Teenage PlayStation Hacker Sentenced

[Andy Chalk]

Teenage PlayStation Hacker Sentenced

A teenager who admitted [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98723-Teen-Hacker-Admits-to-Sony-Attacks] to hacking the PlayStation website in 2008 after being banned for cheating in SOCOM has been sentenced to a year probation, community service and a fine.

The 17-year-old, from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, used a botnet to perform a denial-of-service attack against the SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs [http://www.playstation.com].

"This offense, by its very nature (which is similar to serious attacks against national cybersecurity), caused great alarm within Sony Corp. and the FBI," Judge John Driscoll wrote in his ruling. "One would expect that anti-social or sociopathic individuals would commit such a computer crime; nevertheless, the juvenile seems to have accepted personal responsibility and agrees he should be held accountable."

The youth was found guilty of unlawful use of a computer, criminal use of a computer, computer trespassing and the distribution of a computer virus; state prosecutors dropped 11 other charges, including some related to a similar attack against Sony carried out in March 2009. Sony had asked for restitution in excess of $33,200, but the judge ruled that such an amount would be excessive, instead ordering the boy to pay $5000 and slapping him with one year or probation and 250 hours of community service.

Let this be a lesson to you, kids: If you're dumb enough to get caught cheating in SOCOM, you're probably dumb enough to get caught using a botnet to launch a DDOS attack against PlayStation.com.

Source: GamePolitics [http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_678681.html]


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[Sir Kemper]

This children, is what we call "Letting it go"

And if not, you do something stupid, like this.

 

[Marter]

I'm glad he got sentenced. Hopefully this will show him that even over the internet, your actions affect people.

 

[DamienHell]

"One would expect that anti-social or sociopathic individuals would commit such a computer crime"

*sigh* I'll get my hacking tools I guess.

 

[WilliamRLBaker]

Love that, dumb enough to get caught cheating, dumb enough to get caught DDOS.
Thats specially true of socom, which....isn't hard to not get caught cheating in. he must have done some very large things cheating wise to even get noticed.

 

[Aurora219]

"One would expect that anti-social or sociopathic individuals would commit such a computer crime"

*sigh* I'll get my hacking tools I guess.

Point provers, UNITE!

 

[jacx]

danm cheaters... he prolly sucks w/o hax

 

[Blue Musician]

Mmm, interesting. I wonder how he could have done this, I mean I want a deeper explanation...

Anyway, I'm going back for my burglar tools, who knows when someone is in need of it?

 

[ThePurpleStuff]

This is sort of a sign, maybe this will make them boost their security systems so that this kinda stuff can't happen! But, hackers will always find a way around everything of course. They'll need to keep up if they intend to stop these hackers, even for a short while.

Also, this is why I play online games like normal, cheating then getting banned when you're caught is just not worth it. Plus it's not fun to me and I don't feel rewarded in the end unless I do it myself.

 

[Therumancer]

I have mixed opinions.

As I've mentioned in other situations I think that all EULA agreements you have to click on to use a product (after you pay money for it) aside, I think the abillity of a company to effectively knock a console offline permanantly without any meaningful recourse is excessive. It's not like there is any kind of trial or "board of review" here, and theoretically this system could be abused. While it was a 360 incident I look back at the whole incident between "ItzLupo" and "The Pro" where "The Pro" was right in what he did, the complaints that were being made even if not accurate to that case, demonstrated problems with the system since a power mad "mod" could indeed do a lot of damage.

What's more given that consoles are a family possession with multiple users at times, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea that "it wasn't me, it was someone else" isn't considered to be a valid excuse. An entire family being punished for the actions of one moron, or because a friend that came over was being a jerk while using your system.... like say if you invite friends of the family over, the adults talk in one room, and the kid that comes with them is allowed to use the console in another room to keep them occupied.

I do not know the details of this case, and the implication is the kid is admitting to wrong doing. Doubtlessly he's under pressure as well. I personally do have to wonder about the details involving his "hacking" of SOCOM. While companies do need to police their servers and such, I feel it's become a touchy subject. If the company does wrong by you, what else are you going to do if there is no viable legal recourse? When someone seriously brings up issues of wanting to sue a console company they get laughed out of the house (so to speak).

It's not like backlash over people being unfairly banned is a factor, since the gaming community generally turns on those who are banned. It's not like Sony is in any serious danger of Jim-Bob doing any damage to them by getting a massive boycott of complete
strangers going due to him being wronged.

I guess what this comes down to is vigilantism and in general I'm against it, the point here however is that when your dealing with a group that can cost you a few hundred dollars at will and is functionally unaccountable for their actions... well, that's also a problem.

Overall, I'm not so quick to make the kid in question the villain of the piece outright. In the end it seems to me that both sides are effectively wrong on some level. Ask yourself if you felt you were wronged, if you would do something about it if you had the abillity to do so...

Had I been the Judge in the case I probably would have demanded that Sony prove that the kid was hacking (due to his stated motivation over the ban). If they could not do so to my satisfaction I would have ordered Sony to let him back online, but would have given the kid the probation/community service since what he did was still wrong. If Sony could adequetly prove that the initial claim of hacking was true, then my ruling would probably be very similar to what happened.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

danm cheaters... he prolly sucks w/o hax

Almost definitely. Why else would he hack? I hope this young man proves himself to be a nice warning to all you would-be hackers out there.

