Vincent Charles Kershaw, a 27-year-old Fort Collins man, was arrested and charged with allegedly participating in a cyberattack on the PayPal website last winter. Kershaw is one of 14 people arrested worldwide who officials suspect are involved with the “Anonymous” hacker group.
According to The Denver Post Kershaw, along with the other suspects mounted an attack on the e-commerce site PayPal in retaliation for PayPal’s refusal to accept donations for WikiLeaks. “Anonymous” referred to this coordinated attack as “Operation Avenge Assange,” a reference to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The Coloradoan reports that the arrested suspects are accused of using a computer program called “Low Orbit Ion Cannon” to overwhelm PayPal’s servers causing a “distributed denial of service” costing the company $5,000.
Kershaw claims on his Facebook page that he worked as a foreman at Fort Collins Landscaping since 2008, used to build firetrucks and attended Poudre High School. His Myspace profile paints a slighly different picture, Kershaw describes his interests as “cars, video games, helping people and partying” and goes on to say that he’s a “very moral person but I still love to have fun.”
There is no mention of hacking or any affiliation with the group “Anonymous” on either profile, however he frequently mentions the online video game “Halo” and that he plays it often on his Myspace page.
The Huffington Post/AP reports that besides Vincent Charles Kershaw, also known as “Trivette,” “Triv” and “Reaper” (his Facebook profile URL is named “PnPTrivette”) the other suspects indicted were: Christopher Wayne Cooper, 23, also known as "Anthrophobic"; Joshua John Covelli, 26, aka "Absolem" and "Toxic"; Keith Wilson Downey, 26; Donald Husband, 29, aka "Ananon"; Ethan Miles, 33; James C. Murphy, 36; Drew Alan Phillips, 26, aka "Drew010"; Jeffrey Puglisi, 28, aka "Jeffer," "Jefferp" and "Ji"; Daniel Sullivan, 22; Tracy Ann Valenzuela, 42; and Christopher Quang Vo, 22.
Kershaw is expected to appear in a Denver court this afternoon, according to The Denver Post.