Their persistent implications that the antisec movement is their original idea are laughable, and immediately discredit them. It's been around for over a decade.
We weren't able to talk to Whirlpool in person, but met in cyberspace in a private online chat room. In those circumstances it's almost impossible to verify with absolute certainty who you are speaking to, but Newsnight was able to verify that this person had access to the @Lulzsec Twitter feed.
Telephones have the exact same issues, but somehow "meeting" in "cyberspace" seems stranger than a conference call.
It's stranger because you only receive words instead of both words and tones. Communication is 7% words, 38% tone, 55% body language [1]. With the phone, you get 45%. With chat, only 7%.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisec_Movement