On the heels of 25 arrests of Spanish-speaking anons last week, Anonymous was rocked Tuesday by the news that Hector Xavier Monsegur, the legal name of prominent antisec known as Sabu, has been cooperating with the FBI to hunt down other anon hackers from Lulzsec and Antisec.
The chatter on the anon IRC servers and anon-associated Twitter accounts ranged Tuesday from denial about Sabu’s involvement to outrage and hatred for Monsegur. One who worked with Sabu as part of Antisec, the miltant and pranksterish arm of Anonymous, described themselves as “emotionally devastated” and “shocked” by the news.
“Sabu was in my opinion a great guy. I was woken up today with the message that the arrests happened. It came to me like an emotional bitchslap,” said the anon in an online chat. ”I know why I got kicked out of antisec now,” the anon continued, intimating that Sabu did so to protect him/her from prosecution.
Another anon described Sabu as a mentor figure, saying Sabu had encouraged and taught him/her about Python programming.
“I honestly wouldn’t have learned without him actually taking the time to give me some really pro tips… and show me that there was almost no limits to what you could do with it if you were doing it right.”
But in the timeframe of Monsegur’s arrest — which occurred without public notice in the summer, this anon saw a change in Monsegur’s behavior. Monsegur became more distant, and while he’d always displayed an un-Anonymous desire for fame that drew criticism, “after a certain point everything just became about him-him-him. And he’d randomly send out some almost cryptic messages about how it was all for Anonymous etc etc, but at a certain point I just stopped buying that. I think a lot of people did.”
According to several anons, around this time Monsegur became interested in a wider range of operations, including those he’d not had previous involvement in.
But despite the changes and ultimate betrayal, many anons aren’t ready to condemn Monsegur after hearing about the arrests of fellow anons due to his cooperation with the feds.
“It was either 124 years for Sabu, or 10 years each for the others,” said the former antisec anon. “I get why he did it, but he damaged the collective because of his own problems. And Anonymous is not your personal army. Nor is antisec.”
The possible 124-year sentence for Monsegur’s crimes struck anons as out of proportion for his crimes. As one put it, “Sabu is approximately one Topiary and some cash less heinous than Bernie Madoff, according to the FBI using their measurement of prison time,” referring to the purported age of one of the Lulzsec members Monsegur snitched on and the relatively light sentence of the billion-dollar ponzi scheme fraudster...