"You can't catch me, I'm a hacker!"

[thewayne]

Yes, yes they can.

An idiot teen in Texas (I'm not being redundant, am I?) called in bomb threats and SWATted people in other states, while bragging that there was nothing they could do because he was a hacker. He even had 'leet' in his email/Twitter handles.

Unlike skilled hackers and security analysts, he didn't use lots and lots of proxy servers. He directly made threats from his home computer, the FBI had no problem linking the IP address to subpoenaed logs and arresting the 19 year old.

"... among several of the handles and e-mail addresses that the 19-year-old used was anonymously.lulzsec@gmail.com and the Twitter handle @RIURichHomie. The FBI simply filed a subpoena to Google for the records associated with that account and another to Twitter. They both showed that they had been accessed by the same IP address from a Comcast account served to a home in Cypress, Texas.

Authorities also found through a simple Google search that Morgenstern had previously controlled the Twitter account @ZackL337H4X0R."

He pled guilty and faces ten years in prison.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/08/despite-calling-himself-a-hacker-swatter-fails-at-opsec-pleads-guilty/

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

So, if a mugshot becomes available, I can foresee a long-lasting future for him as meme subject. ^_^;

All the same, I'd hope the sentence isn't anywhere near the maximum of ten years - that would seem disproportionate to the harm caused by what would seem to be just some total idiot who needs to learn a lesson in getting along. (And there we segue into just what the role of prison really should be, amidst the options available to a judicial system)

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Some posted that they should take away his ability to use a computer for ten years. That'd be a pretty severe punishment: unable to search online for jobs or work in an online field. I agree, ten years in prison would be excessive, but there was a real risk of innocent people being killed so I think he does deserve a serious punishment.