states across the country, from California to New York, in a federal
raid on the notorious hacking group.
The arrests Tuesday, first reported by FoxNews.com, are part of an
ongoing investigation into Anonymous, which has claimed responsibility
for numerous cyberattacks against a variety of websites, including
Visa and Mastercard.
Anonymous hackers long island
July 19, 2011: FBI agents execute a search warrant at the Long Island,
NY, home of a suspected member of notorious hacking group Anonymous.
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The Department of Justice, in announcing the arrests and more than 35
search warrants in the case, said the case stemmed from an alleged
cyberattack on the website PayPal over its action against
controversial group WikiLeaks, one of the inspirations for the hacker
group Anonymous.
Fourteen of the arrests were identified in the same indictment out of
California, while two separate criminal complaints filed out of courts
in Newark, N.J., and Tampa, Fla., name the two other alleged hackers.
All are believed to have been involved in carrying out nationwide
coordinated distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on multiple
high-profile, billion-dollar companies.
"In retribution for PayPal's termination of WikiLeaks' donation
account, a group calling itself Anonymous coordinated and executed
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal's computer
servers using an open source computer program the group makes
available for free download on the Internet," the Justice Department
said in a news release.
The department identified the suspects in the California indictment as
Christopher Wayne Cooper, 23, aka "Anthrophobic;" Joshua John Covelli,
26, aka "Absolem" and "Toxic;" Keith Wilson Downey, 26; Mercedes Renee
Haefer, 20, aka "No" and "MMMM;" Donald Husband, 29, aka "Ananon;"
Vincent Charles Kershaw, 27, aka "Trivette," "Triv" and "Reaper;"
Ethan Miles, 33; James C. Murphy, 36; Drew Alan Phillips, 26, aka
"Drew010;" Jeffrey Puglisi, 28, aka "Jeffer," "Jefferp" and "Ji;"
Daniel Sullivan, 22; Tracy Ann Valenzuela, 42; and Christopher Quang
Vo, 22. One individual's name has been withheld by the court.
They are charged with various counts of conspiracy and intentional
damage to a protected computer, which carries a maximum sentence of 10
years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Each count of conspiracy
carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Also Tuesday, Scott Matthew Arciszewski, 21, was arrested in Florida
on charges of intentional damage to a protected computer for allegedly
accessing without authorization the Tampa Bay InfraGard website and
uploaded three files.
And Lance Moore, 21, of Las Cruces, N.M., was arrested on the New
Jersey indictment, which accuses him of stealing confidential business
information stored on AT&T's servers and posting it on a file-sharing
site. He is charged with one count of accessing a protected computer
without authorization.
U.S. law enforcement officials also told FoxNews.com that the arrest
of a 16-year-old hacker in London, who goes by the online user name
Tflow, was related to the raids in the U.S.
Some of the arrests were out of the San Francisco field office,
sources said. Earlier in the day, the FBI executed search warrants at
the New York homes -- two in Long Island, N.Y., and one in Brooklyn,
N.Y. -- of three suspected members of Anonymous, FoxNews.com reported.
More than 10 FBI agents arrived at the Baldwin, N.Y., home of Giordani
Jordan with a search warrant for computers and computer-related
accessories, removing at least one laptop from the premises.
The Anonymous group is a loose collection of cybersavvy activists
inspired by WikiLeaks and its flamboyant head Julian Assange to fight
for "Internet freedom" -- along the way defacing websites, shutting
down servers, and scrawling messages across screens web-wide.
The Anonymous vigilante group recently turned its efforts to the
Arizona police department, posting personal information of law
officers and hacking and defacing websites in response, the group
claims, to the state's controversial SB1070 immigration law.
While Anonymous is largely a politically motivated organization,
splinter group LulzSec -- which dominated headlines in the spring for
a similar streak of cyberattacks -- was largely in it for the thrills.
The metropolitan police in London arrested the first alleged member of
the LulzSec group on June 20, a 19-year-old teen named Ryan Cleary.
Subsequent sweeps through Italy and Switzerland in early July led to
the arrests of 15 more people -- all between the ages of 15 and 28
years old.
The two groups are responsible for a broad spate of digital break-ins
targeting governments and large corporations, including Japanese
technology giant Sony, the U.S. Senate, telecommunications giant AT&T,
Fox.com, and other government and private entities.
source: foxnews
