Police arrest LulzSec hacker spokesman ‘Topiary’

27 Jul 2011

A 19 year-old from the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland – believed to be ‘Topiary’, the spokesman for hacker group LulzSec – is believed to have been arrested by UK police.

The teenager with the residential address in the Shetlands is believed to be Topiary, who spoke on behalf of LulzSec after it emerged from self-imposed retirement to launch a stinging attack on Rupert Murdoch’s News International empire, defacing The Sun and Times newspapers with false headlines and threatening to leak emails belonging to The Sun and Rebekah Brooks.

His final tweet on his Twitter account read: “You cannot arrest an idea.”

It is understood Topiary is being whisked to London for questioning by Scotland Yard detectives.

LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for attacks on the CIA, Sony, Citibank and many others, went into retirement five weeks ago but returned in the wake of the News International scandal.

Both LulzSec and hacker group Anonymous have joined forces to carry on the AntiSec movement and yesterday called on their followers to boycott PayPal for refusing to allow WikiLeaks to receive donations.

topiary tweet

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com