Jake Davis, AKA 'Topiary', on being arrested and banned from the internet | WIRED 2013 | WIRED

Jake Davis (aka Topiary) - former hacker and self-described 'simple prankster turned swank garden hedge' who is a former member of Lulzsec and similar hacktivist groups talks to Wired 2013. Jake Davis, AKA Topiary, scares Fox News a lot. He spoke on stage about his arrest following Lulzsec's attack on the Serious Organised Crime Agency's website
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Jake Davis, AKA 'Topiary', on being arrested and banned from the internet | WIRED 2013 | WIRED
/ wireduk

[@q......]

*note to self, change fish finger microsd hiding spot.

[@Mydevineself]

Lol that's a damn good hiding spot though

[@111bill000]

dude babel fish malfunction.

[@brandonrenard5192]

I wonder if he still has over 9000 sins???

[@thrupert]

Brandon Renard x)

[@EshUlmer2112]

+Brandon Renard ROFLMAO!! Very good question.

[@relaxaopipi]

I wonder if he likes mudkips

[@Dist00rtion]

What a great public speaker.

[@aaronmansor7663]

TwistedFish hi

[@richtofen4888]

AAron Mansor hello

[@NFI05]

And he’s awful

[@Josephlandon1]

I bet Hollywood could make a good movie out of this

[@LunaMoonSinger]

It is actually amazing how charming he is. The books I read and news articles all described him as socially awkward. He doesn't seem so at all. Its sad how little the government understood about the internet and internet culture and he seemed to have gotten the blunt end of the stick. I hope they lessen the charges on him he seems like a good guy.

[@thesilliestclown]

he was clearly avoiding eye-contact with the guy at the end, he seemed to look at the ground the entire time during the speech. Obviously he's not cripplingly anxious, but it's obviously there

[@LunaMoonSinger]

If you asked me to stand on stage and make a speech in front of all those people. I would be nervous. It might just be nerves.

[@TheSpecialist54]

the govt. doesn't misunderstand anything, they hide their corruption and they try to scare the hackers from exposing them.

[@theangryginger7582]

So sabu ratted you out

[@hassnaelmarouani4804]

TheAngryGinger sabu ratted everyone out..

[@theangryginger7582]

Hassna Elmarouani lol true

[@MaryGIrlMoody]

Glad to see this guy is out and doing well. Thanks for posting.

[@Josh101]

His life seems better off for it, were it nor for his involvement in lulzsec he may still be on the shetland islands doing nothing but gaming.

[@theangryginger7582]

Oh and the guy who kept using the same password was CEO Erin Barr and his password was kibifo33

[@imakethings9892]

+Meplayminecraft Now Aaron Barr and his password was kibafo33. But other than that, you're spot on.

[@theangryginger7582]

what i dont know is how he came up with such a weird password

[@imakethings9892]

Meplayminecraft Now I'd like to know that as well. XD I'm guessing 33 had to do with his age. Maybe kibafo was his... dog?

[@theangryginger7582]

maybe, lol

[@MonkeyDLuffy-lx6ou]

+Meplayminecraft Now fanboy

[@MizKiwii]

hehe this guy is super charming

[@swiftyhd5838]

haha at the end, he wasnt even allowed to tell him who he is working for now.

[@swiftyhd5838]

Oh :D . Thanks for explaining :)

[@rossvasquez7012]

***** back on the internet atlast

[@mikeelp23]

Swifty HD See kids, crime DOES pay!

[@airex12]

Definitely GCHQ

[@BlatentlyFakeName]

@@airex12 With his history and criminal record, he wouldn't be able to get the clearance to work for GCHQ or any government work which requires security clearance. It happens in the US (where they take convicts, make a deal and basically own them), but not the UK. GCHQ have plenty of people with his skills with a clean history.

[@vouch4]

Jake, just wanted to give you some positive feedback on your 1st class presentation to balance out some of these pathetic comments on here. For a young man from a remote island you appear to be destined for much greater things from life than was destined for you on Shetland. This outcome has only been made possible by your personality, drive, courage, intelligence and survivalist sense of humour, well done my friend. Contrary to negative comments from 'experts' in body language etc etc .....yaaaawwnn!! I know how difficult public speaking can be, even if you have experience of doing it regularly and I can tell you that, bearing in mind this was your first experience, you did a fantastic job, so much so that it appears that you have a natural gift regarding this extremely skilled task - perhaps this is where you can legally exploit the good that has come from what must have been a pretty terrifying experience, despite your apparent light hearted recollections. Perhaps the most relevant remarks on here relate to how many people have instantly warmed to you simply from doing a very short presentation by leaving comments about how nice you appear to be. Each one of those comments is worth a million negatives or irrelevant questions about your personal life. Anyway, will wait now for the trolls to respond to me daring to say nice things to another person. Stay safe, trust no corporations whatsoever and as few people as you possibly can. Finally, either be good or don't get caught! All the best! Neil

[@lgiel7093]

Sleep When You Die ty for the well writen comment

[@jeffersonbenjamin5493]

FREE TOPIARY THE KING OF THE INTERNET

[@dougiet1999]

No wonder he became a hacker, have you been to the shetland islands? (Scotland) theres fuck all in it.

