Three UK-based LulzSec hackers have pleaded guilty to charges of hacking various high-profile targets — one of which was Nintendo — and setting up DDoS (distributed denial of services) attacks.
The incident involving Nintendo occurred back in 2011. No permanent harm was done, but a configuration file was taken by the group and mentioned on Twitter:
77335808792727552
26-year-old Ryan Ackroyd — who hid behind the persona of a 16-year-old girl named "Kayla" when online — admitted to the charges yesterday, and also revealed that he worked with fellow hacking group Anonymous.
Two other LulzSec members - Jake "Topiary" Davis, 20, and Mustafa "Tflow" Al-Bassam, 18 — have also admitted hacking and planning DDoS attacks. LulzSec was apparently disbanded at the end of 2011.
All three hackers — along with fellow Brit Ryan Cleary, who was arrested in 2011 — will be sentenced on May 14th.
[source eurogamer.net, via bbc.co.uk]
Comments 41
Hmmm, interesting. I'll definitely be showing this to my school friend who thinks "hacking is cool".
They didn't mean any harm for Nintendo? Even hackers love Nintendo! Still, I don't like what they do, and it gives a bad name to people who have a real passion for the internet.
@PvtOttobot This won't change his mind...
Hacking =/= Cracking
@L-Lawliet A potential sentence in jail for hacking? I think so.
@Damien What is the pic?
Hacking is not the same as cracking and viceversa.
@PvtOttobot it is from the movie Hackers (don't watch it, it is bad).
Hacking is stupid, makes only govs to get more control on what's supposed to be the free internet.
They hacked the Wii Shop Channel for a very small amount of time, I believe.
@PvtOttobot It's from the 1995 movie Hackers
"Hacking" groups like this are the definition of moronic.
@Deathgaze Don't think it is.
@Damo xD Because THAT is what hackers look like, not this:
http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/badmanproduction/badmanproduction1212/badmanproduction121200156/16844443-funny-hacker-is-preparing-to-hack-system.jpg
What does it mean that they got a config file?
On a separate note, I highly doubt they meant no harm.
Oh and I bet Sony hired these guys to hack Nintendo. (sarc)
@Damo, and nobody's noticed a pre-"Lara C.", elf-like Angelina...
I wonder if they did this to get job offers like the guy who hacked his school's computer system (before being expelled) and got around 10 offers, including on from the same company that worked on the school's program.
On a side note, I love that no one bats an eye that a 26-year-old man have a online persona of a 16-year-old girl. Things that makes you go hmm
My friend would kick my tail if he knew I still haven't seen Hacker's all these many years later. D:
@ultraraichu: There are no girls on the internet
anyway, i was wondering what happened to those guys — i knew about Cleary because he'd been re-arrested because he couldn't stay off Twitter, but the other ones I hadn't heard anything about.
What is sad is that those people can really do some good with those skills they have yet they decide to use them to do mischievous things. Oh well maybe they will get wise when they are older like Kevin Metnick did.
Honestly, if I were Nintendo, I'd focus my legal battles more on anti-piracy efforts.
This, though intrusive merely means that Nintendo needs to beef up security in some places.
Despite the cheese, I still love the movie 'Hackers'. Thanks for using that image - it took me back!
@PvtOttobot
Hackers (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)
Hackers is a 1995 American cyberpunk thriller film directed by Iain Softley and starring Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Renoly Santiago, Matthew Lillard
we need hackers in this world as long there not hurting any 1 there is to many secretes in this world that are kept away from us like if there is life in outer space that's why we need hackers to let us know things that the government wont that is a fact of life
Pretending to be an underaged girl?!
Can they please arrest anonymous now?
@sadsack777 Oooookaay…
Stuff like this is just the start. Eventually, there will be a new law passed down on the Internet and the wild west of online practices will be gone. Goodbye, LulzSec, goodbye, Anonymous. This change is inevitable and it'll be up to the users to adapt. I'm not saying it'll be like SOPA, PIPA, or CISPA, but something will be done in a regulation sense.
