Deric Lostutter of Winchester, Ky., revealed on June 6, 2013, that he is a member of Anonymous.
In a letter posted Thursday on projectknightsec.com (a website run by Anonymous), Deric Lostutter, a 26-year-old from Winchester, Ky., revealed that he is a member of Anonymous. Lostutter was raided by the FBI after he and other members of Anonymous got involved in a rape case in Steubenville, Ohio, that gained national attention in late 2012. When two members of a high school football team in the city were accused of raping a 16-year-old girl, Anonymous members did not think the case was getting enough attention and leaked information about people they believed were involved.
This week, anticipating a grand jury indictment for a felony and two misdemeanor counts, Lostutter voluntarily revealed his identity to the world in hopes that the media and citizens who supported his actions would help him.
Most members of Anonymous remain unknown, but as the loosely organized group has gained fame, many members have drawn law enforcement fire — and lost their anonymity as a result. Here’s a look at seven other Anonymous members whose identities have been uncovered.
Jeremy Hammond
Jeremy Hammond, known online as “Anarchaos,” pleaded guilty on May 28 to violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for his part in breaking into the network of geopolitical analysis company Stratfor Global Intelligence Service.
Hammond said he participated in the hack on behalf of Anonymous and its subgroup LulzSec. “I did this because I believe people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors,” he said in a statement posted on his website. “I did what I believe is right.”
Hector Xavier Monsegur
Hector Monsegur, also known as “Sabu,” may be the most hated member of Anonymous. In 2011, after being fingered by the FBI, he betrayed fellow members of the Anonymous subgroup LulzSec by helping the FBI gather evidence to arrest them.
Monsegur is now facing up to 124 years in prison, though his sentencing has been delayed while he continues cooperating with federal agents.
Mercedes Renee Haefer
Mercedes Haefer, also known by “No,” is part of ‘Paypal 14,’ a group of hackers arrested by the FBI in 2011 for allegedly participating in a cyberattack against PayPal.
Haefer and the other members of Paypal 14 have remained in legal limbo for two years now. In May, they began negotiations for a settlement that could keep them out of prison.
Christopher Doyan
Known in Anonymous circles as “Commander X,”Christopher Doyan participated in attacks on Sony, PayPal, the Tunisian government and the county website of Santa Cruz, Calif. He was arrested by federal authorities and threatened with 15 years in prison in September 2011 for the attack on the Santa Cruz website.
But now he is on the run. Shortly after his arrest, Doyan jumped bail and fled to Canada through what he calls an “underground railroad.”
Barrett Brown
Unlike most members of Anonymous, journalist Barrett Brown has never tried to remain…anonymous. This self-proclaimed “spokesman” for the hacktivist collective was arrested in September 2012 and indicted on charges of “making an online threat, retaliating against a federal officer and conspiring to release the personal information of a U.S. government employee,” The Dallas Morning News reported.
Slim Amamou
In January 2011, Anonymous began ” Operation: Tunisia,” a hacktivist effort to assist Tunisian revolutionaries. Slim Amamou, an outspoken Tunisian blogger known as “slim404,” was arrested by Tunisian police working for the failing government.
Amamou was held in jail for seven days, but when the Tunisian regime was overthrown, he was hailed as a hero and made secretary of state for sport and youth in the Tunisian transitional government.
Dmitriy Guzner
Dmitriy Guzner, known by the alias “Aendy,” was fingered by the FBI in 2008 for attacking Church of Scientology computers. He was sentenced to a year in prison and two years of probation.
In Seattle, “they” [Anonymous] have their own Facebook page! ~ https://www.facebook.com/AnonymousSeattle?fref=ts . Of course any person who wishes to remain anonymous would never get together for a group picture whether they’re all wearing Guy Fawkes masks/bandanas or not. LOL. Security culture + social networking sites don’t mix very well and it’s amazing to see how low the level of technical skill some people have. There’s no such thing as total “internet security”, but for gosh sakes, some people are just blatantly out there [“I’m a radikal!”]. Any reasonably intelligent person [that would be me] can mine a lot of data off the internet. I can’t begin to imagine what the Federal authorities are able to find with all the tools at their disposal. If I were a member of Anonymous [a group which by definition has no members] would I form a local group so we could all shoot the shit about how to attack The State and its institutions? Ummm…no, and again, LOL.
Speaking of internet security, if a person isn’t running TOR with some of the newer Linux software, your data is out there for a person to locate if they want to locate it. And no doubt there are people who are good with computers and help a lot of folks out in some circles. I’ll betcha some of them don’t have your best interests at heart, or are completely clueless but sound smart, or work for the intelligence community. But whatev…a simple and easy thing to erase some tracks is this; have a computer you always boot/install the OS from disk. When you shut down at least most of your internet fingerprints will disappear, but there’s no way to guarantee privacy online and it gets much easier to track a person when they leave obvious public trails. So, have fun with yer radikal groups, kidz, but it would be refreshing to see some people smarten up. I KNOW…not gonna happen, so like I said, whatev…
Heh…funny anecdote ~ I never bookmarked this blog and was having some difficulty locating it this morning. No problem! I just visited the Puget Sound Anarchists web site and looked through the April 2013 archive and there you were. So thanks, PSA, and I’ve bookmarked this blog now.
I have no clue what ‘TOR’ is, or if it runs in a Windows environment. I should look it up on Wikipedia, I suppose.
The Onion Router, for the most part Linux-based ~ http://www.onion-router.net/ is a fairly decent information page describing the history of TOR up to 2005. Like everything else on the internet a lot of sites a person can find online are very dubious. But it’s something any genuine techie hacker has been very savvy about for a long time. Hence, the novices do make me LOL. It’s an interesting/different internet environment. TOR can provide access to black market sites and…well…for the lack of a less-than-honest descriptor, terrorists. Oh, and of course every entity and government that tracks terrorists and black market sites. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole, but then again I’m not a government agent, terrorist, or criminal.
I wish I hadn’t left such an off-the-cuff comment (above). I was trying to say, I wish everyone would be more careful online, not be stupid, not say things that can’t be taken back. And what do I do? Ha ha ha…same thing. Ah, being a human being is tough sometimes. I want to encourage everyone to be careful because the penalties for having a big mouth online are so huge these days, but what I really need to do is just shut my own.