GhostShell: If I could go back, I would never join Anonymous

Mar 15, 2016 17:35 GMT  ·  By

GhostShell, the infamous hacker/hacktivist that has recently revealed his real identity is now spending his free time answering questions on various topics related to the hacking community.

In a ten-part interview exposé with DataBreaches.net published today, GhostShell, or Razvan Eugen Gheorghe by his real name, has revealed some extremely interesting details about hacking and hackers in general.

Below are a few crucial take-outs from some interviews, but if you have more time to spare, we recommend reading each one in depth, since it tells the interesting, funny, paranoid, and tragic life of a teenager that chose a life of cybercrime and is now desperately looking for something else.

GhostShell on Anonymous

With four years of interacting and being part of the Anonymous hacker collective, GhostShell says that the group is actually made up of two very distinct sides.

First there are the actual hackers, and then there are the feds that have infiltrated their ranks, and in his opinion, they are the ones controlling the group's actions and operations.

Asked if he could go back in time, the hacker said he would have never joined Anonymous.

GhostShell on MalSec and Team GhostShell

For about a month in 2012, after LulzSec was shut down by authorities, GhostShell teamed up with a guy claiming to be a former LulzSec member that law enforcement didn't arrest.

As GhostShell explains, that guy acted exactly like a federal agent, delaying hacking operations, data leaks and public announcements, just so he could get approval from his superiors.

The collaboration didn't last long, and the frustration from working with this individual eventually drove GhostShell to start his own Group, called Team GhostShell (or TGS). He later acknowledged that 99% of the TGS hacks were carried out by him alone, with no help from other members.

GhostShell on federal agents and snitches

GhostShell also shared some telltale signs that he learned to recognize in fellow hackers and have helped him avoid federal agents and their snitches in the past several years.

His conclusions: federal agents can't hack someone, so they always ask someone else to do it for them; long-lived hacker Twitter accounts are a sign that the person is a snitch or a federal agent; the more media coverage a hacker gets, the more chances are that he's under surveillance or about to get caught.

GhostShell on the hacking scene

Additionally, the hacker also shared his views on some of today's hacking tools. The quote that got our attention: "the deep web, the one hosted on that so called 'anonymous' network is the largest honeypot ever created."

The hacker then goes on to say that almost any website hosted on TOR that deals with cyber or real-life crime like drug trade, weapon sales, prostitution or pedophilia, are all entrapment sites.

His views on VPNs and IRCs are also the same, explaining that almost all hacking-related IRCs are probably under the control of authorities, and don't provide any security or privacy.

GhostShell on his doxing

Asked why he did it, GhostShell reaffirmed his original statements that he wants to get arrested, get prosecuted and get it over with so he can move on to getting a job in the cyber-security field.

During his ten-part interview, GhostShell showed some disdain for the Romanian and US governments, also mentioning that he'd like to work for Russian agencies, which at one point have contacted him via intermediary Ukrainian and Belarusian third-parties. Another nation that kept contacting him on a regular basis was China, but the hacker did not seem to be interested.