[@triciathetexasrealtor1324]

+dougiebhoy1888 sounds like shitland to me

[@Himbobarian]

+dougiebhoy1888 I swear to god i have never laughed so much at a comment Brilliant...:)

[@GlaDurDeaD]

The only person I know from the Shetlands used to run a folk club and is now retired and paints his boats all day.

[@cloroxbleach6335]

digLess they breed little ponies there! 🐴😂

[@shaahnun]

I'm from shetland and you are completely right

[@COL2Gam3r]

makes people in Feltham seem as bad as they really are :'( LOOOOOOL

[@whatslavender]

I want to read the book again after watching this video.

[@anonymoustimdu4239]

Lol accidentally writing deface pages

[@TheStarkz]

Whoa, man.. That would have been awesome, but still - four years of all that?

[@sumnerkagan9841]

Seem s like a really nice guy. Glad everything is working out for him now. Congrats to him and his (soon to be) husband. Hope your special day goes well Jake+Ash.Keep sailing on the boat of your choice.

[@brandonsalgado4005]

sumner kagan he is gay ??

[@SurgeX798]

+sumner kagan Is he gay?

[@christopherpage6956]

+sumner kagan So he's gay then? Didn't know that.

[@vouch4]

+SurgeX798 And how the hell is that that question relevant or any of your god damn business?

[@vouch4]

+Christopher Page And how the hell is that that question relevant or any of your god damn business? Unless you are intimately connected with Jake why would you possibly know about his sexuality any more than he would know how shallow minded you are.

[@redshift3345]

DDoS attacks are pretty lame...

[@CalebTheKillian]

Red Shift I wouldn't call taking over a massive news website a simple "DDoS"

[@redshift3345]

But that's what they did; flooded their servers with traffic, which overloaded them and resulted in a "denial of service" result as all the servers couldn't cope with all the requests to/from their network, and it bottomed-out and went off line. Anybody with enough bots can do that, which is why, in my opinion, DDoS attacks are kinda noobish and is what most high school "script kiddies" learn straight after they've learnt how to hack their neighbours WEP encryption. Which is also pretty lame.

[@CalebTheKillian]

Red Shift But again, the thing is that with a DDoS attack, you are simply taking a website down. You can't alter the content of a site by DDoSing it and in LULZSEC's case, they hacked whatever company it was and made the fron page talk about how tupac was still alive

[@DzmxgeEU]

Red Shift you know they use botnets right?

[@redshift3345]

NehmeZ Well obviously; they're not gonna call up thousands of their mates and ask them to email/access the site all at the same time lol. Of course they use botnets, and you know how they get their botnets set up? By installing Trojans, back-door exploits and/or root kits, into various ".mp3" and software packages such as Photoshop, Windows OS, MS Office, Fruity Loops, Cubase, Dreamweaver, and various other expensive software applications. Then they rely on these naive people, downloading "for free" (stealing) from torrent sites/mirrors, and programs such as Limewire, Pirate Bay etc. And opening/installing these files and programs, which then gives them permanent access and control of your computer, whenever its switched on, which is why some people wonder why their RAM usage is at 90 - 100%, when they're only doing simple, low resource, light-load CPU usage stuff on their computer, such as browsing the internet without any other programs, applications or services running. So when people think "yeah, I just got some $800 software for free!", which they have, but then not realizing/understanding that hidden in that downloaded (stolen) .exe, .mp3 .mp4, .wav, .jpg, .dmg etc. is a root kit designed to be undetectable to/by your "security software", and can then do things like key-log and report back everything you type, remotely view your computer's activity/desktop, silently run/execute background processes and services, as well as watch you via your webcam (even being able to turn off that little light next to your webcam, so you don't know its on), run commands and inject code, and of course, turn your computer into part of a WAN botnet network that thousands of other computers are a part of, all from downloading dirty software, and all without the knowledge of the computer's user/owner. Crime doesn't pay, and there's no such thing as getting something "for free" without any catches or sinister/malicious intent. Peace

[@jeffreytackett3922]

And another one bites the dust, eh Sabu? Karma never forgives, and karma never forgets.