I recognize that group by seeing that Twitter profile picture on the game informer. I've heard that they've hacking a number of video games and other related software. I wonder what would happen if this keeps up?
I think Anonymous and any branch of it is just totally stupid. Kids on the internet who posted inappropriate pics on 4-chan are fighting against evil, and capitalism? They can't earn my respect, and it doesn't matter how much they DDOS websites, they can't destroy governments.
@sadsack777 LOL thanks for the entertaining read!
Hackers would have you believe they are just trying to make the world a more free and open place but many of them are just in it for a laugh and don't even think about the consequences. Some of them are clearly in it for bad reasons and if you believe our governments, most of the bad kind of hacking comes from Russia and China.
As much as it pisses us off when we feel we are the ones who get punished by someone else's hacking, there are people trying to prevent information suppression and many other evils in the world and their computer skill is the only thing working against some very evil people. As groups like Anonymous get larger or more powerful, there will be many things they do that could inconvenience us but the chances are, they will be uncovering truths we didn't know about.
Of course they could all be part of some big government conspiracy to make us believe there were hacking groups spreading truth that is actually misinformation but I doubt they'd be publicly arresting these kids if that was the case.
Good. Stick 'em in prison for a couple years and see if everyone still thinks hacking everything is so awesome.
@anyone who thinks hackers are 100% bad:
Anonymous exposed a large network of paedophiles using Twitter to privately share child abuse pictures. As far as I am aware, twitter, the police and our own secret services had not even attempted to shut down these sick bastards before this happened. They also took down other sites that were showing stuff of a similar nature which have led to arrests.
If someone does something, against someone evil that the powers that be are doing nothing about, how can they be considered the bad guy?
@Nintenjoe64: sure, Anonymous has done good things like what you're describing, but bad things have also been done in their name... the problem is that, due to their inherent anonymity, there's no way to tell which 'Anonymous' is which, so they all get lumped together in the public eye. Anyone can stand up, claim to be a member of Anonymous, and no one knows the difference because it's impossible to tell.
Take down one 2 more take its place: in other words this does not faze the experts
Might be jail for these lads me thinks...
I still don't really understand what they actually did.
@YorkshireNed Me neither. What in the world is a config file?
Only came in here to comment on the Picture...
I LOVE the movie Hackers!!!!
Great Picture, Zero Cool and Acid Burn!
sorry but hackers do NOT look like that. hackers are the biggest losers on the planet, have never had a friend of the opposite (or same most likely, which they would prefer lol) sex in their life, and are quite simply the saddest losers in the modern world.
as someone else stated, hackers only cause gov'ts to exert more control over the internet (which was supposed to be free)
hackers will constantly try to say they do things for this good and that. but it is just plain stupid to think hacking does anything to help the cause of keeping the internet free
Anonymous is not one person and is definitely not an intelligent hacker, for starters. And anonymous hardly does "all good." you'd be wise to look more into that buddy. Anonymous is also purely emotionally driven, which is very scary. Anonymous tries to the work that is better left to experts with real intelligence and moxie.
@Five-seveN: I'm no official programmer, but when I go back to college, I may finish becoming one. A config file is exactly what it is a shorthand for: a configuration file. A config file generally contains some basic information parameters for any given program that uses one. For instance, a game using a config file might resemble something similar to this:
levelsunlocked=26
musicavailable=32
EnableCheats=No
Sound=On
Res= 1080x840
That kind of thing. This is merely an example of how a config file might, but doesn't have to, look like.
Config files are used often in some os's(Operating systems, such as Windows for example)
Config files are/can be also what generally tell pc games what controller to "listen to" during gameplay for input, & what buttons do what actions.
But config files have many uses. I'm just giving you some examples. In this case, it could have been a webpage script, intranet(internal internet) network data of sorts, or some data relevant to how Nintendo's hardware systems are coded. In the last choice, that would mean that group had illegal access to copyright code. Hope that helps.
@Capt_N I see...though you'll probably never see this reply...I knew it stood for configuration, but I just didn't know what it did. Anyway, thanks, and...
LAST COMMENT!
Tap here to load 41 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...