Amid the flurry of news surrounding the arrest of suspected LulzSec hacker Ryan Cleary, Cnet news reached out to Jennifer Granick for her expertise, asking for her opinion regarding law enforcement’s investigation of LulzSec and AntiSec and what may happen next. As of late, the infamous Anonymous and LulzSec hacker groups have been wreaking havoc through highly publicized attacks on several corporate and government targets, leading to an increased urgency in the investigation and eventually to the arrest of Ryan Cleary. The article reports that it’s still unclear how involved, if at all, Mr. Cleary was in these hacking groups and according to Granick, the “investigation is going to take some time.” The real questions that need to be answered are ‘If he was involved with these groups… who does he know? What does he know? And what does he have on his computer?” Granick continued by saying that the first big arrests in a case like this can be important because “if [Cleary] is involved, that is a crack in the door and investigators may or may not be able to ferret out the other people.”
She also commented on the charges that those associated with the Anonymous and LulzSec attacks could face if caught. Under U.S. Federal laws damages can be aggregated and “prosecutors don’t have to prove you caused the damage beyond a reasonable doubt. A defendant can be sentenced on related conduct too.” All prosecutors need to do is “find a few people who suffered harm and they can aggregate that.” To read more of the article click here.
