Lulz Security (LulzSec), the hacker group behind attacks on servers belonging to the US Senate, the CIA, FBI, Sony, Fox and various porn websites, has published its manifesto to mark its 1,000th tweet on Twitter.
Announcing itself as “those evil bastards from Twitter”, LulzSec responded to criticism from online gamers that its actions may prompt draconian internet laws and suggested that its activities may run deeper than most people realise.
“Do you think every hacker announces everything they’ve hacked? We certainly haven’t, and we’re damn sure others are playing the silent game. Do you feel safe with your Facebook accounts, your Google Mail accounts, your Skype accounts? What makes you think a hacker isn’t silently sitting inside all of these right now, sniping out individual people, or perhaps selling them off? You are a peon to these people. A toy. A string of characters with a value.”
LulzSec says ordinary internet users, or ‘peons’ as it describes them, who are understandably bewildered at the accelerated pace of events are not its target, but can be if they so wish. It seems to suggest it is pointing to where the holes are on the web. And does hit on a truth – people, not just the technology, are actually the product for today’s internet giants.
“This is what you should be fearful of, not us releasing things publicly, but the fact that someone hasn’t released something publicly. We’re sitting on 200,000 Brink users right now that we never gave out. It might make you feel safe knowing we told you, so that Brink users may change their passwords. What if we hadn’t told you? No one would be aware of this theft, and we’d have a fresh 200,000 peons to abuse, completely unaware of a breach.”
If you think, though, that ordinary internet users should take comfort from this last statement – wrong. LulzSec seems to be saying everyone is fair game.
“You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and we find it funny to cause it. We release personal data so that equally evil people can entertain us with what they do with it,” it said.
The full text of the LulzSec manifesto can be read online.
