LulzSec & Cyber Wilding

The last month or so LulzSec has taken the Internet and the media by storm. They have hacked and DDoS’ed their way to infamy. They claim that they gather online in large groups to get some lulz. 

Lulzsec is not original in using DDoS attacks, or even as a loosely tied together group of hackers. We’ve seen both of those before, but Lulz Security is different for one very obvious reason: they say they do it simply for the lulz. 

The rise of Lulzsec in my opinion is also the rise of cyber wilding. I mean, if we are honest with ourselves that is what it is. It’s a group of bored people banding together to wreak havoc in an effort to have a good time. 

“Wilding” happened in New York in the 80s and is happening again now in Chicago, but cyber wilding allows people everywhere to get in on the action. In Chicago the wilding incidents have involved groups as large as 70 converging on stores and overwhelming the clerk with sheer numbers. They wreak havoc on the stores, take what they want, then disperse and disappear. Sound familiar? 

LulzSec operates in much of the same way. They gather in large groups via the Internet, storm websites and force them to go offline. They also sometime actually hack websites taking whatever information they want. 

So what are my theories that wilding has moved to the internet? Well, the answer to that question is complicated and multifaceted. It began a very long time ago, when the people of my generation were young.

When we were little we were told that we could be anything that we wanted to be. The world was ours for the taking. I don't know if that was ever true, but it certainly isn't today. My generation was promised the world, and given the shaft. 

We worked hard. We followed our dreams. We believed what we had been told. But when the time came for us to enter the real world, we entered a world that simply was not able to live up to our dreams. When the bottom fell out on Wall Street, there were no jobs for us. We were left with high aspirations and nowhere to go.

We watched as the government bailed out the very people who screwed us, and left us jobless with enormous student debt.  We live in a world where the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are out of luck. And to add insult to injury, our government almost bankrupted our country spending money on wars that polls show the American people opposed. Everywhere we turned the world gave us the finger.

But we did have one place we could turn, a different world of sorts. We were the kids of the Internet. We grew up with computers, cell phones and games. At some point it became clear that we knew more about technology and the Internet than the ones who had taught us to use them.

The Internet was our playground and we built our own world there. It became very much a part of our lives. It became ours. And when things got tough, we turned to the Internet in one way or another for comfort. 

That brings me to the last part of the story. Right now corporations and governments are fighting for control of the Internet. They want to regulate the world we built for ourselves. The same people who stole our future, who left an entire generation by the wayside, are trying to take the one comfort that we have had to turn to. The UK is holding closed door meetings with copyright lawyers to try to censor the Internet. In the US we've seen the Protect IP act and Net Neutrality.

And thus, cyber wilding was born. Elijah Anderson, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania once said that "Kids who roam in groups gain a sense of power that they do not have individually," in reference to regular wilding. I believe that this plays a major part in cyber wilding as well.

When a large group is formed they are able to accomplish things that alone they could not, they work towards a common goal and within the group they have purpose. As a group, they have a power over others that alone they would not. They also have a boldness that is provided by the pack mentality.

But there is still one thing that doesn't add up. LulzSec claims that every attack is simply for lulz. But it seems to me that the targets have been pointed and the reasons for choosing those targets have been political.

Recently Lulzsec went after Arizona law enforcement stating it was over SB 1070. The release also contained this statement:

"Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors the government, corporations, police and militaries of the world."

You see, the nature of the targets is why LulzSec finds their operations so funny. These are not random attacks. LulzSec tries to appear non political, but the politics are clear. It’s an “us versus them” approach.  

In the beginning they attacked Sony, who is going after GeoHot for jail-breaking their products. They also went after PBS after they aired documentary which many saw as less than flattering to Bradley Manning (accused of leaking government documents to Wikileaks). They went after FBI related sites, Senate.gov and the CIA.

Some of their targets really do seem to be simply for the lulz. At one point they were taking requests via a hotline and taking people down just because they could. They even released the information of 62,000 general Web users. But these types of attacks are just supplementary.

Those types of attacks happen when a group like this gets together, has success and gets drunk on lulz. Then things start to spiral and the objective becomes less clear. The group reinforces the individual and the individual reinforces the group. But that was just a bleep on the radar. The attack yesterday seems to put them back on the track of fighting the “oppressors.”

The LulzSec pack is being hunted as we speak by the FBI, who raided a server facility in Reston, VA in an effort to locate LulzSec members. The raid took countless websites offline and, according to the major company targeted, DigitalOne, the raid wasn’t necessary.  But the government isn’t the only ones going after LulzSec. Other hacker groups are also making efforts to expose the group. 

But to me the response by the FBI seems illogical. It isn’t possible to locate and prosecute every participant of the lulz attacks. To me it seems that the real goal should be to identify the issues that have spurred these groups, and to remedy them.

So even though LulzSec claims that they are simply doing it for the lulz, it’s the dissatisfaction with the state of the world we live in and the actions of those in power that drove the group together.

It seems that wilding has evolved and that this new cyber wilding is more sophisticated, more directed and, if possible, more damaging to its targets. I don’t know if cyber wilding is here to stay, but the internet isn’t going anywhere, that’s for sure.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.