- Text
LulzSec spokesman "Topiary" nabbed, says Scotland Yard
LulzSec logo
(Credit: @LulzSec)Police say they arrested the 18-year-old in Scotland's remote Shetland Islands. Although they didn't release his name, police said they believed him to be "Topiary," one of the hacking group's most prominent members.
LulzSec gained notoriety in May with attacks on the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service - whose website it defaced by posting a bogus story claiming that the late rapper Tupac Shakur had been discovered alive in New Zealand.
The group is a spin-off of another hacking group, Anonymous, whose targets have included the Church of Scientology, the music industry, and financial companies including Visa and MasterCard.
Topiary was linked to both groups, serving as the on-again, off-again media liaison for the publicity-hungry hackers.
In his only known television interview, on the "David Pakman Show" earlier this year, Topiary phoned in via Skype to feud with Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based group infamous for it's extreme stance against homosexuality and for picketing the funerals of slain American soldiers.
Over the course of the live interview, Anonymous vandalized the church's website.
In conversations with The Associated Press, Topiary said he controlled LulzSec's popular Twitter feed, which was wiped clean Wednesday save for a post from nearly a week ago that read: "You cannot arrest an idea."
LulzSec has claimed responsibility for security breaches at pornography websites, gaming companies, and law enforcement organizations. It's also claimed credit for harassing seemingly random targets including an obscure New Jersey-based magnet manufacturer.
One its most well-known hacks was against Sony Pictures Entertainment. The group posted the usernames, passwords, email addresses and phone numbers of tens of thousands of Sony customers. The group also claimed responsibility for a breach that targeted Arizona's police force, releasing their personal information, in protest against its controversial immigration law.
Shortly thereafter the group announced it was disbanding, although Topiary said at the time that the group wasn't bowing to police pressure.
"We're not quitting because we're afraid of law enforcement," he said in a Skype call. "The press are getting bored of us, and we're getting bored of us."
The latest arrest is one of an increasing number claimed by law enforcement in Britain and the United States in connection to their investigations into Anonymous and its offshoots. Last week, the FBI, British and Dutch officials carried out 21 arrests, many of them related to the group's attacks on Internet payment provider PayPal Inc., which has been targeted over its refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks.
- 11 children removed from Texas home in abuse case
- UVA lacrosse jury asks to see Love's door, wall
- Teen Mom 2's Leah Messer attacked outside cinema
- Police: Spa massacre "probably domestic related"
- Playboy Playmate has "no animosity" toward NYPD
- Woman held captive and enslaved for nine years
- Woman jailed in PA has history of pregnancy cons
- Remains found of Ohio girl missing since 1999
- Elizabeth Smart marries in Hawaii
- Cops: 12-year-old naked girl found naked, hungry
- U.Va. lacrosse player guilty of killing girlfriend
- L.A. teacher Mark Berndt pleads not guilty
- Prince of Monaco punched in nightclub brawl
- Second child of LA woman taken off life support
- Mom arrested after maggots found in baby's diaper
- Report: kidnapped Mont. teacher choked, buried
- Ohio mom, baby found shot to death alongside man
- Bail rules prevent Kim Dotcom from using Internet
- Poland's jobless rate rises to 13.2 pct in January
- Syrian forces shell Homs as crisis in city deepens
- AP Interview: US envoy says no soldiers to Nigeria
on Facebook
- Six decades of Oscar fashion
- GOP presidential debate: Winners and Losers
- Is world's shortest man this 22-inch-tall Nepalese 72-year-old?
- Christie: Buffett should "write a check and shut up"
on CBS News
