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4chan anonymous v mask guy behind barsTrolling on 4chan's all-anonymous /b/ board is commonplace, including posting victims' personal info to enable some real-life harassment. This is mostly relatively harmless stuff, like making prank calls or sending unwanted pizzas to a target's address. One 4chan member went too far with his trolling, though, and wound up with a sentence of 45 days in prison.

Matthew Riskin Bean, 20-year-old /b/ member, joined in on a troll thread where someone had apparently posted nude pictures of the victim, who's now 18, but was only 13 when the photos were originally taken. Bean decided to send those along to the victim's high school, posing as a classmate's worried mother. From there, school officials forwarded Bean's email to the authorities, and he was caught and charged with distributing child porn in 2009.

Bean was able to bargain down to stalking, for which he's scheduled to receive 45 days in a federal prison. That's better than the five years he could have received for possessing naked pics of a minor. I should point out that it was irresponsible of the victim to post underage nude pictures of himself online, but even dumber for an over-18 troll like Bean to distribute possible child porn.

Although /b/ has its own rules, recent arrests of members are proving that anonymity on 4chan isn't guaranteed. In fact, /b/ members have been busted a few times over the past year or so. Here's a look back at the relationship between Anonymous and law enforcement.


January 2011

Matthew Riskin Bean, 20-year-old 4channer, was sentenced to 45 days for stalking after he sent nude pictures of a trolling victim to the victim's school.

December 2010

A Dutch 16-year-old Anon was arrested last month for participating in DDoS attacks to support Wikileaks.

April 2010

David Kernell, 22, was convicted of computer intrusion (but found not guilty of wire fraud) after "hacking" Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account and posting her email messages and her password to /b/. He also racked up felony obstruction of justice charges for deleting evidence from his hard drive. Kernell was recently sentenced to 1 year in custody, followed by 3 years of probation.



January 2010

Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, 20, pled guilty to DDoS-ing Church of Scientology websites as part of Anonymous' ongoing war against Scientology.


March 2009


Ashton Lundeby, now 18, was arrested in 2009 for phoning in fake bomb threats to high schools and universities in order to help other Anons get days off from class. He was released from juvie earlier this month with 22 months time served. Lundeby was known as "Tyrone" on 4chan, and his funny-voiced prank calls were a huge hit on /b/.