Here's What It Looks Like When Two Hacker FBI Informants Try To Inform On Each Other
Michael ?@_cypherpunks_
Weekend Snitch Story: Here's What It Looks Like When Two Hacker FBI Informants Try To Inform On Each Other
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/06/28/heres-what-it-looks-like-when-two-hacker-fbi-informants-try-to-inform-on-each-other/ … #Sabu #Q
In an instant message conversation with Thordarson Thursday, I asked him what he might have given to the FBI that could be relevant to its investigation, and he responded immediately with a chat log between himself and the member of the LulzSec hacker group known as Sabu, which he says he gave to the FBI and which he says shows “that information was passed on from LulzSec that later got published by WikiLeaks,” which he believes supports a “conspiracy” charge against Julian Assange or others in WikiLeaks.
The log is likely less useful to the FBI than Thordarson thinks: It’s no surprise that WikiLeaks has published hacked files, or even that it publishes files hacked specifically by LulzSec, such as the millions of emails stolen from the private intelligence firm Stratfor by activist Jeremy Hammond, who pleaded guilty to computer fraud and abuse last month.
More interesting, or at least more humorous, is the fact that the chat log represents a conversation between two FBI informants, both of whom seem to be trying to lure the other into providing evidence they can turn over to their law enforcement handlers–or even into a meeting that could lead to the other’s arrest. Sabu, also known as Hector Xavier Monsegur, had agreed to work as an FBI mole within LulzSec months before his conversation with Thordarson. Thordarson, for his part, tells me he thought he was helping to deliver a “notorious hacker” to the FBI, and didn’t know he was speaking to a fellow stool pigeon. Monsegur doesn’t show any signs of knowing either.
(More at the link.)