A heads up before we begin: in case you’re unfamiliar with the lulz, you should check out the Metaviews glossary entry on the term (made by yours truly).

Through a series of clever hacks, the folks at Lulz Security have captured our collective imagination and stolen some of the spotlight from Anonymous. LulzSec first made headlines in May for hacking Sony Pictures, but they’ve since penetrated systems belonging to PBS, Nintendo, Britain’s National Health Service and an FBI affiliate site known as Infragard.

Declaring themselves to be “pirate ninjas”, LulzSec’s hacks often seem more like amusing pranks than serious security breaches. They issue hilarious press releases via twitter or Pastebin, deface websites with internet memes and, in the case of the PBS hack, they spread a false news story claiming deceased rappers Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. were alive and well in New Zealand. Given such a tone, it’s not all that surprising that CBS assumed that LulzSec was behind the recent “Hashbrown Hoax” hack on the Conservative Party of Canada website (in reality, a hacker calling themselves @LulzRaft claimed responsibility, but they seem to be at least inspired by LulzSec).