LulzSec Downplays Arrest of Hacking Suspect

The hacker group LulzSec says the British teen arrested in connection with its attack on a police agency's website was not an active member of the group.

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On its Twitter account -- viewed as a reliable source of information about the group -- LulzSec says the 19-year-old was not a member and only hosted on a server a legitimate IRC chat room used by LulzSec.

"Ryan Cleary is not part of LulzSec; we house one of our many legitimate chatrooms on his IRC server, but that's it," LulzSec tweeted. "We use Ryan's server, we also use Efnet, 2600, Rizon and AnonOps IRC servers. That doesn't mean they're all part of our group."

Police in the U.K. have not named the person they arrested.

The author of the tweet says that the arrest indicates how badly authorities want to dismantle LulzSec, but that the move is ineffective. "[T]he UK police are so desperate to catch us that they've gone and arrested someone who is, at best, mildly associated with us. Lame."

LulzSec has teamed up with another hacker group, Anonymous, to carry out attacks against Web sites of governments and businesses it deems guilty of corruption. It claims responsibility for such attacks almost every day.

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This story, "LulzSec Downplays Arrest of Hacking Suspect" was originally published by Network World.