So, it turns out that the infamous ‘Sabu’, the somewhat cocky leader of LulzSec and one of the few members of Anonymous accredited with real hacking skills, has been an FBI informer for months.
This is not news to someone who goes by the name ‘HuntJaeger’ on Twitter. Just over five months ago I witnessed a Twitter exchange between anonymouSabu (as Sabu called himself on Twitter) and HuntJaeger. This was shortly after Sabu started tweeting again, having been silent for a couple of months.
HuntJaeger was in no doubt why Sabu had been observing radio silence. He accused the LulzSec hacker of having been turned by the FBI. “So, you’ve completed the FBI snitch training and are now back to rat out your comrades…” he said.
This is how it goes in the hacker underworld, of course. Every book I’ve ever read about illicit hackers (to differentiate them from the good kind) makes the point that, once nabbed, they waste no time in ratting out their comrades. It all contributes to a good, healthy spirit of paranoia.
Now that the arrests have been made, the indictments against Sabu – or Hector Xavier Monsegur as his friends and family know him – is probably looking at jail time. I hope those lulz were worth it.
Predictably, Anonymous is putting on a brave face. And to be honest, Anonymous is about a lot more than LulzSec or AntiSec. But it looks like the movement might have lost some of its most skilled hackers.