Guardian tech editor leaking information, claims LulzSec

Anonymous joins forces with LulzSec to taunt FBI, claims to possess NATO data
  • Stilgherrian (CSO Online (Australia))
  • — 22 July, 2011 09:47

High-profile hacker group LulzSec is claiming that the technology editor of UK newspaper The Guardian has been leaking information to them.

"Charles Arthur from Guardian here. I've been illegally feeding LulzSec internal info for 3 months, then I ditched them. Someone arrest me," LulzSec tweeted this morning Australian time, along with Arthur's phone number.

"The Guardian is a wonderful newspaper full of exciting ideas, but their tech editor will now walk the plank. Set sail for fail!" they tweeted.

Arthur has described the publication of his phone number as "a slight obstacle to communication, yes."

"A word to the wise," he tweeted. "It is a bad idea to make enemies of journalists."

LulzSec tweeted last night Australian time that they were working with "certain media outlets" who had been granted exclusive access to some of their claimed trove of 4GB of emails from Rupert Murdoch's News International (NI).

NI is the UK parent company of the News of the World, the newspaper at the centre of the voicemail scandal and which has since been closed down.

LulzSec had previously announced that they were releasing the email archive on Tuesday. But Arthur has now reported in The Guardian that LulzSec has decided not to publish them "for fear of jeopardising ongoing legal actions in the UK and US".

Meanwhile LulzSec has taunted the FBI's deputy assistant director Steve Chabinsky over his recent media comments.

"We want to send a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable," Chabinsky told National Public Radio. "[Even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it's entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts."

LulzSec's media release, issued jointly with Anonymous, is filled with bravado. "Now let us be clear here, Mr Chabinsky," they write. "Let us tell you what WE find unacceptable."

They list such issues as governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror, corporations conspiring with governments and "collecting billions of funds for federal contracts we all know they can't fulfil", and other alleged acts of corruption.

"These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to fight them," they write. "We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea."

Anonymous is claiming to possess classified NATO data. "We are sitting on about one Gigabyte of data from NATO now, most of which we cannot publish as it would be irresponsible. But Oh NATO...", they tweeted last night.

 

Contact Stilgherrian at stil@stilgherrian.com, or follow him on Twitter at @stilgherrian.

Tags: anonymous, Charles Arthur, cybercrime, fbi, government, hacking, LulzSec, NATO, security, The Guardian

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Software security company www.clearswift.com gives some advice this holiday season to make sure employees don’t end up on Santa’s naughty list!


At a fundamental business level, social media is a useful additional tool for communicating and collaborating with customers, colleagues and new business prospects. From an HR point of view, the social web is not only useful for recruitment but also as a knowledge network. At an employee level, social media is changing the way we work: Employees increasingly expect to be able to access personal technology and services in the workplace. As the lines between work and home life blur, staff are looking for greater flexibility in their roles; working from home is an increasing trend, but so too is ‘home-ing from work’, where staff expect to be able to perform personal tasks at work.

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Trust breeds responsibility: People underestimate the amount of company time they spend on personal browsing. Allow staff to view their own web usage and foster more responsible behaviour without undermining trust.


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Need to know: Yes, you need reports and visibility. What you don’t need is employee data becoming common knowledge. Access control means reporting can be adjusted on a need-to-know basis.


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