[@iansomers5703]

Lol

[@benwhitaker4092]

does he remind anyone of jim moriati from sherlock ?

[@xkluzivtv]

moral of the story...Wired left him broke...Whoa! Don't Hack

[@dantegoat8568]

you will be missed topiary, thank you for your services.

[@iansomers5703]

I think you liked the services of all his VM’s lol

[@Smiddyack]

@@iansomers5703he never wrote any code

[@quinnwelton5870]

Loud burp at 9:57

[@CodTheBoyz]

He's a fucking hero

[@jc-xo8yd]

one eye looking at his computer one eye on the door, how did he get raided LOL

[@thehappiestcamper]

Weird. He got kind of cute. lol

[@jc-xo8yd]

thehappiestcamper if you're into crazy eyes lol

[@piqsoul5625]

He's free boys

[@pvtryan785]

Hey isint there a revolution in Europe today can u get him out when u win it Xd

[@Pabberrs]

The thing is he probably knows like half my family

[@projectcyanide4516]

I was finished at the wow part and the jail part XD..

[@syntheticsandwich190]

literally 1984

[@albiononlinevelocity3540]

"I can't tell you who I work for"

[@CB3ROB-CyberBunker]

yep... the 'how are we gonna get all of this back to our office in country x' part is always funny.. clearly cops have no idea -how many- computers the average house contains. lol. as in, how many pallets/tonnes :P

[@Alex-if2qt]

#anonymous

[@skylandersgiants5504]

he hacked the westboro baptist church He is a hero

[@Neo-lk3pl]

Hilarious

[@joebazooks]

he obvs works for the gov now. what a shame

[@whatslavender]

I don't think he does because comparing him to other members of LulzSec, he's not that skilled.

[@joebazooks]

***** since when did you have to be skilled to work for the government?!

[@whatslavender]

If that's the case then we should just DDoS one of the government's sites right now while leaving our IP addresses exposed because that would get us an easy job.

[@joebazooks]

i'm sure he knows how to do a lot more than just ddos. i mean, to do ddos you need a decent botnet, especially for websites that prolly have a lot of bandwidth

[@whatslavender]

yeah for sure but at the time he was arrested all of what he did most is write deface messages and be their spokesperson while still learning from the other members. and the botnets they used to take down SOCA was not theirs but just from some people from anonymous. i dont know if he continued learning after that but who knows, he's talented and with his silver tongue, he sure is useful for the government. and sabu worked for the fbi to help the others get arrested anyways xd im just not sure but i think youre probably right

[@xxxxxALFYxxxxx]

Skinny tie on point

[@johngivens2115]

It appears that he was being told what to say a lot as he was adjusting an earpiece and was not able to answer a question regarding his occupation lol.

[@A358M]

Its all about his charm,his intelligence. And oh that accent. He can throw as many F bombs and sound intellectual.

[@anonymous4s5b38]

He works for the government now

[@jaiblue25]

Oh for fucks sake.

[@Masakrer]

2/10 when u realize that change the world heors are just normal actors like topiary and all this thing was a one big lie

[@lifeisaadventure9948]

Good 🍀 Jake Davis 🧑🏼‍💻

[@fratertenc7589]

If you use say TOR + some VPN listed on vpngate which is encrypted and take down or deface a government site what are the odds of you actually being traced if you do things like spoof your MAC address (client MAC not router) or do that and use an access point which is not yours like a hotspot.

[@jeffreytackett3922]

+Frater Tenc In that scenario, the odds aren't good that you'd be "traced". That's not where it usually ends though. Generally the person in that scenario gets caught because they continue to try to do it again, and again, and again. Not only do they repeat the act, but they feel the need to talk about it. They tell friends, they brag, they make it known. That is where the wheels generally come off. There are insecurities with TOR. There are insecurities with VPN services. There are cameras, sniffers, lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my! It's rare that those things are the undoing of a "hacker". Running their mouths is almost always the tip. Loose lips sink ships, Frater. Believe it.

[@lgiel7093]

Jeffrey Tackett Be like elliot ( mr.robot )

[@qoaa]

Frater Tenc use a live CD remove the hard drive from the laptop. boot to live CD like Tails distro it automatically connects to tor on boot and CDs cannot be written to. next go to free wifi, some other neighborhoods, fast food restaurant parking lot, motel parking lot, hospital parking lot or waiting room. perform hack you've set up. any temporary into is placed in ram drive which is zeroed out on power off. as you leave and hack is done, break your live CD distribution physically, even though no data can be stored to it as it was a burned a session closed CD. but just break it into pieces and toss it. when home plug hdd back in after you go into bios and reset ram profile or reset XMP. and no matter how awesome a job you did, or whatever you took down , or whatever dumps you made on pastebin , do not brag, no telling friend, keep month shut no matter how elite it was. , and zero shout outs, nfo files, shout outs to groups if site defaced... no nicknames nothing... enjoy it for your personal gain only , everyone that gets busted brags, uses persistent hard drive thinking tor and VPN from home works....it don't.

