Teenager said to be LulzSec's Topiary bailed

Photo: Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times. Jake Davis, the 18-year-old Briton accused by police of being Lulz Security spokestweeter Topiary, is out on bail. Paul Sawers writes:

The suspected LulzSec member is accused of coordinating Anonymous and LulzSec attacks from his home in Yell, on the Shetland Islands. His laptop was examined and it apparently showed that he wrote a fake article claiming that Rupert Murdoch was dead, and such an article appeared on the Sun’s website recently when its own system was hacked. The hearing today also revealed that Davis’s computer had 750,000 people’s personal details, including private log-in information.

Source [TNW]

• [Donny Viszneki]

  and… how did he get caught?

• [john cummings]

  What a look, I hope that is double denim

• [gjk]

  Let him go, he’s got important work to do!

• [earwicker]

  How many different pairs of sunglasses did he try on in anticipation of this fateful day?

• [Andrew Wood]

  He certainly looks geeky enough.

• [franko]

  justin bieber is topiary?? O.o

• [Fitzador]

  If he’s supposed to be one of the ringleaders of a giant hacking organization, why didn’t he encrypt his disk? It’s always the prosaic things . . .

  • [Ziggamorph]

    He probably decrypted it when requested to by the police.

• [That_Anonymous_Coward]

  “The hearing today also revealed that Davis’s computer had 750,000
  people’s personal details, including private log-in information.”

  Ummm lemme show you pastebin and the contents LulzSec posted there.
  There are LOTS of people out there with the exact same details right now because corporations screwed their users over, please explain why they are not being charged with negligence.

  “His laptop was examined and it apparently showed that he wrote a fake
  article claiming that Rupert Murdoch was dead, and such an article
  appeared on the Sun’s website recently when its own system was hacked.”

  Oh you pretend no one has ever written about Murdoch dying just to make themselves feel better.
  Was he just proofing the article as it appeared on the servers as an exercise in grammar?
  I wrote something once that started with it was the best of times it was the worst of times, does this mean I am a famous author as those words were seen in a famous literary work?

  “The suspected LulzSec member is accused of coordinating Anonymous and LulzSec attacks”

  Oh so he is an expert in cat herding, that is very damaging to his case. *blink*

  I might have the contents of the ACS:Law server on my computer, doesn’t mean I took them down.
  I might have the contents of the Gawker server on my comptuer, doesn’t mean I took them down.

  • [Ziggamorph]

    Obviously that’s not the only evidence the police have. How else would they have got a search warrant?

    • [foobar]

      By asking for one?

  • [blurgh]

    Also, the evidence for evolution is all circumstantial.

• [bcsizemo]

  ITT: Not using TrueCrypt… 

• [Michael W.]

  Those glasses contain top secret plans to rebuild San Francisco. 

• [JohnBerry]

  I have an acquaintance who had his laptop confiscated by a govt agency 2 years ago. They are still trying to force him to reveal his passwords. I guess when you are young it is always the other guy who is going to get caught and needs encryption.

  • [Stephen M]

    Under the UK’s RIP laws doesn’t that mean sitting in jail until passwords are revealed. 

• [Maurice Reeves]

  Man, Zero Cool looks so much different than he did in the movie.  But he shouldn’t worry about these charges too much. In a few years he’ll get to date Angelina Jolie and hack the Gibson.

  • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

    If you watch Hackers backwards, it’s about a group of whitehats that fix the Gibson and go back to their shitty lives

• [Mark_Frauenfelder]

  I want him to play a young Keith Moon in The Who docudrama.

• [Thad_E_Ginathom]

  Eighteen … only linguistically a teenager

  Eighteen  is adult, in UK, at least, so can people stop referring to him as if he was a child?

• [jarmstrong]

  Without regard as to whether he looks smug in the above picture, that young dude is scared.  I am not surprised that the gov went after the youngest “legal adult” they could get their hands on.  He is going to be put through a wringer.  I am glad he is already out on bond and is not being “indefinitely” detained.

• [Art Carnage]

  Does his mother know he’s wearing her sunglasses?

• [Joel Mills]

  Blue Steel

  • [jnordb]

    I thought it looked more like Magnum myself….

• [Tim Quinn]

  Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  I could definitely see him rooming with Colton Harris-Moore.

• [MisterH4x0r]

  Wearing those shades should be a punishable offense. 1989 called, it wants its cool guy sunglasses back.

• [Improbus Liber]

  I hear he has just been signed to do a remake of Risky Business. 

• [blueelm]

  Awww he’s cute. 

• [Daniel Ewing]

  who paid his bail?  and, will he get to live in a cush country manor while awaiting trial?

  • [Luke]

    In the UK you don’t usually have to pay bail unless you are a high risk of running away.  

• [willam]

  Figures he would be from the land of ponies.

• [Jack Cleaver]

  His minder is Vin Diesel!
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADLEhaz7F1s

• [Michael Smith]

  I am guessing this young chap started here: script-kiddy-HOWTO, and went on to buy the shades.

• [Luke]

  Love the fact that the book he was carrying when he came out of court and that he showed to reporters leapt from 2174th in the Amazon UK bestseller list up to 97th as at the time writing this!  Sorry Richard & Judy but I’ll be signing up for Topiary’s bookclub after he has finished his jail sentence.  

• [Luke]

  Also praise for him from Charlie Brooker:

  “If Jake Davis really is Topiary, he’s got a great writing style. Def shits all over how I wrote at 18. Bet he writes a book. OK, e-book.”

  http://twitter.com/charltonbrooker/status/98025488513118208

• [Pend-O-Matic]

  Hack The Planet !

  It makes me wonder.
  Will the hackers fundamentally change this corrupt world? Or do they point out that not only is the corruption not some persecutive-delusion (as some might hope it to be from time to time), but it’s built out of equal parts bumbling overlords and poorly built structure… That we aren’t doing too much to outright Jenga… 

  I came to the understanding that there’s a cycle of violent upheaval, naive optimism, and corruption. that revolutions in the old sense cost lives to end up back where you started, or are only shortly supported (costing fewer actual lives:more imprisonment). these hackers on whole seem to reflect our general consensuses and pointing the finger- we attacked these people because they suck… I agree but is this a means of change?  I don’t know. I dig it, but I don’t know. terrorism didn’t work (WeatherUnderground), just bred more antithesis… which is good on one hand (mass solidarity/awareness) but bad in that it costs lives on the other end of the scale(both sides).  Why do people need to amass power that in the end changes little. are there evil masterminds with a plan, or just idiots gaining wealth on mass for no real purpose by any means necessary? If the market screwed most governments why don’t they agree on a new system instead of working within a broken one. the system generally throws money at people who might rise up why are they spending money on military/controls  and taking it away from the poor who rise up…. seems like the system isn’t playing by its own rules- which never ends well for the system, or the people. Here comes part two of the cycle. Why do they never learn that their end (fascism) never works, it pisses people off, and yet the keep playing that hand?