LulzSec suspect returned to prison for breaching bail conditions
by Steve Ragan - Apr 3 2012, 20:45
LulzSec suspect returned to prison for breaching bail conditions. (IMG: LulzSec)
Ryan Cleary, the 19-year-old who was arrested last year for offences under the U.K.’s Criminal Law Act and Computer Misuse Act, has been returned to prison for violating the conditions of his bail.
The Associated Press broke the news last week. Cleary, known for his association with LulzSec, was returned to prison after using the Internet to contact another LulzSec member, Hector Xavier Monsegur, last Christmas. As a condition of bail, Cleary was banned from using the Internet and from contacting anyone associated with Anonymous or LulzSec.
London's Metropolitan Police arrested Cleary on March 5, just 24-hours before the U.S. Department of Justice told Fox News that Monsegur – better known as Sabu – was an FBI informant. Karen Todner, Cleary’s lawyer, said that her client was sent to Chelmsford Prison, and that he will appear before a judge in May.
Cleary was charged with creating a botnet, as well as offering the use of his botnet to others for the commission of a crime. In addition, he is charged with taking part in the DDoS attacks on the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) website, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) website, and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) website.
The Tech Herald was present when Cleary admitted publically to controlling a botnet of 5-10,000 bots, out of an install base of 50,000 to pull from. According to his statements, they were used during OpSony and attacks against BMI (actions performed during Anonymous’ Operation: Payback), as well as DDoS attacks against DreamHost.
Just under a month before his arrest, Cleary attacked the AnonOps network, using his ownership over the domains tied to AnonOps’ DNS structure to redirect all IRC traffic to servers he owned. Afterwards he leaked some 600 IP addresses to the public.
When questioned by the other AnonOps administrators about his actions, and the violation of trust, Cleary simply stated, “[You] didn’t bother to check my background, my affiliations…you got fucking owned…”
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