Suddenly, LulzSec Quits

LulzSec, or Lulz Security as it is fully known, has wreaked havoc across the Internet for less than two months. According to a "press release" issued by the group, the lulz are over, and so is the group.

The announcement comes just a few days after LulzSec announced AntiSec, a campaign it said was designed to expose corruption in government and big business, run in conjunction with fellow hacker group Anonymous.

As part of that campaign, LulzSec released a cache of information from the Arizona Department of Public Safety (in other words, police and other authorities). While earlier hacks were just "for the lulz" (or fun), it seemed that LulzSec had jumped to "causes."

Given that, it's hard to understand what just happened. Fear of getting caught? Ryan Cleary, an accused hacker, was arrested earlier this week, and although denials were made, is believed to be LulzSec member. That said, in a very recent interview with Gawker, a leading member of LulzSec who goes by the alias "Topiary" said that "Worrying is for fools."

However, rival hacking group Team Poison, calling LulzSec "script kiddies," said it was going to expose members of the group. Could that be the reason? The announcement was made in a press release at pastebin and also via Twitter. Since it's not April Fools' Day, it seems like LulzSec is truly gone, and cyber security experts are probably breathing sighs of relief.

Here's what their farewell post says:

Friends around the globe, We are Lulz Security, and this is our final release, as today marks something meaningful to us. 50 days ago, we set sail with our humble ship on an uneasy and brutal ocean: the Internet. The hate machine, the love machine, the machine powered by many machines. We are all part of it, helping it grow, and helping it grow on us.

For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. All to selflessly entertain others - vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy. It's what we all crave, even the seemingly lifeless politicians and emotionless, middle-aged self-titled failures. You are not failures. You have not blown away. You can get what you want and you are worth having it, believe in yourself.

While we are responsible for everything that The Lulz Boat is, we are not tied to this identity permanently. Behind this jolly visage of rainbows and top hats, we are people. People with a preference for music, a preference for food; we have varying taste in clothes and television, we are just like you. Even Hitler and Osama Bin Laden had these unique variations and style, and isn't that interesting to know? The mediocre painter turned supervillain liked cats more than we did.

Again, behind the mask, behind the insanity and mayhem, we truly believe in the AntiSec movement. We believe in it so strongly that we brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we've gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don't stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve.

So with those last thoughts, it's time to say bon voyage. Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind - we hope - inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere.

Thank you for sailing with us. The breeze is fresh and the sun is setting, so now we head for the horizon.

Let it flow...

Lulz Security - our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011, and a shout-out to all of our battlefleet members and supporters across the globe

Our mayhem: http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/
Our chaos: http://thepiratebay.org/user/LulzSec/
Our final release: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6495523/50_Days_of_Lulz
Please make mirrors of material on the website, because we're not renewing the hosting. Goodbye. <3

Notably, the post said the 50 days was the planned length of the Lulz Boat cruise, making it sound as though the end was prewritten. The post also mentioned the group only had six members.

Despite that, the group, assuming the information that seems to be in its file release on BitTorrent, has gone out with a bang. The torrent file points to an over 450MB download with a ton of data, including:

• 50 Days of Lulz.txt 2.64 KiB
• booty/AOL internal data.txt 63.6 KiB
• booty/AT&T internal data.rar 314.59 MiB
• booty/Battlefield Heroes Beta (550k users).csv 24.67 MiB
• booty/FBI being silly.txt 3.82 KiB
• booty/Hackforums.net (200k users).sql 111.2 MiB
• booty/Nato-bookshop.org (12k users).csv 941.8 KiB
• booty/Office networks of corporations.txt 3.87 KiB
• booty/Private Investigator Emails.txt 2.52 KiB
• booty/Random gaming forums (50k users).txt 6.08 MiB
• booty/Silly routers.txt 67.7 KiB

We'll see if they are gone forever. We'll also have to wait and see if the group's Brazilian arm, which only opened this week, will close as well.

The group also released a sort of farewell video. Watch it below.