In retaliation for an episode of PBS series Frontline about WikiLeaks, entitled “WikiSecrets,” a group of hackers (no, not Anonymous) posted a fake story to PBS.org that claimed long-dead rapper Tupac Shakur is still alive and residing in New Zealand, reports Boing Boing.
The hackers, a group who goes by the name LulzSec, claimed credit for the PBS website hack in a statement posted to Pastebin.com, which the group linked to on their Twitter page.
“We just finished watching WikiSecrets and were less than impressed. We decided to sail our Lulz Boat over to the PBS servers for further… perusing,” the statement reads. “As you should know by now, not even that fancy-ass fortress from the third shitty Pirates of the Caribbean movie (first one was better!) can withhold our barrage of chaos and lulz…Anyway, say hello to the insides of the PBS servers, folks. They best watch where they’re sailing next time.”
LulzSec also posted passwords for and usernames of PBS.org IT administrators and users, as well login information for PBS television stations.
The Frontline episode took a decidedly critical stance on WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, the Army Private suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the organization. Its tone drew cries of outrage from a wide swath of WikiLeaks supporters who saw the episode, not as journalism, but as a hit job by the establishment that sought to delegitimize WikiLeaks and Manning.
To further back criticism of the Frontline episode, WikiLeaks released its own unedited version of the PBS interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and claimed that the show was “hostile and misrepresents WikiLeaks’ views and tries to build an ‘espionage’ case against its founder, Julian Assange, and also the young soldier, Bradley Manning.”
LulzSec has also taken credit for hacking Sony’s BMG Japan website, and has vowed to launch more attacks against the beleaguered technology giant.
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