a judge has to ponder whether it's ok to violate someone's privacy. The older ones here may remember the time when we had a government like that.

Re:Password

[halivar]

Believe it or not, if someone's front door is unlocked, you still have to knock.

The real news

[Charliemopps]

If my email gets hacked is the federal government going to extradite someone from Europe to charge them?
The real story here is special treatment for special people. For some reason the department of justice thinks the invasion of privacy of political and media elites is a worse crime than the invasion of the general publics privacy. It's so transparent it's laughable.

Re:The real news

[timrod]

I get what you're saying, but in this case it sounds like the Romanians arrested him first for hacking the emails of a member of the European parliament from Romania, probably to keep him leaking any sensitive information he might've seen. In fact, the article states that Lehel had hacked the Bush family emails in 2013 and had publicly taken responsibility for the hack after he leaked the information, and the government didn't care. To me, it sounds like the US Government only got involved because of Colin Powell. Powell was indirectly involved in the hack on the Romanian MP, in that emails between him and the MP were found and leaked. Powell is currently on the board of directors of Salesforce.com, which is an S&P 500 index stock and publicly traded.

If he happened to get any non-public information regarding Powell's company, that could easily cause real monetary damages and would probably constitute wire fraud, which they indicted the hacker on.

The government also said (in the article) that they don't know whether they'll try to extradite him or not. Right now, all they've done is indict him, and as every law professor will tell you, "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich."

I am your elected representative

[fulldecent]

Speaking on behalf of Slashdot, the nerds and computer enthusiasts, we ask:

    "How did he get caught?"