LulzSec and Anonymous team up, plan digital destruction

LulzSec and Anonymous have joined forces, and "any government or agency" is the target.

Comic book fan? This is kind of like that time Magneto teamed up with Apocalypse, and the two dudes wreaked a lot of havoc on the world. Over the weekend, LulzSec, a relatively new group of Internet pranksters, announced it would join Anonymous – a much more established, if still loosely affiliated, organization of hackers – to wage war on government sites, under the auspices of an initiative called "Operation Anti-Security."

"We encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path," reads a LulzSec statement. "We fully endorse the flaunting of the word 'AntiSec' on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art. We encourage you to spread the word of AntiSec far and wide, for it will be remembered. To increase efforts, we are now teaming up with the Anonymous collective and all affiliated battleships."

Another tweet published to the official LulzSec Twitter page, informed the world that "anarchy is now." So this should be interesting. Two groups of hackers, intent on unleashing chaos, all in the name of the public good. For fans of chaos – and dystopian graphic novels such as "V for Vendetta" – this will no doubt be greeted as grand news indeed. For government employees, well, not so much.

"Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation," LulzSec have announced. "Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood." Because regular cannonfire would obviously not suffice.

As we noted last week, LulzSec – short for Lulz Security – already has a string of successful hacks under its belt, including the recent breach of the US Senate site, which LulzSec spokespeople said was done, "just for kicks." Before that, there was "Sownage" – an ongoing war against Sony – and attacks on the Websites of PBS and Fox. (In the latter case, LulzSec exposed a database of "X-Factor" contestants.)

So what can you do? Here's the Monitor's recent list of five simple ways to protect yourself from identity theft.

LulzSec fan? Drop us a line. LulzSec hater? We want to hear from you, too. We're equal-opportunity at Horizons.