What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about Matthew Keys, created by Newslines contributors. Become a contributor

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys34 posts

Matthew Keys is an American journalist, who is the Managing Editor of Grasswire, a social news site. On October 7, 2015, he was found guilty of giving computer credentials to members of the Anonymous group who then hacked into his former employer. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Biography view > Click for Latest News view
Jun 2008

Joins Fox 40

Hired0 Comments

Keys joins Fox40 news as an Online News Producer.

Was a one-man band for two years, updating breaking news, current events, political, entertainment and sports content. Launched social media platforms to promote content and engage with audience.

His title is changed to “Interactive & Mobile Director” with additional job duties two years later.

28 Oct, 2010

Leaves Fox 40

Fired0 Comments

After two and a half years at Fox 40, Keys is pulled up by his boss for criticizing the station’s coverage of a fire at a local mall, from his personal Twitter account. Keys tells his boss that he wants to exert his right to say what he wanted on his personal Twitter feed. His boss tells him to go home and not to work over the weekend. Keys says he cannot guarantee that, and never returns to work. Keys is terminated. He retains the passwords for the company’s content management system.

Nov 2010

Hijacks Fox 40 Facebook, Twitter accounts

Hacking Incident0 Comments

According to the FBI, after he leaves the company Keys retains the passwords to Fox40’s social media accounts, and prevents access to them by the company. He sends messages from the accounts to the public. He also deletes thousands followers from the company’s  account.

Dec 2010

Gives Tribune credentials to Anonymous

Hacking Incident0 Comments

Hacked LA Times pageKeys identifies himself on an Internet chat forum as a former Tribune Company employee and provides members of Anonymous with a login and password to the Tribune Company server. He encourages the Anonymous members to disrupt several Tribune companies and urged that the Los Angeles Times should be “demolished.” Keys:

Go f-ck some shit up.

Hackers uses the credentials provided by Keys to log in to the Tribune Company server and make changes to the web version of a Los Angeles Times news feature, changing a headline to read: “Pressure builds in House to elect CHIPPY 1337.”

Hacker: [T]hat was such a buzz having my edit on the LA Times
Keys: Nice

Keys also changes the access credentials of FOX40 employees, interfering with their ability to access company servers, and obtained email addresses for FOX40 viewers, to whom he sends disparaging emails about the company. According the the company Keys’ actions caused the mobile version of the Times to be offline for a day, and resulted in thousands of dollars in costs for the Tribune Company in responding to the breach of its systems by shutting backdoor access credentials and assessing the full extent of the damage.

1 Dec, 2010

Sends ‘Cancerman’ emails

Hacking Incident0 Comments

Canceman email 1

Keys sends a series of emails to his colleagues at Fox 40, under aliases related to the TV show, The X Files. The “Cancerman emails” outline various grievances the writer has with the company’s ethics, including claims that the station dropped a news story because the subject threatened to pull its advertisements, and that the station invaded viewers’ privacy through a contest email promotion. Keys then sends emails to the contest email list about KTXL Fox 40’s perceived misconduct. Fox40, already on edge from the threats, spends hours fielding emails from upset viewers. Later Keys admits to sending the emails saying:

The emails was, was to be antagonistic, you know…It was more or less hooliganism.

15 Mar, 2012

Time: 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2012

Other Awards0 Comments

Keys is profiled as one of Time magazine’s 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2012.

If it’s news, Matthew Keys will probably tweet it out. He’s a curator of a timely cycle of news tweets, the stuff you probably haven’t seen yet. Keys is joining the ranks of news editors who dole out news as it breaks.

4 Oct, 2012

FBI visit

Police Raid0 Comments

Keys is visited by the FBI, who show him a search warrant with 50 pages of chat transcripts. They interview him on his bed, in his pyjamas. He writes a confession for both the Cancerman emails and the LA Times defacement.

I am extremely remorseful for both actions, and am fully willing to cooperate with any agency on this or any other matters, and cooperate now and in the foreseeable future.

25 Oct, 2012

Reuters final warning

Makes Statement0 Comments

Keys receives a final written warning from Reuters about using a parody account to mock Larry Page, while employed at the company.

Although you eventually revealed yourself as the owner of the account, this series of actions displayed a serious lack of judgement and professionalism that is unbecoming of a Reuters journalist…Reuters journalists are never to misrepresent themselves. The creation of a fake account that did not identify you as the author clearly violates our Social Media Policy. The parody account, which disparages a public figure, also undermines our goal to provide an unbiased and reliable news service to our clients…Furthermore, the fake account embarrassed our News reporting team, and has possibly damaged our relationship with a company that we have covered aggressively.

