Topiary, real name Jake Leslie Davis, born October 27, 1992, is a former
hacker. He has worked with Anonymous, LulzSec, and similar hacktivist groups.
He was an associate of the Internet group Anonymous, which has publicly
claimed various online attacks, including hacking HBGary, Westboro
Baptist Church, and Gawker. They have also claimed responsibility for the
defacing of government websites in countries such as Zimbabwe, Syria,
Tunisia, Ireland, and Egypt. Rise to prominence
On February 24, 2011, Topiary gained attention after he appeared on The David
Pakman Show. He informed the host that Anonymous had replaced a Westboro
Baptist Church webpage with a message from Anonymous during an on-air
confrontation with Shirley Phelps-Roper. A recording of this event was placed on
YouTube, where it reached over one million views in five days.
Topiary was a member of LulzSec, and ran their Twitter account. The Guardian had
reported that Topiary's name was Daniel. On July 14, 2011, The Guardian published
an exclusive interview with Topiary, in which he spoke extensively about his
motivations. Describing himself as "an internet denizen with a passion for
change" he said he feared being tracked by the authorities: "I can only hope
that they haven't pinned any of us, especially my friends from LulzSec."
Later, a full transcript of the lengthy interview surfaced on the website of
freelance Guardian journalist Ryan Gallagher.
Arrest An 18-year-old man suspected of being
Topiary was arrested in the Shetland islands of Scotland on July 27, 2011. On
July 31, 2011, the man was charged with five offences including unauthorised
computer access and conspiracy to carry out a distributed denial of service
attack on the Serious Organised Crime Agency's website. Scotland Yard later
identified the man arrested as Jake Davis, a resident of the island of Yell.
He was charged with unauthorised access of a computer under the Computer Misuse
Act 1990, encouraging or assisting criminal activity under the Serious
Crime Act 2007, conspiracy to launch a denial-of-service attack against the
Serious Organised Crime Unit contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977, and criminal
conspiracy also under the Criminal Law Act 1977.
Police confiscated a Dell laptop and a 100-gigabyte hard drive that had 16
different virtual machines. The hard drive also contained details relating to
an attack on Sony and hundreds of thousands of email addresses and
passwords. A London court released Davis on bail under the conditions that he
live under curfew with his mother and have no access to the Internet. His
lawyer Gideon Cammerman stated that, while his client did help publicise
LulzSec and Anonymous attacks, he lacked the technical skills to have been
anything but a sympathiser. After his arrest, Anonymous launched a
'Free Topiary' campaign, which included adding a "Free Topiary" banner to their
Twitter avatars, similar to the Free Bradley banner.
Guilty plea Davis pleaded guilty on June 25, 2012 to
DDoS attacks on several websites, but pleaded not guilty to two counts of
encouraging others to commit computer offenses and fraud. Davis was due to be
tried along with Ryan Cleary, Ryan Ackroyd, Mustafa Al-Bassam, beginning
April 8, 2013. The court was informed it would take 3,000 hours to view the
material against Ackroyd alone. They were released on bail, except for
Cleary. Court appearance
On April 8, 2013, Davis again appeared in court with fellow hackers, Ryan
Ackroyd, Ryan Cleary and Mustafa Al-Bassam. All four pleaded guilty to
computer crimes and were sentenced on May 14, 2013. Davis faced a maximum of
10 years in prison but got 24 months in a young offenders institute. He served
38 days because he had been electronically tagged for 21 months and
this counted against his sentence. References