Anonymous - LulzSec: have the police arrested the wrong Topiary?

Mistaken identity? This is the question being asked by DailyTech about the man arrested on Wednesday who was presented as Topiary, although now it is not so sure.

British police on Wednesday released a statement that they had arrested the presumed spokesman of the Anonymous and LulzSec groups (see our news for more details). Arrested on the Scottish Shetland Isles, the 19 year old man was presented as being the person going by the nickname Topiary, although his real identity wasn’t revealed.

DailyTech has now started asking questions about whether there could be a case of mistaken identity. Via the LulzSec Exposed blog where the real identities of LulzSec’s members were divulged, the Web Ninjas claim that the real Topiary is a 22 year old Swedish man who resides in Upsal. This man is already known by nicknames other that Topiary, having already used Warpstonelord, Hombre de Mundo and Tomtenisse.

The author of the DailyTech posting has also extracted a chat history published by th3j35t3r (The Jester) who presents himself as a hacktivist that is on a crusade against terrorist acts on the Internet. He has also decided to rail against LulzSec. The extract, also available on Pastebin, demonstrates that Topiary had already hatched a plan to incriminate another person as... Topiary.

For the moment, LulzSec and Topiary’s Twitter accounts have been silent on the matter. It is difficult to know whether British authorities have managed to get their hands on the real Topiary or not. After all, the arrested person is innocent until proven guilty.