[@iansomers5703]

TOR is “ untrustable” lOl

[@floridasoldat]

Skinny tie on fleek. You a real one T

[@benfox6383]

Dude.

[@CarlosGonzalez-qu1hv]

miss you

[@Alex-if2qt]

#anonymous

[@megastoejoe]

did something small, got arrested like it was something big, is now famous... planned?

[@jc-xo8yd]

Yay another snitch of anon getting paid

[@rimurutempest117]

Welp, he is there for a reson, so i am not feeling pitty for this guy. Never knew him, never cared about him, why do it now? ya' know?... Fuck this, it's time to watch more cat videoz

[@kortex3756]

pause at 0:31

[@Kncld]

+Kortex your point?

[@kortex3756]

+Bubbles Looks awkwards, can you not see?

[@kortex3756]

Bubbles Yes I know, I'm not a twat.

[@Kncld]

Kortex then why did you even mention it?

[@kortex3756]

Bubbles Lazy eyes are hilarious. Why does it matter to you anyway?

[@nnoir]

Cosmo

[@BrainPuddings]

This little kid is lying based on body language and his relaying of the events don't even match what happened with that live video that was online. We live in a strange society where people are glorifying hackers that don't really do anything to help the people. People just appreciate rebellious attitudes. There's so much good that a legitimate group could do to help expose people in the world, but instead they do a bunch of bs like play around and act like they are really doing something.

[@BrainPuddings]

+Pudding Also, he's clearly a snitch. If him going live on tv exposed him, then the guy who was supposedly a hacker working for the FBI could just expose them all. There was already enough proof to get this guy after being "exposed" by his voice, and after they found all his stuff, what point would there be to tell him about some guy working with the FBI. All of these stories just sound like BS. He is from some small town filled with sheep, but he was able to portray significant acting skills when talking about his "cellmate". He just sounds like a person telling a bunch of stories. They aren't bad stories, some are funny. They just aren't very believable to me.

[@BrainPuddings]

***** Yeah, well, I can't lie, it's a better impression than most could do. I wasn't really expecting you to see that, it was just an observation. I pretty much don't believe anything anyone says so whatever, it doesn't really matter to me anyway.

[@vouch4]

+Pudding Seems to matter enough for you to think anybody is remotely interested in your amateur psychological assessment of this person? Maybe you should check out your own IQ if you believed that Jake wouldn't see your post as I think it might have been a very high probability given that the video is a record of his first public performance/presentation don't you think? - DOH ! As for his 'acting skills' are you serious, the guy just got out of a Young Offenders Institute for christ's sake. Perhaps your gossip mongering should be confined to your closest circle of friends and family where who might be more tolerant of it? Envy is a terrible affliction, get of your arse, put down your vicious keyboard and do something for yourself like this guy has instead.

[@BrainPuddings]

Sleep When You Die I do not care about this guy or any of this stuff, it popped in my thread and I don't worship these people like you do to even know this stuff. If you think there is merit of intelligence in knowing about these people, you're very naive and clearly not that smart. With that being said, I already told the guy I do not really care, I just find it all unbelievable and I am entitled to that opinion, what are you going to do about it except make yourself look like a fanatic. Why would I envy anything? You're being utterly ridiculous. You sound like a Britney Spears fan. I'm surprised you didn't scream "Leave whatever-his-name-is alone!!!"

[@jeffreytackett3922]

+Pudding I'm curious how you arrived at your conclusion that Jake's body language belies lying? Pretty much everything written on body language agrees that to accurately gauge someone's level of truthfulness, you have to establish a baseline of normal activity under known conditions. There are some seldom accurate body language "tells" that would seem to imply lying under less-than-optimal conditions, but I didn't notice Jake displaying even those simplistic and ambiguous behaviors. If anything, I would say that he was simply nervous. Let's hear your expert assessment, and being an ACTUAL expert, I'll be happy to tell you where you've left the path of good sense.

[@sahhull]

This kid is why parents should take an interest in what your kid is doing online. I wonder if his famous dad is proud yet? I wouldnt be.

[@Smiddyack]

Who’s his dad?