Even the genuine hacks are barely worthy of the word. Many large organisations use databases with known security holes that can easily be exploited by anyone who has recently completed the first year of a computer science degree: it's no coincidence that so many of these hacker collectives appear towards the end of the academic year.

For that reason, the members of LulzSec are either modern-day versions of Ars?ne Lupin, Maurice Leblanc's fearless gentleman thief for whom the risk of capture was part of the thrill, or they're absolute, grade A imbeciles (spoiler alert: it's the second one). We've all seen enough movies – which is to say, the first 10 minutes of Sneakers – to know what happens when you mess with the UK government. Any day now, in Wales or Warsaw or Wasilla, a spotty kid in a V for Vendetta T-shirt will be dragged from his parents' house at gunpoint and bundled – sobbing and pleading that it was all a joke – into the back of a van.