LulzSec, the hacker collective that has forced Sony, PBS, the state of Arizona, and others to acknowledge major security holes, is retiring 50 days after it started. It posted its farewell note on Saturday, and it's as overwrought and nautical as ever:
It's time to say bon voyage. Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind - we hope - inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere.
But what does "bon voyage" mean when you're an anonymous hacker group? LulzSec was just a collection of free agents who can take their talent elsewhere if they hadn't already. And there are plenty of elsewheres. Anonymous, the hacker group du jour before LulzSec came along, and LulzRaft, a fledgling group with a Canadian focus both await. And of course LulzSec can just as easily reform, which would make this announcement more Brett Favre than Barry Sanders.
What LulzSec seems set on, then, is preserving its legacy. (Assuming it isn't just trying to avoid the cops.) This was not about the individual hacks, it was about a movement. "Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve," it wrote. And that's the thing about anonymous hacker collectives. Even when they disband, they're not actually gone. They re-form as something else. Just for lulz.
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