“The Jester” Raided and Equipment Seized after Wikileaks DoS Attack

(*** UPDATE 12/2: Infosec posted today that this is indeed a hoax. Infosec has interviewed the real Jester in the past. Jester released several posts today on his original Twitter account. This one states the story is indeed made up:

  th3j35t3r Jester The raid story = fabricated by the imposter (@th3j3st3r – http://www.th3j35t3r.net) to facilitate him capitalizing on the name, or to draw me out. )

(*** UPDATE 12/1: Several sources are now saying that the raid and equipment confiscation may be a hoax or social engineering scheme to obtain funds for “Lawyer Fees”. Thanks to Philo for the heads up on this.)

Wikileaks attacker “The Jesters” (also known as “th3 j35t3r”) had his house raided by Sheriff’s department and his equipment confiscated according to an article on his website:

So much for being quiet around here. The fire is starting to stir.. as many of you already are aware my door was kicked in and all of my equipment was seized. The weird thing is it was the local sheriffs office not the government. Hmmm..

In the mean time, my email and WordPress accounts are probably jeopardized so I decided to launch on my own server since nothing can be trusted at this time. I still have copies of all utilities, code, and web backups.

I will keep everyone posted as things start to unfold. I am not sure whats going to happen, no charges have been filed as of yet. Thanks for all your support! Don’t forget, Follow the new ‘th3j35t3r‘ Twitter!

The Jester, well known for taking down Jihad recruiting websites with his XerXes Denial of Service program (DoS), claimed responsibility for taking Wikileaks offline on Sunday during the time that the document release was set to occur.

His attack seemed somewhat futile, as Wikileaks had already disseminated the information to several news sites that released the information.

Wikileaks was also hit by a second, much stronger DoS attack yesterday, but moved its website back to Amazon’s cloud network for protection:

Analysis of the first attack by DDoS mitigation experts Arbor Networks shows that the assault ran at a relatively modest 2-4Gbps for several hours. The attack, modest by the standards of other attacks this year that have hit 10Gbps and above, was nonetheless severe enough for Wikileaks to move its systems back back over to Amazon’s cloud infrastructure in order to seek shelter from the storm.

I know that it is illegal for citizens to perform any cyber attack. But Wikileaks thumbs its nose at the strongest nation in the world, releases sensitive & classified documents and so far has come out scot-free.

 The Jester takes them down and immediately gets raided and has his equipment seized. Is this right? What is your opinion on this?