Or stated differently: Have the ill-winds of fate caught the Lulz Boat's sails? 
 
 Today, quite unexpectedly, LulzSec Security announced its retirement. "This is our final release, as today marks something meaningful to us. For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could", according to a statement from the hacker group. "Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind -- we hope -- inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love". 
 
 My question: "Planned?" Based on other LulzSec communication, the group sounded like it was in this snatch-and-post thing for the long haul -- the Lulz Boat was on a long voyage of piracy and firing its canons at many targets to come. For example, on June 23, with release of documents taken from Arizona Dept. of Public Safety servers, LulzSec writes: "Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarrassing personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities". 
 
 From that statement, I expected an ongoing release of information. Less than a week ago, LulzSec teamed up with hacker group Anonymous for mission AntiSec (Anti-Security), which seeks to expose any government-classified information that can be stolen. From LulzSec's Twitter feed: "Our next step is to categorize and format leaked items we acquire and release them in #AntiSec 'payloads' on our website and The Pirate Bay". 
 
 LulzSec called on other hackers to join the cause, later bragging about its allies: "The Lulz Boat is sailing alongside allied ships, gathering and sorting booty for the masses. How are the winds for everyone?" By all appearances, LulzSec had embarked on a long campaign of looting servers and posting the booty. 
 
 So was 50 days really the plan all along or have the winds changed? The hacker group surely has made enemies, after hacking the FBI, CIA and US Senate and, more recently, Arizona public safety. The latter data dump revealed names, addresses, cell phone numbers and other personal information of cops. If law enforcement wasn't mobilized before, surely it is now. Ill winds would bring brigadiers on pursuing warships. Has perhaps the Lulz Boat's captain peered through his telescope and spied enemies on the horizon and chosen to take safe harbor? 
 
 Maybe I missed some earlier LulzSec communication about a grand 50-day plan. Please correct me if I did. Perhaps today's announcement is just a big gag -- the Lulz Boat sending a decoy to sea, while it sails for new booty and the enemy fleet moves in the wrong direction. 
 
 If it's over then today's data dump is the last, unexpectedly, since LulzSec had promised many more, and I can't help wonder if the pirates aren't on the run. LulzSec's full statement: 
 
 Friends around the globe, We are Lulz Security, and this is our final release, as today marks something meaningful to us. 50 days ago, we set sail with our humble ship on an uneasy and brutal ocean: the Internet. The hate machine, the love machine, the machine powered by many machines. We are all part of it, helping it grow, and helping it grow on us. For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. All to selflessly entertain others - vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy. It's what we all crave, even the seemingly lifeless politicians and emotionless, middle-aged self-titled failures. You are not failures. You have not blown away. You can get what you want and you are worth having it, believe in yourself. While we are responsible for everything that The Lulz Boat is, we are not tied to this identity permanently. Behind this jolly visage of rainbows and top hats, we are people. People with a preference for music, a preference for food; we have varying taste in clothes and television, we are just like you. Even Hitler and Osama Bin Laden had these unique variations and style, and isn't that interesting to know? The mediocre painter turned supervillain liked cats more than we did. Again, behind the mask, behind the insanity and mayhem, we truly believe in the AntiSec movement. We believe in it so strongly that we brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we've gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don't stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve. So with those last thoughts, it's time to say bon voyage. Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind - we hope - inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere. Thank you for sailing with us. The breeze is fresh and the sun is setting, so now we head for the horizon. Let it flow... Lulz Security - our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011, and a shout-out to all of our battlefleet members and supporters across the globe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our mayhem: http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/ Our chaos: http://thepiratebay.org/user/LulzSec/ Our final release: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6495523/50_Days_of_Lulz Please make mirrors of material on the website, because we're not renewing the hosting. Goodbye. <3 
 
 So what do you think is going on here? Please answer in comments. ||||| As we reported earlier, LulzSec says that it has bowed out of the limelight for good after fifty days of headline-grabbing hacking of corporate and governmental targets. Along with its final statement, it released a data dump including a wide range of information. We’ve downloaded it, so what’s inside? 
 
 We’re not going into details here, simply providing an overview of what LulzSec has released. 
 
 AOL: While you may have been secretly hoping for some juicy memos akin to The AOL Way, what we actually have is a text file that begins: “The purpose of this document is to provide the AOL Network Engineering Staff, Management and any other pertinent persons a detailed review, analysis and recommended ‘best practices’ document for the implementation of layer 4 through 7 switching configurations.” – it’s an incredibly technical document. 
 
 AT&T: A large .rar archive includes a huge number of internal documents related to AT&T’s LTE rollout. It includes meeting memos, emails, media reports, PDFs, Powerpoint presentations and more. 
 
 Battlefield Heroes: This text file appears to be a list of account details for over 550,000 users of social game Battlefield Heroes. 
 
 FBI Being Silly: This text file includes the output of a URL on the FBI website. We’ll admit to not knowing the technical significance of why this is ‘silly’ as yet. 
 
 Hackforums.net: This appears to be 200,000 user details for Hackforums.net in a .csv file. 
 
 Nato-bookshop.org: Similarly, this appears to be 220,000 user logins for a NATO online bookshop (the URL currently redirects to the main NATO site). 
 
 Evidence that LulzSec hacked the US Navy website: An image is included showing the phrase “Pablo Escobar AntiSec” inserted multiple times on a list of Navy salary grades. 
 
 Office networks of corporations: A text file seemingly listing IP numbers of internal Corporate networks, including Disney, EMI and Universal. 
 
 Email login details supposedly for a number of private investigators: Self-explanatory. 
 
 User login details for “Random gaming forums”: It’s unclear which forums. 
 
 “Silly routers”: A list of IP numbers for routers with passwords set to either ‘root’ or ‘admin’. 
 
 So there we go – that’s our first parse through. No doubt any significant information within the dump will be explored in more depth as it is uncovered.
– Just as it looked like LulzSec was gearing up for an extended reign of cyber leaks and hijinks, the notorious hacker squad decided to hang up its modem—but not without one last hurrah, reports Reuters. "Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind—we hope—inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love," the group said in a statement. But with LulzSec coming under increasing pressure from law enforcement around the world, some analysts think that the "50 day cruise" is just bravado to cover a sudden retreat in the face of some pretty serious heat. "I can't help but wonder if the pirates aren't on the run," writes a security analyst at Beta News. Even if LulzSec really is going away, they leave with one with their biggest data dumps yet, featuring tech manuals, passwords, and other data from AOL, AT&T, the FBI, the US Navy, and much more.