A hacker group trading under the name "lulzsec" was able to gain control of PBS' servers, defaced several websites, and posted an article to the PBS Newshour site claiming that deceased rapper Tupac Shakur was found alive in New Zealand. The group then posted several taunting messages to Twitter before methodically tweeting out PBS website passwords and other information the group gleaned during the attack. As of this morning, PBS was still struggling to contain the attack. The motive behind the attack seems to stem from a May, 24 Frontline report on WikiLeaks called "Wikisecrets," which the group found to not be to their liking. Some of the defaced pages also made reference to the continued incarceration of Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking the documents to Wikileaks. The Frontline piece has received some criticism from Manning's supporters and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as being an unfair and hostile portrayal of Manning and the Wikileaks operation. Attacks on Wikileaks, perceived or otherwise, has set off cyber attacks in the past, most notably with the hacker collective Anonymous. However, Lulzsec apparently claims no connection with the group. According to Wired, Lulzsec was responsible for a security breach at Sony and also for an attack on Fox.com which resulted in personal information from X-Factor applications being made publicly available. To read the hacked article in its entirety, and to see other pages defaced by Lulzsec, head over to our sister site Mediaite. (via NYTimes, Wired)

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When TIME Magazine named Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg its 2010 Person of the Year, the reaction among many (including myself) was one of puzzlement: Yes, Facebook is a huge phenomenon and has arguably had a bigger impact on the day-to-day lives of many people than many a more 'serious' technology or political movement, but why now? As John Hodgman bitingly put it, "Time Magazine just named its Person of the Year 2007." Of the other five finalists that Zuckerberg beat out, Julian Assange seems like the most deserving candidate: While WikiLeaks has been elevated to media perfect storm over the past few weeks, it's been doing far-reaching if highly controversial work for far longer than that, and it represents such a rare and crucial nexus between politics and technology, open and closed Internet, privacy and transparency: Whether one applauds it or condemns it, WikiLeaks is a thing emblematic of our times. And as Glenn Greenwald points out, "In TIME's Person of the year poll, Assange received 382,000 votes - Mark Zuckerberg received 18,000 - only 20 times less!" At that, TIME did put Assange on the cover two weeks ago. Over the past day, there's been a lot of speculation, debate, and Internet controversy about why TIME picked Zuckerberg over Assange. Yahoo's Michael Calderone cut through the punditry bubble and asked TIME managing editor Richard Stengel point blank why the magazine made the choice that it did. Stengel didn't tread lightly: "I think Assange will be a footnote five years from now," he responded.

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UPDATE 2:34PM EST: WikiLeaks representative Daniel Schmitt told Geekosystem that he "couldnt [sic] even imagine a reason" why founder Julian Assange would be exiting from the website. In his e-mail response, he warned against having "fed the troll calling himself an insider," writing:

The .is domain registration was supposed to happen much earlier, and I am more or less astonished it has only now happened. We control around 500+ domain names, and try to get wikileaks in as many TLDs as possible. This is a normal action to occur, has nothing to do with us moving to Iceland or anywhere else. WikiLeaks is as it is, and will stay the same, apart from a few changes and new features we have already publicly announced. Re the legal team I am not aware of this issue. As much as I can tell, though based in Europe and not a lawyer, our legal team is working on this and has so far not been able to get in touch with Manning.

According to Schmitt, a press release will be pending, a point reiterated on the WikiLeaks Twitter account: "WikiLeaks will NOT be abandoned. Don't listen to disinfo being spread! We'll issue clarifications soon. Should've done earlier." Read the original story after the break, in which an "insider" alleged that Wikileaks.org would be abandoned.

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It recently came out that Army intelligence officer Bradley Manning was arrested by federal officials for his role in reportedly leaking "classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records" to whistleblower site Wikileaks. This 'classified U.S. combat video' includes Collateral Murder, the video of U.S. military personnel killing civilians and a Reuters photographer which caused waves of controversy when it was released in April.

As it turns out, Manning was turned in by Adrian Lamo: A hacker best known for hacking the New York Times' internal computer system who had been the subject of multiple Wired and Wired.com reports, from which Manning learned about him and attempted to reach out. In an interview with the Washington Post, Lamo explains why he did what he did:

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