Ever since shadowy hacker group Lulzsec announced that it was hanging up its keyboards and no longer sailing the waters of easily obtainable (read: hackable) personal information, speculation has been rampant about the real reasons for the closure. "Y u hack no more," as some Internet communities might ask?
It's easy to come up with a few reasons why LulzSec decided to duck out while the getting was good—all of two days after the group declared that the world should appreciate its "2 months of mayhem with more to come." Was the FBI closing in on the group? Were a series of counter-hacks against Lulzsec putting the once-anonymous members into the same, uncomfortable public light as the users whose account details they've been releasing? Did they just "lack the skills to keep it going," as one anonymous LulzSec information dump on Pastebin suggests?
The Associated Press reportedly caught up with one of the verified members of LulzSec to find out why the group seemed to turn on a dime and announce its surprise departure. And while bits and pieces of the speculation are indeed true, the member claims that the prevailing reason for LulzSec leaving the scene was simple: Its members didn't care anymore.
"We're not quitting because we're afraid of law enforcement," the member told the AP "The press are getting bored of us, and we're getting bored of us."
It seems like a strange explanation, given that LulzSec seemingly made headlines with every Twitter post. The member went on to confirm that three or four of LulzSec's six members were taking "a breather" and that the member him- or herself was also considering dropping out of the hacking scene altogether. As for what the other sailors on the Lulzboat might do, the member suggested that they could join up with LulzSec's hacktivist partner, Anonymous.
LulzSec allegedly still holds a decent chunk of data that it has yet to disseminate for public use. The same LulzSec member said in a Friday interview that the group held at least 5GB of information from governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide—the "parting gift" by LulzSec on Saturday was only a fraction of the potential information.
It remains to be seen whether the rest of the group's plunder will ever be let out into the wild. Or what might happen to its (former?) crew. According to the anonymous LulzSec member, parts of the information about LulzSec members released publicly by third-party hacker groups were indeed genuine, and "a distraction," claimed the member.
For more, see PCMag's Guide to Knowing Your Hackers and Did LulzSec Change the Hacking Game, or Just Get Lucky?
For more from David, follow him on Twitter @TheDavidMurphy.