We are anonymous inside the hacker world of lulzse

database of AnonOps chat logs from December 8, 2010, searchable here: http://blyon.com/Irc/.
Content from the digital flyer that contains instructions for using LOIC was taken directly from the flyer, which is still available online.
The LOIC message to PayPal servers was cited in the Ars Technica article “FBI Raids Texas Colocation Facility in 4chan DDoS
Probe,” published in late 2010; the exact date is not shown on the online article, which cites log entries in a search request by the FBI.
The notion that operators probably did not want public attention focused on botnets because it could lead to heat from the authorities
comes from a conversation with academic and Anonymous expert Gabriella Coleman.
Details about Ryan and the use of his botnet on OpItaly, and about the manipulation of numbers, come from testimony by Topiary.
Information about the fourteen people arrested for using LOIC against PayPal comes from wide-ranging news reports, including the
Financial Times story “FBI Arrests 14 Suspects in PayPal Attack,” published on July 20, 2011. The detail about Ryan’s mental
health was sourced from the testimony of his lawyer, Ben Cooper, who told a court hearing on June 25, 2011, that his client had been
diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome since his arrest.
A note about lying to the press: did supporters of Anonymous lie to me in interviews? Sometimes, yes. Was I aware this was going on?
Yes, though admittedly not always to start with. Over time, if I was not sure about a key point, I would seek to corroborate it with
others. Such is the case with statements presented as fact in this book. My approach to Anons who were lying to me was to simply go
along with their stories, acting as if I were impressed with what they were saying in the hope of teasing out more information that I
could later confirm. I have signposted certain anecdotes in this book with the word “claimed”—e.g., a person “claimed” that a story is
true. Not everyone in Anonymous and LulzSec lied all the time, however, and there were certain key sources who were more
trustworthy than others and whose testimony I tended to listen to more closely, chief among them being Jake Davis.
Tflow created the #reporter channel for AnonOps, according to Topiary. Some dialogue that refers to the #over9000 channel comes
from the leaked #HQ logs.
Chapter 8: Weapons that Backfired
Much of the detail in this chapter about the bugs inherent in LOIC comes from online and face-to-face interviews with a programmer
and former supporter of Anonymous who does not want to be identified. Additional descriptions of IRC, such as the topics at the top
of chat channels, come from my own observations when visiting the chat network and from rumors about “Feds” crawling the
network, which were mentioned by Topiary and other Anons that I occasionally chatted with, as well as from online articles about the
general usage of IRC and the role of operators, such as “The IRC Operators Guide” on irchelp.org. Some dialogue about the legalities
of using LOIC comes from the online database of AnonOps chat logs, http://blyon.com/Irc/. Extra statistics about the numbers using
LOIC and about AnonOps IRC can be found on Pastebin (http://pastebin.com/qQgxtKaj) and in the section about Operation Payback
on the website opensecuritylab.org. Further details come from the TorrentFreak article “Behind the Scenes at Anonymous’ Operation
Payback,” published in late 2010 (the article does not give the exact date of publication).
There was a wide range of news reports on the arrest of Martijn “Awinee” Gonlag, including “They’re Watching. And They Can Bring
You Down,” published in the Financial Times on September 23, 2010.
Regarding the sentence about using LOIC behind “anonymizing software”: users could not fire the tool from behind an http proxy
because their “packets” would hit their own proxy, taking them offline; so it was VPN or nothing.
Details of the FBI’s initial investigation into Operation Payback were sourced partly from an article on Wired’s ThreatLevel blog entitled
“In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work from List of Top 1,000 Protesters,” published on July 26, 2011. Additionally, details about the
initial contact between PayPal and the FBI agents, along with the passing over of one thousand IP addresses on a USB thumb drive,
are sourced from an FBI arrest warrant filed on July 15, 2011, and available online.
Owen’s quote “Switch is basically under a shoot on sight watch list” comes from screenshots of the #InternetFeds chat room made by
freelance journalist Matthew Keys, which were e-mailed to me by Keys in early 2011. Keys was invited to observe the goings-on in
InternetFeds from December of 2010 to January of 2011. He used the nickname AESCracked.
Details of the DDoS attacks on AnonOps IRC, and the details about Operation Leakspin and Operation Leakflood, come from
testimonies by Anonymous supporters, including Topiary, as well as from various blog posts and news reports. The account of
splitting into operations, such as the DDoSes of Sarah Palin’s website and the Venezuelan government sites, comes from a variety of
news reports on websites such as Panda Security’s blog, ABCNews.go.com, and KnowYourMeme.com.
Details about #InternetFeds gradually usurping #command as an organizational hub popular with Anonymous hackers come from
Topiary, Kayla, and two other hackers who were in the channel. Further description of dialogue and content from discussions in the
channel comes from scores of screenshots provided by Matthew Keys.
Chapter 9: The Revolutionary
At least two people have corroborated that Tflow first invited Sabu into #InternetFeds; Sabu also claimed this. Details about Sabu’s
views come from dozens of online interviews I held with him both before and after his arrest by the FBI on June 7, 2011. My phone
interviews with Monsegur provided insights into his accent, his way of speaking, the background sounds I heard when I was
speaking with him, and his skills for lying and manipulation. At times they yielded little in the way of reliable insights since the phone
interviews took place after he started working for the FBI and had been encouraged to feed misinformation to journalists. Further
details about his life, upbringing, and address come from a series of court documents that were unsealed after the FBI revealed that he
had been acting as an informant since soon after June 7, 2011. Additionally, I have sourced some details from a three-part series of
Fox News stories about Monsegur published in March of 2012, one of which is entitled “Inside LulzSec, a Mastermind Turns on His
Minions.” Another helpful source for corroborating personal details on Monsegur was the New York Times story “Hacker, Informant