“5hm00p,” a famous hacker and member of the hacker group Rustle League, identified himself over the weekend as an FBI “snitch,” as he put it. 5hm00p explains in a tweet dated November 20 that the FBI had approached him almost two years ago who made him believe that he was going to be raided, if he did not cooperate in a terror investigation. Early Sunday morning, cryptically tweeted “What the f*** have I done”. According to an archived copy of 5hm00p’s now deleted tweets pointed at the FBI, “I lost a lot of good friendships and my f****** honor. I’m so embarrassed to show my face in public now because of this.” “Congratulations,” he wrote. “You got it. Congratulations, you got what you wanted on my friend @_DillonC all because you thought he was with some bullshit terrorist group.” Apparently, 5hm00p is the primary provider for his family. After the FBI threatened to put him in prison, he decided to comply, as by not doing so would have removed the main source of income for his family. @DillonC released a statement November 22 on the revelations from 5hm00p. “I considered you like my own family as you said you did me. But if that’s the case, what made you decide to go against your loyalty and values and try to entrap me, and others that you considered close? As you know – when someone who is family is being accused for something they didn’t do, no matter what you do, you NEVER go against them…What it comes down to is you had a choice, and not only did you screw me, you screwed 3 of the most closest people to you”. In addition to the guilt of just turning on some of his fellow hacktivists, 5hm00p felt anguished due to his involvement in the death of another hacker named Junaid “TriCk” Hussain, who had left the UK and joined ISIS in 2013. “I f****** helped you MURDER him. Do you know how I feel now when I sleep at night?” he tweeted. “Regardless that he was a terrorist and an animal I sure as fuck felt betrayed.” “…I WAS HELPING YOU NEUTRALIZE JUNAID AS WE ORIGINALLY AGREED? I STILL HAVE THAT OVER MY CONSCIOUS. I f****** helped you MURDER him. Do you know how I feel now when I sleep at night,” he wrote. On August 24th, Hussain was killed in Syria with a drone strike along with two of his body guards. Hussain was the leader of the Islamic State Hacking Division, a hacking crew with ties to ISIS. Before becoming radicalized, Hussain was familiar with 5hm00p from his days as a member of the notorious hacktivist group called Team Poison (or TeaMp0isoN) hackers. According to 5hm00p, the FBI forced him to help unearth information about Hussain’s whereabouts by threatening his family. With the goal of getting information on Hussain’s whereabouts, the FBI had him attempt to entrap two of his friends with a wire while partying at the hacker conference DefCon in 2015, he said. While the agency refused to comment, but a source familiar with the events that led to Hussain’s death confirmed that 5hm00p did help the U.S. government track down Hussain. While there is no clarity as to whether 5hm00p’s confession is accurate, but it has been met with positive remarks from the community. Unlike a similar case where a hacker-turned-informant led to the arrest of several of his former colleagues, 5hm00p’s actions appears to have been related only to ISIS hackers. If the story is true, the hacker will make history as being involved in the first operation that targeted and killed a hacker classified as a terrorist, says Motherboard.
