maia arson crimew

Crimew was born on August 7, 1999[6] in the Bruch district of Lucerne in the German-speaking region of Switzerland.[7][8] As a teenager, she worked in information technology.[9] She was the founding developer of the popular Android launcher "Lawnchair", which has been maintained by a different development team since February 2021.[4][5] A member of the Young Socialists Switzerland,[8] crimew was a candidate for Lucerne City Council in 2020.[9]

In July 2020, crimew posted source code from dozens of companies to a GitLab repository.[10] She was credited with originating the Nintendo Gigaleak by Bleeping Computer, but she later told Tom's Guide that Nintendo data was not included in the July leak, and that she had never posted Nintendo code to GitLab because the company was "notorious for quick takedowns".[11] On August 6, 2020, crimew uploaded more than 20 gigabytes of Intel's proprietary data and source code to Mega.[12] She obtained the data from another hacker who claimed to have breached Intel around May 2020,[13] and described it as a first installment which would be followed by more leaks related to Intel.[12][14] In January 2021, crimew was involved in a source code leak from Nissan, stating that she acquired the leaked code after learning from an anonymous source about a Bitbucket server[15] that was set up with the default username and password.[16][17]

Crimew said in March 2021 that most of her breaches did not require much technical skill.[18] In addition to leaking data herself, she maintained a Telegram channel called "ExConfidential"[19] where she shared details about leaks by others.[10][14] In March 2021, Distributed Denial of Secrets created a torrent of data from the channel after crimew's home was raided and her devices were seized.[20]

On March 8, 2021, a group of hackers including crimew and calling themselves "APT - 69420 Arson Cats"[21][22] gained "super admin" rights in the network of Verkada, a cloud-based security camera company,[23] using credentials they found on the public internet.[24] The group had access to the network for 36 hours.[23] They collected about 5 gigabytes of data, including live security camera footage and recordings from more than 150,000 cameras in places like a Tesla factory, a jail in Alabama, a Halifax Health hospital, and residential homes.[25][26] The group also accessed a list of Verkada customers and the company's private financial information,[24] and gained superuser access to the corporate networks of Cloudflare and Okta through their Verkada cameras.[25][27]

Crimew acted as the spokesperson for the group of hackers.[28] Her Twitter account was suspended for violating Twitter's terms of service after she used it to share multiple screenshots of live security camera feeds.[29] During the hack, crimew tweeted "What if we just absolutely ended surveillance capitalism in two days?"[29] She contacted a Bloomberg journalist shortly after the breach, who in turn contacted Verkada, which removed the hackers' access to the network.[30][31][32] She told Bloomberg that the hack exposed "just how broadly we're being surveilled, and how little care is put into at least securing the platforms used to do so, pursuing nothing but profit".[25] An acquaintance of crimew told zentralplus that they thought she would have carried out the hack for fun regardless of her political views.[9]

Banner showing seizure of the git.rip domain by the FBI

In March 2021, crimew was indicted by a grand jury in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington on charges related to several hacks she allegedly carried out between 2019 and 2021.[7][33] The twelve-page[28] indictment alleged that crimew hacked dozens of entities,[34] published proprietary information and code from more than 100 entities including government agencies,[35] and sold hacking-related merchandise such as t-shirts.[36] It charged her with counts of computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud, and identity theft. The indictment, and a raid by the Swiss police in which crimew's electronic devices were seized at the request of United States authorities, came shortly after she claimed involvement in the Verkada hack but did not contain charges related to it.[30][37][38] Seven police officers searched her home during the raid and fifteen searched the home of her parents.[31] The website git.rip, through which crimew and others allegedly shared data obtained by hacking, was seized by the FBI.[39] She later described this raid as a traumatizing experience, stating she felt she was "made an example of".[40]

As of March 19, 2021, crimew was being represented by lawyer Marcel Bosonnet in Switzerland.[34][41] A crowdfunding campaign was created in April 2021 to raise money for her to retain a lawyer in the United States.[42]

Crimew lives in Switzerland.[7] She is autistic[55] and identifies as a bi lesbian.[56] She is a member of the Young Socialists Switzerland,[8] and has run for political candidacy on socialist platforms.[9][43] Crimew has cited curiosity,[9] anti-capitalism, anarchism, and opposition to the concept of intellectual property as the motives for her hacking,[57][58] stating that "caring about literally nothing but profit definitely doesn't result in security".[18] She has additionally stated that she believes source code and documentation should be public, and that she thinks of herself as a hacktivist.[47] Crimew, who is non-binary[42] and uses it/its and she/her pronouns,[3] has stated that being queer and experiencing discrimination contributed to the development of her political views.[59][42]

Crimew has also been known as Tillie Kottman, deletescape, and tillie crimew.[33] In 2022, she legally changed her name to maia arson crimew, which is stylized in all lowercase.[60]

• Crimew's official website