By Gavin Mackintosh
A 16-year-old boy has been given a two-year youth rehabilitation , and 120 hours of rehabilitation order, as well as training courses, to attend.
After launching cyber-attacks on websites across the world, and tweeting bomb hoaxes to airlines, He was spared a 12-month detention and training order by a judge who thought it would destroy him.
The 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, attacked 12 websites in 2014 and 2015, including sites belonging to his local police force and SeaWorld.
Government and pro-hunting sites in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, were among the sites he attacked from a laptop in his bedroom at home in Plympton, near Plymouth, Devon.
Devon and Cornwall’s police were fortunately affected for just 44 minutes after the attack, though this is a long time in the world of officers who have a lot of important work to do. The attacks are known as a distributed denial of service, while the boy’s actions cost Sea World almost $600,000 (£455,000).
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16-year-old hacker
The 16-year-old boy, who admitted three offences under section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act, relating to the DDoS attacks, and was convicted of two charges under section 51 of the Criminal Law Act. These related to bomb hoaxes that he sent via Twitter to American Airlines, Delta Air Lines,and the White House on 13 February last year.
It is shocking that a young boy would waste precious time conducting such malicious attacks and raises questions as why he had enough time to pursue such unproductive and thoughtless acts when he should have been doing homework or concentrating on his studies at school.
Sentencing
The presiding judge, Diane Baker, used her discretion to seek alternative punitive measures other than the 12 months detention order, in order to prevent what she perceived would result in a destructive future for the very foolish youngster. instead gave him a two-year youth rehabilitation order, along with 120 hours of preparation and a programme of courses to attend, after deciding that custody would “destroy” him.
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“Your offending, in my mind, crosses the custody threshold – I say that because the offending involved significant planning,” the district judge said. “The DDoS attacks were sophisticated. On your own admission, you became a person to whom others came for advice on how to carry them out.With the bomb hoaxes and planning, this was for a significant period of time, judge Baker told the boy, who sat next to his mother at Plymouth Magistrates Court.
There’s no doubt that you knew what you were doing. You knew it was serious.
“I don’t think there would be any positive outcome for you going into a youth detention centre – I think it would destroy you.
“If it would destroy you, how could I come to the conclusion that I am concerned with your welfare and rehabilitation as well as punishment?”
The boy’s mother was ordered to pay £620 in prosecution costs.
“You have put your family through hell during this period of time,” the judge told the teenager, adding that his laptop would be destroyed. “I have to say, I think it is very unhealthy that a young man of this age spends so much time alone on the computer.”
“I don’t think there’s anything that Mum could have done in the circumstances because she had absolutely no idea at the involvement he had.” His mother may have had no idea of what her son was doing, but the fine is a rude awakening for mothers to nevertheless go out of their way to monitor their son’s activities from time to time, or at least check their computer history every so often. The problem with this expectation is that many mothers often take for granted the possibility their children could have these sort of tendencies, and instead get caught up in their own lives, whilst their children may be up to no good.
Parent’s should spend more time ensuring that in their children’s spare time, they are doing constructive things like reading educational books and concentrating on their school work. All it takes is commitment and desire. This 16-year-old is a disgrace to his mother, who probably holds much better values than her son but still has the responsibility of supervising his development whilst he is still a growing teenager.
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