Trial starts
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.