The Australian Federal Police arrested and charged the leader of LulzSec yesterday. Or did they?

24-year-old Australian IT professional Matt Flannery told police he is the leader of LulzSec, the computer hacking collective responsible for attacks on various government, entertainment and news websites. But to those who claim to have know him digitally, he is nothing more than a troll of Anonymous and related hacktivist sites.

"He has absolutely no leadership position and he's known as a complete and utter asshole and total moron," one anonymous source who ran in the LulzSec circle told me in private chat.

Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald printed a quote from Brad Marden, coordinator for cyber crime operations at the AFP, describing Aush0k as "a well-respected person within the Anonymous community, within LulzSec.” To which the LulzSec source responded “hilarious,” and “that's so fucking far from the truth.”

Flannery is nothing but a "DDoS clown" who has harassed Encyclopedia Dramatica with his bots "plenty of times," as well as their associated IRC channel, wtfux, said an Encyclopedia Dramatica community member in private chat. “As someone that's been targeted by aush0k many times in the past I can say that nobody is going to miss that terd[sic]” he continued.

Indeed, it seems even the digital librarians of troll and hacker culture hate him. “[T]he only thing Aush0k has ever hacked is his microdong [sic]” reads one line in the Encyclopedia Dramatica entry on Aush0k. 

In that light, Aush0k claiming to be the leader of LulzSec upon his arrest fits his trollish MO. This also isn’t the first time federal authorities have arrested members of LulzSec or Anonymous under the notion that they were more bad-ass than they really were.

In 2011, the FBI arrested 16 people as members of Anonymous and trumped up their importance in the hacktivist collective. It turned out the 16 people were “volunteer/supporter DDoS Anons who accidentally (or just foolishly) used LOIC from their home IPs," Topiary, an actual key member of LulzSec, said at the time to the Atlantic Wire.    

Regardless of who he's affiliated, Flannery is facing up to twelve years in prison on allegations of hacking government websites.