johalputt: Josh Halliday

British members of hacker collective also admit conspiring to bring down UK and US law enforcement authority websites

Three British members of the hacktivist group LulzSec have pleaded guilty to carrying out cyber-attacks on the NHS, Sony and News International.

Ryan Ackroyd, a 26-year-old from Mexborough in South Yorkshire, admitted plotting to hack into a string of websites, including those of 20th Century Fox and Arizona state police in the United States, as part of an eight-month campaign in 2011.

He pleaded guilty to one computer hacking-related charge alongside fellow LulzSec members Jake Davis, 20, and 18-year-old Mustafa al-Bassam at Southwark crown court in London on Tuesday.

Davis, from Shetland, and Bassam, a student from Peckham, south London, admitted conspiring to bring down the websites of law enforcement authorities in Britain and the US, including the CIA and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) between 1 February and 2 September 2011. They also pleaded guilty to attempting to break into computers run by the NHS, media giants Sony, 20th Century Fox and News International.

The trio will be sentenced on 14 May along with a fourth hacker, Ryan Cleary, a 21-year-old from Wickford in Essex, who earlier pleaded guilty to six connected charges.

Southwark crown court heard on Tuesday that Ackroyd adopted the persona of a 16-year-old girl, named "Kayla", in the hacking group LulzSec.

Prosecutor Sandip Patel told the court: "He was the hacker, so to speak, they turned to him for his expertise as a hacker."

Wearing blue Adidas tracksuit bottoms and a blue T-shirt, Ackroyd appeared alongside Davis in the glass-encased dock before Judge Deborah Taylor.

Bassam, a student who turned 18 in January, was named for the first time as admitting his role in the computer hacking attacks, where he is believed to have used the name "Tflow". The teenager is reckoned to be the youngest to date to admit charges linked to LulzSec.

The allegations each relate to an eight-month period in 2011 when the loose-knit hacktivist group targeted a number of websites run by well-known companies and police authorities across the world. The trio were arrested after the group's apparent leader, Hector Monsegur – known online as "Sabu" – was caught by the FBI and persuaded to turn informant.

In the UK, each of the hackers charged by police in connection with attacks by LulzSec and original group Anonymous have now been convicted. Four Anonymous hackers, including a student and a church volunteer, were sentenced in January for their part in the online assaults.

American prosecutors are pursuing charges against a number of people allegedly connected to the hacking groups, including the Reuters journalist Matthew Keys. Keys was indicted in California last month for allegedly conspiring with Anonymous members to hack into a website run by the publisher Tribune Company.

LulzSec

Hacking

Josh Halliday

via The Guardian World News http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/rss/~3/5tcMoTpEQs0/lulzec-hacktivists-plead-guilty-cyberattacks

08:06

Executive chairman expresses fears for safety of dissidents and concerns over hacking reports

Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, has described China as "the most egregious" example of a nation attempting to control the internet, as he issued a stark warning about the safety of dissidents in the communist state.

In an interview with the Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger at the Big Tent Activate Summit in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, Schmidt spoke of his concern about reports from the New York Times last month that its computers had been invaded by Chinese hackers.

"As the internet has emerged in many of these different countries, there's a few countries that have no laws at all and those internets tend to be free and open and anything goes," he said, adding that there were also states that attempt to suppress information online, with "... China being the most egregious example".

Asked about his views on the privacy of citizens online, Schmidt gave the example of Chinese dissidents who may wish to speak in confidence to a newspaper to reveal sensitive information.

"I'm not going to ask about the Guardian, but how would you feel if the Chinese had just hacked into the New York Times and gone through the servers and you were Chinese dissidents and had indeed done that?" he told the summit.

"My point here is that this [ability to intrude on privacy] is going to happen because the value of the internet is so profound and positive, but we've got to recognise the issues and get ahead of it by discussion."

Schmidt's remarks are likely to inflame already tense relations between Washington and Beijing over allegations of cyber-warfare.

On Wednesday, South Korea said it had traced a co-ordinated cyber-attack targeting banks and media firms to China, whose new premier, Li Keqiang, earlier this week said that states should "not make groundless accusations against each other".

The interview comes a month after it was revealed that Schmidt makes his sharpest criticism of China yet in his new book, The New Digital Age, which is due to be released in April. The Google chairman describes China as "the world's most active and enthusiastic filterer of information" and "the most sophisticated and prolific" hacker of foreign companies.

Speaking in India on Thursday, Schmidt flatly denied speculation that he is attempting to position himself for a job in the US government. Asked by Rusbridger whether he would take such a role, Schmidt replied: "No, never. Government people have a very hard job. I much prefer this job, it's much easier."

Speculation about a White House move has increased in recent months following Schmidt's trips to North Korea and Burma as an advocate for the open internet, coupled with his decision to shed 42% of his Google stock. He was replaced as chief executive of the internet giant in April 2011, as co-founder Larry Page sought to refocus the business on key areas, such as its Android smartphone software, Chrome web browser and search.

In the wide-ranging interview before India's internet pioneers, Schmidt touched on his thoughts on soon-to-be-killed Google Reader ("I do love Google Reader, but we had priorities") and Apple's iPad Mini ("Too small").

On the future funding models for newspapers, Schmidt singled out Politico, a Washington website that runs a hybrid of free and subscription-only sites for policy junkies, as a potential model for newspapers.

Last week Politico announced it had 1,000 subscribers paying upwards of $8,000 (£5,200) a year and was launching a quarterly print publication. Referring to newspapers, he also said it was "a reasonable prediction that incumbent businesses who already have subscribers will transition them into online subscribers".

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