During the 50-day mayhem spree by these Internet hackers, LulzSec brought attention to the capability of a small group out to do vandalism and damage to websites—and exactly what could be done with it. Instead of breaking into websites and toting the passwords and sensitive user information to the highest bidder, LulzSec hacked “for the lulz” and released the user information publicly. The reasoning behind this public release connected directly with the desire to find amusement in the hacking and inform the public just how often and how easily their passwords/information is taken already and nobody knows it—the LulzSec erstwhile turncoat leader Sabu explained as much.

As an edge of finality, the court cases against various members have finally come to a close and sentencing is done.

The hackers Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis and Mustafa al-Bassam have been charged with computer fraud crimes related to hacks against the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Sony, Nintendo, 20th Century Fox and governments and police forces. Many of the sentences for these rampaging cyber-vandals have been foreshortened and represent some of the lightest sentences given to hackers: Davis was sentenced to 24 months and will serve half of the sentence; Al-Bassam received a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years and 300 hours unpaid work; Ackroyd was given a 30-month sentence and he will serve half. And, Ryan Cleary, was sentenced separately for 32 months.

Interesting, unanswered questions from the 50-day Internet high-seas rampage

While on the move, LulzSec made a great deal of waves and could have been said to have caused a great deal of damage to public confidence—but now that it’s a year-and-a-half after the fact LulzSec’s antics are almost all but forgotten by the public at large. Password strength hasn’t gone up altogether that much and diversity of use hasn’t become a common practice. However, the echoes of what LulzSec did isn’t as interesting as what we don’t know about other things.

On the foremost is the hack and subsequent takedown of Sony’s PlayStation Network. A group successfully broke into and leaked data from PSN and then Sony responded by taking it offline for almost a month (causing a lot of issues for PlayStation users.) While claims were made that Anonymous or LulzSec were involved in this attack—no evidence surfaced that either the hactivist collective or the Internet-pranksters were involved, in fact, hitherto the capture of LulzSec and the court cases, the world at large still doesn’t know the agency behind that.

According to another article in the Guardian UK, one potential LulzSec member, Avunit, is still at large and unknown. The names of five of the members of the group–Sabu, Topiary, Tflow, Kayla and ViraL–are known: they are respectively Hector Xavier Monsegur, Jake Davis, Mustafa Al-Bassam, Ryan Ackroyd, and Ryan Cleary. Although the Guardian obtained chat logs about the makeup of the Internet hacker group, and Avunit was named, nobody knows who this is our how s/he is related.

Another interesting loose-end is that during the rampage, LulzSec received a great deal of funding in bitcoins from amused spectators and supporters. Now nobody knows who has access to those bitcoins. Due to the psudoanonymous nature of the cryptocurrency, it’s possible that the wallet containing access to the coins could be stored anywhere and encrypted; to this end only the person who knows where that is and how to access it would know how to get them—and whoever that is in the group isn’t talking.

At the time of the donations BTC value was only $6 and $10, now each of those coins is worth over $100.

Ordinarily in a case such as this, those funds would have been confiscated by the police agencies as part of the crime… However, due to the nature of bitcoins themselves and the obvious intelligence of whomever currently holds them, they will remain outside potential confiscation. Of course, there’s the off chance the wallet is hidden in an encrypted partition that’s currently in a police evidence vault.

If any of the LulzSec members had access to these stores, it’s estimated that the value could currently be over $180,000. Largely estimation, but any value that could be transformed into liquid money could be used for quite an effective defense fund for the various members of LulzSec.