Hacker Who Launched DDoS Attacks on Sony, EA, and Steam Gets 27 Months in Prison (zdnet.com) 76
An anonymous reader shares a report: A 23-year-old man from Utah was sentenced this week to 27 months in prison for a series of DDoS attacks that took down online gaming service providers like Sony's PlayStation Network, Valve's Steam, Microsoft's Xbox, EA, Riot Games, Nintendo, Quake Live, DOTA2, and League of Legends servers, along with many others. Named Austin Thompson, but known online as DerpTrolling, the man is the first hacker who started a trend among other hackers and hacking crews -- namely of launching DDoS attacks against gaming providers during Christmas, which they later justified using ridiculous reasons such as "to spoil everyone's holiday," "to make people spend time with their families," or "for the lulz." The hacker's DDoS attacks were extremely successful at the time, in 2013, in a time when most companies didn't use strong DDoS mitigation services.
He got lucky (Score:1)
Had he been trying to leak a game or a movie, he would be looking at 30 years in prison....
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
He is just doing the time of all the Christmas time he cost others.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
The consumer harm is irrelevant, he hurt corporate profits.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. It was xmas day, so all those playstations and xboxes affected were already paid for. Games, too, would have been prepaid as gifts. The result was xmas ruined for tens of thousands of kids because a few douchebags wanted to get their jollies. Fuck those guys.
There was a corporate cost, but that was insignificant in comparison to the consumer harm.
He stopped you from playing video games (Score:3)
If he was a rich man's son he'd have done a suspended sentence.
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Honestly, society would be better served with home detention, probation, and some sort of mandated education.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, fuck that guy and fuck you too. The rest of us are getting sick & tired of you 20-something dipshit EdgeLords ruining stuff for everyone else, for the "lulz'. Well, you can do a lot of lulling while you're sittig in prison for a couple of years, and the rest of us will "lulz" at your fate.
Re:2 1/4 years is nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
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It depends on the goal of punishment of the judicial system.
In the US, the sentences are often long and harsh, the goal of the system seems to be revenge.
That is the reason so many people are in prison (by far the largest fraction of the population of any country in the world).
Yet the crime rate is not lower than in many other western countries, but higher.
Elsewhere there are places where the emphasis is on prevention (so there must be some punishment if only to deter other cases) and rehabilitation, meanin
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
He's getting off lightly. His DDoS affected over 100 million people for several days [theguardian.com]. (100 million people)*(2 days) = over half a million years of man-hours wasted by his stunt.
A half a million years of jail time would've been equivalent retribution for his act, not revenge. He's actually getting off incredibly lightly compared to the cumulative harm he did to society. This is like fining a vandal who destr
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right... It probably only cost the 100 million people or so a tiny fraction of their total time over the several days. Let's say he should be punished equivalently to the total time he really cost other people, and let's say for simplicity that it only cost them only one minute per person over all the days it happened.
100 million minutes is about 190 years. In actuality, it probably should be more if the punishment were to truly be balanced with respect to the amount of time he cost others, but
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there is no way this is 4.5x as worse as a Harvard Swimmer raping someone.
This punishment is too much, but ol' brock got nowhere near enough. Too fragile to imprison is an indictment of our prison system, but no reason not to throw him in there. Society will never demand prison reform unless tender little cookies like him get caught in the trap.
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With t
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In the US, the sentences are often long and harsh, the goal of the system seems to be revenge.
He ruined christmas for tens of thousands (if not millions) of kids. Fuck him and his friends. The sentence is not overly harsh. Too bad stocks and rotten vegetables are no longer an option.
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so what your saying is that we should start thwoing people in jail for telling children that santa isnt real?
You want to punish people more based on the idea that the DDoS attack happened near what is a corporate holiday? Come on now, thats a bit rediculous! You act as if the punishment should be worse because he "ruined" christmas, it seems to me that the people who's christmas could have been ruined by the unavailability of a video-game have already ruined christmas by over emphasising a consumer product
You sound vindictive (Score:3)
Not nearly enough (Score:1)
My rule of thumb for hackers is, a day in jail for every person you inconvenience or annoy.
A few million people affected by gaming outages... you do the math.
Is this person going to do anything beneficial for society? Seems pretty unlikely.
Re: (Score:3)
I was thinking more about something like "all his internet connections must run at the speed of an old 56kbps modem" for the next three years. Let him know what it feels like to have his internet speed be fucked by someone else.
Re: Life sentence (Score:2)
I am not a US citizen, but I sort of remember that thing about "cruel and unusual"
Send him to the chair. (Score:1, Flamebait)
Death penalty for punks who do this.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you think your stance is even remotely acceptable? Are you a psychopath?
Re:Juvenile? (Score:4, Funny)
Depends, what is the speed of the train from New York?
Im ok with this (Score:1)
27 months isnt ruin-your-life-forever-and-leave-you-forever-institutionalized.
But it is long enough to get the point across that when you do something like this you get more than just "teh lulz"
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What no Aspergers get out of jail free card? (Score:2)
Isn't that a standard ploy now with almost every hacker or script kiddy up before a judge? This guys defense missed a trick.
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Perspective please (Score:2)
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It is the USA they do not take into account human suffering, just the impact on corporate profits. It has been pretty bloody obvious for some time. Impact corporate profits big penalty, normies suffer, who cares and the same on the flip side, big money commits crime against normies, the crime is minimalised to protect profits. It is called corruption.
Not big or clever (Score:1)
This is not any kind of moral hacktivism. Morally this is no different from burgling the youth club and smashing up the games and sports equipment. It shows a fundamental lack of respect for other human beings and actually just as little skill as burglary.
more coerced false confession (Score:1)
According to https://www.polygon.com/2019/7... [polygon.com] the accused "pleaded guilty".
Aaaahhh yes, how I do love the smell of coerced false confession in the morning!