LulzSec Tweets Exult And Threaten, Global Sting ContinuesLulzSec Tweets Exult And Threaten, Global Sting Continues

Early Wednesday morning, a Twitter feed from a self-identified member of the hacking group LulzSec announced that the group was "sitting on a trove" of email it snagged during this week's attack on various media properties of Rupert Murdoch's News International, most notably The Sun.

At 5:50 a.m. ET Wednesday the @Lulzsec account tweeted: "It is a far better thing that he did then than he has ever done before. @JonnieMarbles."

According to the UK Guardian, comedian Marbles, who attacked Rupert Murdoch during his parliamentary appearance, was arrested July 18.

Late Tuesday, United Kingdom police claimed to have snagged a 16-year-old member of LulzSec and the hacking group Anonymous in South London. That capped off days of arrests, part of a global sting in the United Kingdom, Holland, and the United States.

According to the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ), more than 16 individuals are in custody, 14 of them for alleged involvement in denial-of-service attacks on PayPal.

Most of those arrested, the DOJ and FBI said, are in custody in the United States. According to a DOJ report, law enforcement nabbed 14 of those individuals in New York, Florida, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Alabama, Arizona, and the District of Columbia. FBI and DOJ spokesmen said they are charged with cyber-related crimes in the PayPal attack. The sting is ongoing, they said.

The arrests and, now, renewed LulzSec threats, come in the wake of a LulzSec hacker attack on News International's The Sun. The attack opened with a fake story reporting the octogenarian media mogul's suicide.

Murdoch's media empire has been embroiled in a controversy over alleged hacking by reporters into voice mail accounts--belonging to such notables as royal family members and even a murder victim. According to Murdoch reps, the scandal forced its surprising shutdown of a cornerstone property, The News of the World.

The back-and-forth battle between hackers and the site's administrators continues to rage. Attempting to visit The Sun's site Wednesday morning brought up various obviously hacked results--including network errors, a redirect to the hackers' Twitter feed, or a hacked front page bearing a fake story.

On its Twitter feed during the attack, the LulzSec Twitter feed taunted:

In addition to redirecting the website, LulzSec Twitter accounts continue to publish the passwords and mobile phone numbers for former News of The World employees.

Known Anonymous and LulzSec "contributor" Sabu also posted on his Twitter feed this week that a press release with more details would be forthcoming. Later Sabu tweeted a challenge to United Kingdom authorities to "... investigate the hack on the mail server(s) associated to The Sun/NotW."

Monday's hack on The Sun occurred the same day British police officials resigned over alleged close ties to News of the World. On Sunday, former News of the World exec Rebekah Brooks was arrested on charges relating to a phone-hacking scandal that included bribing police.

Based in Long Island, NY, Shawn Ingram is a senior editor of news at BYTE. Follow him @shawn_i and email him at [email protected].

Based in New Mexico, Eric Mack is BYTE's executive editor of news. Follow him @ericcmack and email him at [email protected].