maia arson crimew

Maia arson crimew (previously known as Tillie Kottmann; born August 7, 1999) is a Swiss developer, hacktivist, and anarchist. Crimew is known for leaking source code and other data from companies such as Intel and Nissan, and for discovering a 2019 copy of the United States government's No Fly List on an unsecured cloud server owned by CommuteAir. Crimew was also part of a group that hacked into Verkada in March 2021 and accessed more than 150,000 cameras. She is the founding developer of the Lawnchair application launcher for Android.

In March 2021, crimew was indicted by a grand jury in the United States on criminal charges related to her alleged hacking activity between 2019 and 2021. The charges were unrelated to the hack of Verkada. Swiss police raided her home and her parents' home at the request of US authorities, and her electronic devices were seized. After the raid, people used the hashtag "#freetillie" to express support for her, and the Swiss magazine Republik compared her to Jeremy Hammond and Aaron Swartz. in the Bruch district of Lucerne in the German-speaking region of Switzerland. As a teenager, she worked in information technology. Bleeping Computer credited her with originating the Nintendo Gigaleak, 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". On August 6, 2020, crimew uploaded more than 20 gigabytes of Intel's proprietary data and source code to Mega. She obtained the data from another hacker who claimed to have breached Intel around May 2020, and described it as a first installment that would be followed by more leaks related to Intel. In January 2021, crimew was involved in a source code leak from Nissan. She said she got the leaked code after learning from an anonymous source about a Bitbucket server that was set up with the default username and password.

In March 2021, crimew said that most of her breaches did not require much technical skill. In addition to leaking data herself, she maintained a Telegram channel, "ExConfidential", where she shared details of leaks by others.

Verkada hack On March 8, 2021, a group of hackers including crimew calling itself "APT69420 Arson Cats" gained "super admin" rights in the network of Verkada, a cloud-based security camera company, It 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 prison in Alabama, a Halifax Health hospital, and residential homes. The group also accessed a list of Verkada customers and the company's private financial information, and gained access to the corporate networks of Cloudflare and Okta through their Verkada cameras.

Crimew acted as the group's spokesperson; during the hack, she tweeted, "What if we just absolutely ended surveillance capitalism in two days?" She contacted a Bloomberg journalist shortly after the breach, who in turn contacted Verkada, which removed the hackers' access to the network. 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".

Indictment

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. The indictment alleged that crimew hacked dozens of entities, published proprietary information and code from more than 100 entities including government agencies, and sold hacking-related merchandise such as t-shirts. It charged her with 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 US authorities, came shortly after she claimed involvement in the Verkada hack, but did not contain charges related to it. Seven police officers searched her home during the raid, and fifteen searched her parents' home. was seized by the FBI.

As of March 19, 2021, crimew was being represented by lawyer Marcel Bosonnet in Switzerland. A crowdfunding campaign was created in April 2021 to raise money for her to retain a lawyer in the US.

Public response People used the hashtag "#freetillie" to express support for crimew after her home was raided. Hacking researcher Gabriella Coleman said she expected crimew to gain more support in "the hacker community" as a result of the indictment, saying that in some cases the US government has been overly aggressive in prosecuting "hacktivists", who pursue "a variety of leftist and anti-authoritarian ideals", and that "the hacker community has this in mind". Seattle prosecutors rebuked the view that the leak had "any redeeming quality", with US Attorney Tessa M. Gorman saying "publishing source code and proprietary and sensitive information on the web is not protected speech—it is theft and fraud" and "wrapping oneself in an allegedly altruistic motive does not remove the criminal stench from such intrusion, theft, and fraud". Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported that crimew would not be extradited and would instead be tried in Switzerland.

20 Minuten reported that if crimew were tried in Switzerland, she would face a maximum of four and a half years in prison. In October 2021, Zeit Magazin reported that, while Interpol does not publicize most of its investigations, it was likely that an international arrest warrant had been issued for crimew, which would potentially render her unable to leave Switzerland.

No Fly and Selectee Lists leak

On January 19, 2023, crimew reported that she had gained access to 2019 versions of the US government's No Fly List of 1.56 million entries and Selectee List of 250,000 entries hosted by CommuteAir on an unsecured Amazon Web Services cloud server. Crimew said that, despite the size of the Terrorism Screening Database, there were "very clear trends towards almost exclusively Arabic and Russian sounding names throughout the million entries"; over 10% of the listed entries contained "Muhammad" in either the first or last name fields.

Adrian Dittmann/Elon Musk investigation Crimew worked with journalist Ryan Fae to investigate the true identity behind what was thought to be one of Elon Musk's alternative accounts on Twitter, determining that Adrian Dittmann was his real name and that he lived in Fiji. Jacqueline Sweet reported this in January 2025 in The Spectator. In response, Twitter suspended crimew's and the two journalists' accounts due to its policy against doxing.

Dialog leak

In June 2026, crimew leaked the Dialog Dublin retreat's full registration list to the press.

Personal life and beliefs Crimew lives in Switzerland. She is a member of the Young Socialists Switzerland, Crimew has cited curiosity, saying, "caring about literally nothing but profit definitely doesn't result in security". Since August 2024, she has also been a columnist for the German-language investigative journalism magazine Das Lamm.

Crimew has also been known as Tillie Kottmann, "deletescape", and "tillie crimew".