[Update: "Alleged hacker just trying to highlight flaw"]
LulzSec is at it again, bringing a whole new batch of stick-it-to-the-man.
In its most recent activity, LulzSec has defaced the website of Infragard Atlanta, the Atlanta branch of a cooperative between the FBI and public assets.
The hack is part of LulzSec's self-promoted "Fuck FBI Friday," as noted on its Twitter feed (which has, over the past three days, soared from only a few thousand to over 37,000 at the time of this writing, mostly due to publicity over its hacking of NPR and placing a fake story about Tupac Shakur alive and well in New Zealand).
LulzSec has also shown active disdain for reporters attempting to interview them, promising to violate at least one reporter's orifice of choice, telling them "Gtfo, fucking media bullshit" and that "The twitter is all you're getting."
LulzSec has shown hostility towards the FBI before, but there was no indication that the FBI or Infragard were to be targets of hacking before today. This may be an opportunistic form of hacking that can strike virtually anywhere, whereas AnonOps' strategy revolved around one particular regime at a time. This makes LulzSec much more capable of striking many, many targets without warning or even without provocation. Whereas AnonOps has been devoted to fighting authoritarian regimes and its own self-preservation, LulzSec is less committed to specific fights and thus able to move more freely.
But in a more general sense, LulzSec reveals a broader facet of internet culture and society: from virtually anywhere, free-wheeling anarchistic technolibertarians can and will do things explicitly for the shits and giggles, and even when the authorities think they've tracked down one group, another batch of crackers has brushed up on their skills and is ready to start causing chaos.
Organizations (or anti-organizations) like LulzSec and Anonymous build off of the built-up outrage at governments and corporations, who increasingly exert more influence on our daily lives. In a way, they're not dissimilar to a forest fire, spreading at every available point until the situation becomes "unmanageable." While governments and corporations have been putting out the small fires for decades, they haven't been dealing with the underlying resentment and pressure building up, until it finally reaches a tipping point and engulfs the entire apparatus of power.
