'Leaked' FBI Anonymous/LulzSec psych profile is bogus

Supposed psychological profiles of senior members of hacking horde Anonymous are almost certainly a work of fiction.

The bogus paperwork created a buzz last week when it showed up on Tugaleaks. Allegedly written by the FBI's Behavioural Science Unit, the profiles suggested that LulzSec kingpin Sabu is a narcissistic nihilist who is married and works in the tech sector.

Fellow member Kayla, who poses as a young female online, was said to be a bloke in his early 20s who was possibly abused as a child and is likely to be a drug user.

The characterisation of arrested former Anonymous member Topiary as "cannon fodder for law enforcement" provides the strongest clue that the supposed documents are an elaborate wind-up or attempt at misinformation. In addition, the spelling and grammatical mistakes in the documents are out of place in an official dossier of this type.

Although convincing at first sight, the profiles appear to have been put together using snippets of publicly available information from news reports and other sources. Whistle-blowing site Cryptome.org is convinced the whole thing is an elaborate hoax.

"The FBI psychological profiles of Anonymous leadership is a joke. Pretty well done but not convincing if read carefully," it concludes.

The FBI itself has denied producing the supposed document and suggested Anonymous itself cooked up the fake profiles as an elaborate joke, Kaspersky Labs news service Threatpost reports. ®