Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.07.2013, Blaðsíða 27

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co
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n
tr
ie
s.
THE OTHER SIDE
of Siggi The Hacker
Name:
Sigurður Ingi Þórðarson
DoB:
October 12, 1992
Astrology sign: Libra
Eyes:
Blue
Distinctive feature:
That’s a good question.
Education:
College
The laptop
at Alþingi
In January 2011 it was reported that
a year earlier a laptop was found in a
closet in an unused room in Alþingi,
the Icelandic Parliament. The laptop
was connected to the parliament’s
computer network. The computer
was shut off and sent to the police
for investigation but nothing conclu-
sive was found. No data was found on
the laptop and no fingerprints were
recovered. Speculations were made
that members of WikiLeaks had put
the laptop in place to try to download
data from the parliament’s network.
In the end the case was dismissed.
No one has stepped forward claim-
ing knowledge of the incident, nor has
anyone claimed to own the laptop.
Growing pains
“Then the WikiLeaks servers crashed and
we needed a new web page, a new submis-
sion system and a way to finance the organ-
isation. I got volunteers to research ways to
finance this, and I assigned others to make
a new web page. We had some Dutch volun-
teers working on a new submission system.
It got pretty far, but Assange was reluctant
to launch it. I never really understood why. I
guess he didn’t really trust that they weren’t
putting backdoors into the system.”
“The situation was all one big chaos.
But we got the new web up and I received
a report on possible ways to finance the
organisation. The one idea that I liked was
selling WikiLeaks branded merchandise.
Kristinn Hrafnsson said that the idea was
total bullshit, that it would never work. I
discussed it with Assange and he was also
unsure. In the end, I just went ahead with
it, deciding to take on the losses if the proj-
ect would fail. I put my bank account on the
line for this, as there was trouble at the time
with Visa and MasterCard not accepting do-
nations to WikiLeaks. Everybody was happy
with it. Assange said to me: just put it into
your account.”
Anonymous and lulzSec
“In June or July of 2011, we got in contact
with the hacker groups Anonymous and
LulzSec. I initiated the contact, but it was
with the approval and initiative of Julian As-
sange. At the time, I discussed this with As-
sange and he said that he didn't care where
the information comes from, as long as we
had something to publish.”
“An Icelander contacted me with the idea
of accessing the data servers of the Icelan-
dic Ministry of Finance. I forward the idea
to Anonymous and LulzSec, and what es-
sentially happens as a result is that all the
computer systems for the national power
company, Landsvirkjun, and the Govern-
ment offices go offline.”
“That’s when I started realising that this
might be fun, but that it was also wrong. I
was in touch with the hacker Sabu, who
kept constantly pushing documents to me.
Information on BP Oil, HSBC in Mexico,
the Stratfor emails [in February of 2012,
WikiLeaks published emails from the global
intelligence company Stratfor's employees
and its clients, referred to as the Global
Intelligence Files] I thought it was interest-
ing, but I was reluctant in forwarding it to
WikiLeaks. Sabu was different from other
sources that needed you to take initiative.
He was always like ‘Hey, here’s some docu-
ments, here’s some documents!’ It was out
of the ordinary. I was at the time involved
with FBI and LulzSec, and I had no idea Sabu
was also an FBI informant.”
“Eventually, I told Julian that I didn't
want to accept these documents from him,
because they were obtained illegally. That’s
when our disagreement starts.”
Contact with the FBI
“Around August 24, 2011, I emailed the Unit-
ed States Embassy in Reykjavík in the mid-
dle of the night, saying that I have some in-
formation they might be interested in. They
called me back the next morning, and I met
with them for maybe 20 minutes. They told
me that it was unlikely that I’d be contacted
again, but if it happened then it would be in
a few weeks. Then, the following morning at
10, my phone rang, it was them requesting
another meeting. I rushed to the embassy,
and a man I met there asked me if we could
take a walk. We ended up at the hotel Reyk-
javík Centrum. Two men were sitting by the
bar. The man from the embassy leaves and
the two men come over and show me iden-
tification, stating that they are FBI agents. It
felt like a movie.”
“They had brought a team of nine peo-
ple. They said that a woman from the Ice-
landic justice department was there, and
that she wanted to speak with me before we
talked. I had said to the embassy that I did
not want the Icelandic authorities involved,
that I did not trust them, but I agreed to talk
to the woman. They went to get her, but by
then she had left. The Ministry pulled her
out. We talked for the next four, five days at
various hotels in the city.”
leaking
“The agents told me that they wanted my
data, that they wanted to know more but
couldn't operate in Iceland any longer. So
they asked me to join them somewhere.
They said that I could pick any country in
world, any state in the USA. I tell them that
I’m not going to the USA—that would be a
one-way ticket. I suggest Moscow, Russia,
which they didn’t find funny, explaining that
their relations with the Russian secret ser-
vice community wasn’t so hot. We wound
up going to the closest country, Denmark.”
“Before I left for the airport I got a text
message saying that I should pretend to not
know the agents while travelling and that
we will only speak after landing. At the air-
port they all pretend not to know one anoth-
er, or me, but wherever I went they followed
me. In Copenhagen we checked into the Hil-
ton hotel by the airport. To the best of my
knowledge, the Danish authorities were not
involved. I doubt that they would have been
happy with the FBI interrogating an Ice-
landic citizen in Denmark. We stayed there
for 24 hours talking, and their technicians
cloned some hard drives that I brought with
me.”
leaving wikileaks
“In September, October 2011, I left
WikiLeaks. The organisation owed me
money at some point, 7–800 thousand ISK.
It was accumulated costs for flights, hotels,
and travel for Assange’s bodyguards. When
I hadn’t been paid for six weeks, I asked As-
sange if it was OK for me to use the money
coming in from the WikiLeaks merchandise
shop I had set up, to cover my costs. He
said that was fine. I used money from the
shop for WikiLeaks related things, buying
computers and supplies for volunteers and
such.”
“When I left, WikiLeaks asked me to re-
turn all the receipts so that they could con-
firm the accounts. They wanted me to repay
all the money, and then pay me back when
they’d verified the receipts. I told them that
I had no way of repaying 5-6 million ISK on
the spot. I knew that WikiLeaks was in finan-
cial trouble and owed 3 million Euros in le-
gal fees, so I asked if they were really going
to pay me back if I handed over the money.
They said they would, but that it could take
three months. I reply that they can have the
receipts, but that’s as far as I’m willing to
go. In May of 2012, they filed charges in Ice-
land against me for embezzlement, saying
that I was involved in fraud and forgeries.”
“I was interrogated by the Icelandic po-
lice, but the merchandise shop was in my
name. I do not deny that I’ve deceived peo-
ple and forged things in other cases, but not
regarding WikiLeaks. Eventually the case
was dropped due to lack of evidence. “
Travelling with the FBI
“In October 2011 I again met with the FBI in
Denmark. We stay at five star hotels, and
regularly go to McDonalds. It was exciting.
They knew that I’d left WikiLeaks at the time,
but still kept pressuring me to go and visit
Julian Assange in the UK. They wanted me
to wear a special watch that could record
sound. I told them no, just as I had done in
August when they brought it up then. They
wanted to know if I feared for my safety, if I
was afraid Assange would attack me. I told
Continues over
Courtesy of Sigurður Ingi Þórðarson
27 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 10 — 2013