14 Mar, 2013

Charged

Charged0 Comments

Department of Justice charges Keys in connection with the attack. He faces three counts: conspiracy to transmit information to damage a protected computer, transmitting information to damage a protected computer, and attempted transmission of information to damage a protected computer. The two substantive counts carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The conspiracy count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Reuters, his current employer:

Any legal violations, or failures to comply with the company’s own strict set of principles and standards, can result in disciplinary action. We would also observe the indictment alleges the conduct occurred in December 2010; Mr. Keys joined Reuters in 2012, and while investigations continue we will have no further comment.

22 Apr, 2013

Fired by Reuters

Fired0 Comments

Keys is fired by Reuters.

Keys says his independent coverage of the events of the Boston marathon, where he tweeted information from police scanners that ended up being incorrect, was one of the reasons he was given for his termination.

I assume they were looking for an out…It’s my understanding that Reuters did not agree with some of the coverage I did on my own during the Boston Marathon events from last week. And they have a specific set of reasons for the termination which I don’t agree with and the union that represents me does not agree with. We are in agreement, the union and myself, that I have done nothing wrong, that the basis for the termination is incorrect and doesn’t hold any water.

Statement

Makes Statement0 Comments

Keys posts a statement about his firing to Tumblr.

Reuters claims that during my coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, I violated a grievance aired by the company in a written warning issued in October 2012, explicitly that the company “must see immediate improvement in your communication with managers and more discretion in your social media practices.” (The company does not define what “more discretion” is)…Reuters said they particularly disagreed with my decision to continue tweeting scanner traffic after several other news organizations had reported a request from the Boston Police Department to not tweet information heard on scanner traffic.

3 May, 2013

Fired after Keys reveals private messages

Fired0 Comments

Keller is let go as director of social media for Bloomberg Businessweek after Keys tweets two-month-old private messages from Keller in apparent retaliation for Keller leaking a conversation to Gizmodo in March, when news of Keys’s indictment first broke. In the DMs Keller says, “I f-cking hate it here,” and disparages his employer.

9 Jul, 2015

Joins Grasswire

Hired0 Comments

Keys joins Grasswire.

Austen and I have similar thoughts and ideas when it comes to the future of news gathering and reporting, and I’m incredibly excited at some of the things that are in store for Grasswire’s community that we both hope will provoke and influence the digital news industry.

28 Sep, 2015

Trial starts

Trial0 Comments

During opening arguments, Keys lawyer tells the jury his client is not guilty because he neither intended to cause damage, nor actually caused the amount of damage that the government alleges. The defense argues that Keys was in the Anonymous IRC channel as a journalist, looking to write up a “headline-grabbing story” about Anonymous. His lawyers say a major issue is whether Key’s actions were “low-level vandalism, or high-level, high-damage hacking,” and note the defaced article was changed back in an hour.

Matthew Keys did not know as much as the government says he knew. He did not know the true capabilities of the others in the chatroom with him.

Prosecutors claim that the Tribune spent over $5,000 to fix the defacement. They claims to have a recording of Keys confessing, “I did it,” as well as a written confession.

This is a case about online anonymous revenge.

7 Oct, 2015

Found guilty

Judgement0 Comments

Matthew Keys guilty imageA jury of 11 women and 1 man find Keys guilty on all three counts: conspiracy to commit computer hacking, transmission of malicious code causing unauthorized damage to a protected computer, and attempting to transmit malicious code to cause unauthorized damage to a protected computer. He faces a maximum of 25 years and will be sentenced on Jan 20, 2016. His lawyers say he will appeal. FBI:

This case demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to identify and investigate those who harass former employers by using insider knowledge to intentionally exploit computer systems—whether directly or by proxy—to damage the reputation and operations of a business. Individuals who use ‘bully’ tactics to attack computer networks will face justice for their actions.

Keys:

The government wanted to send a clear message that if you want to cover a group they don’t agree with, and you’re not complicit with them [the government], they will target you.

9 Oct, 2015

Case review

Interview0 Comments

Motherboard’s Jeong reviews the case and interviews both Keys and the prosecutor about the outcome. Keys:

[My] only crime is committing the act of journalism…Everything I’ve done since Day 1 as a journalist has been in the interest of the public. That hasn’t changed. The charges didn’t change that, the conviction won’t change that, either.

US Attorney:

The evidence at trial was that Matthew Keys gave a malicious online hacking group super-user credentials to the Los Angeles Times, and told them to… mess stuff up [actually “go f-ck some shit up]. And what he did after that when they didn’t mess stuff up enough to his liking, is that he took a link to an article that the Los Angeles Times had published, and said that this is why the Los Angeles Times must be ‘demolished.’ I don’t understand how any person, journalist or not, could consider that journalism or promoting the First Amendment. That is a serious threat to all the things that the First Amendment is supposed to protect.