Hacktivist 'Jester' Took Down LulzSec, Anonymous Sites

The Jester, or rather th3j35t3r, deems himself as a "hacktivist for good" and "obstructing the lines of communication for terrorists, sympathizers, fixers, facilitators, and other general bad guys." He also claims to be somewhere between 31 and 49 years of age and "an ex-soldier with a rather famous unit" that served two hours of duty as an airborne combat trooper in Afghanistan and other places.

As of late, the Jester has been on a mission to take down Anonymous and LulzSec. Monday he tweeted that the sites of both groups were knocked offline. There's even indication that he's gained access to their Twitter accounts.

"People talkin 2 @atopiary @lolspoon @anonymousabu R in fact talking 2 themselves," he tweeted. "Anyone tweeting from those accounts now is a standin."

"TANGOS DOWN - @lulzsec aka @atopiary + @lolspoon - having presented them their infos days ago - they decided they're no longer 'legion' #c2p," reads one tweet. "www.lulzsecurity.com - TANGOS DOWN - @lulzsec @lolspoon and @atopiary," reads another.

"www.anonyops.com - TANGO DOWN - in cohoots," he tweeted. "Days ago I handed @atopiary @lulzsec @lolspoon their asses. Today anonyops.com lulzsecurity.com hit."

One of The Jester's first public stunts involved a DoS attack against wikileaks.org back in 2010. He said that the site was harming U.S. troops by releasing diplomatic cables and footage from Afghanistan. Originally The Jester began his vigilante hacker crusade by taking down Muslim web sites that he claimed were recruiting terrorists. He also attacked the website of the Westboro Baptist Church back in February who caught the media's attention by picketing outside the funerals of fallen soldiers and its public stance against gays and Jews.

"www.godhatesfags.com - TANGO DOWN," he tweeted after the attack. "Temporarily. For celebrating the death of US troops - honeypot fail btw."

The Jester reportedly doesn't use the typical distributed denial of attack to take down a website. Instead, he supposedly uses a custom tool he "created" called XerXes to perform a denial of service (DoS). Quietly attacking Muslim websites on his own, he didn't get entangled with Anonymous and LulzSec until they began to "pick a fight with him." The Jester warned LulzSec to back off – obviously that didn't happen.

Meanwhile, Anonymous and LulzSec are calling on web surfers to boycott PayPal. Mercedes Haefer, a 20-year-old journalism student at the university of Nevada, is one of around 14 Anonymous "suspects" accused of hacking into and launching denial of service attacks against PayPal last December. She could face up to 15 years imprisonment and a fine up to $500,000 USD.

As reported on Tuesday, the FBI conducted raids of suspected Anonymous members nationwide based on a list of IP addresses provided by PayPal – these are allegedly responsible for the most protest traffic during the DDoS attack last December. Anonymous and LulzSec deems the attack as a "historical activist movement" and part of "ethical, modern cyber operations."

"PayPal continues to withhold funds from WikiLeaks, a beacon of truth in these dark times," the public statement reads. "By simply standing up for ourselves and uniting the people, PayPal still sees it fit to wash its hands of any blame, and instead encourages and assists law enforcement to hunt down participants in the AntiSec movement."

"We encourage anyone using PayPal to immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative," they continue. "The first step to being truly free is not putting one's trust into a company that freezes accounts when it feels like, or when it is pressured by the U.S. government. PayPal's willingness to fold to legislation should be proof enough that they don't deserve the customers they get. They do not deserve your business, and they do not deserve your respect."

Obviously there are two sides to every story, and The Jester doesn't agree with their point of view. "ur buds, gone, ur site gone, ur followers making you look stupid," he tweeted.