 

[Blimey]

Well, I'm glad he got sentenced at least. Hacking little twat, needs to learn that shit over the internet still can count as a crime. Besides, even if he wasn't hacking, he still DDOS'd Sony's servers. Sony has every right to press charges against his stunningly stupid ass.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Huh...that is actually a quite reasonable sentence. Fits the crime well. Never thought that would happen in a hacking case.

 

[Elementlmage]

The youth was found guilty of unlawful use of a computer, criminal use of a computer, computer trespassing and the distribution of a computer virus

Redundant sentencing is redundant.

In all seriousness, isn't there something about double jeopardy in the constitution? As well, what is this crap about distributing a computer virus? He did,t distribute it, he was the one that obtained it, there for, it was distributed to him. Furthermore, a DDoS is pretty much all client side, so he wouldn't have had to put anything on Sony's servers.

I am not saying he shouldn't have gotten in trouble; I think the 250 hours of community service and the fine are apt(a few IT guys probably had to work over time costing Sony a few K), but probation? To a certain degree, it seems like he got railroaded by high priced corporate lawyers while he only had a state appointed advocate to defend him.

 

[CoverYourHead]

He has no right to launch an attack for being caught cheating. That's just silly. That's like getting mad at someone for stopping you from stealing something, then shooting them.

But idiots are idiots, good thing he has $5,000 less to annoy people and do stupid things.

 

[DarkDain]

Weird, i didnt know a judge ever ruled an amount to be 'excessive', what with people easily winning millions over bruised and scraps but 'infinite never-ending emotional trauma' thats not as bad as a fart in a subway, and this little dick is getting mercy for this? pfft. they should build a playstation robot to hack him.

 

[Yureina]

A self-entitled kid actually gets a deserved punishment for acting out and attacking someone who was only defensing themselves against that kid's rulebreaking?

I like it.

 

[Actual]

The youth was found guilty of unlawful use of a computer, criminal use of a computer, computer trespassing and the distribution of a computer virus

Redundant sentencing is redundant.

In all seriousness, isn't there something about double jeopardy in the constitution? As well, what is this crap about distributing a computer virus? He did,t distribute it, he was the one that obtained it, there for, it was distributed to him. Furthermore, a DDoS is pretty much all client side, so he wouldn't have had to put anything on Sony's servers.

I am not saying he shouldn't have gotten in trouble; I think the 250 hours of community service and the fine are apt(a few IT guys probably had to work over time costing Sony a few K), but probation? To a certain degree, it seems like he got railroaded by high priced corporate lawyers while he only had a state appointed advocate to defend him.

I'm no expert on this but I believe that in order to make a bot-net he needed to infect all the computers in the net with a virus that gave him some control over random people's computers.

It's not like there is any kind of trial or "board of review" here, and theoretically this system could be abused

I'd imagine these are internal, a small sample of the moderators work is examined at random to keep them on their toes. Or more likely each ban is examined by two or more mods before a final decision is made.

since a power mad "mod" could indeed do a lot of damage.

Well no they couldn't they're doing a job and like every other job in the world someone is looking over their shoulder. Also, why would they? They don't care about random hacker number four thousand six hundred and seventy two.

What's more given that consoles are a family possession with multiple users at times, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea that "it wasn't me, it was someone else" isn't considered to be a valid excuse.

This is kinda harsh it's true, but what else is a company to do, just let everyone who says their mate did it off? They'd rapidly find that they were letting everyone off. When it's completely impossible to prove who was using the console when the terms of use were violated they have to put that responsibility on the console owner. There is no viable alternative.

EDIT: Just thought of the alternative, consoles that record you with tiny hidden cameras and send all footage of you to Sony HQ!

Or fingerprint operated consoles. The Orwellian future of our hobby is scary.

Ask yourself if you felt you were wronged, if you would do something about it if you had the abillity to do so...

Also true, but feeling wronged is not the same as being wronged. And this fella did admit in the end that he was not in the right. This is also no justification for any other crime.

Had I been the Judge in the case I probably would have demanded that Sony prove that the kid was hacking

And I'm sure they could have, but that sort of information is highly sensitive, if the hackers knew how they were being detected then they could avoid it. Sony would have only disclosed that information to officials in closed proceedings. Besides which it would have no relevance to the proceedings. Say I beat a man because he stole my watch, it would never be required in my court case to prove he stole my watch, it's irrelevant, I shouldn't have beat him no matter my motivation.


I think big companies demanding monetary recompense of individuals like this is ridiculous. I understand they do it to serve as an example to the next kid thinking of DDOSing them, but it doesn't make it any less ridiculous. I've worked for a company that's been denial of service attacked, it sucks. And irritates your customers to no end, so you suffer some monetary losses for the few customers unable to use/purchase your service while the attack is on-going.

 

[Nerdygamer89]

"This offense, by its very nature (which is similar to serious attacks against national cybersecurity), caused great alarm within Sony Corp. and the FBI,"

A script kiddie running a relatively small-scale DDOS attack caused great alarm? Hate to see how bad a real hacker would scare 'em, then. Fair ruling, IMO, but that particular line jumped out at me as being bullshit media attention grabbing.

 

[Low Key]

"This offense, by its very nature (which is similar to serious attacks against national cybersecurity), caused great alarm within Sony Corp. and the FBI,"

A script kiddie running a relatively small-scale DDOS attack caused great alarm? Hate to see how bad a real hacker would scare 'em, then. Fair ruling, IMO, but that particular line jumped out at me as being bullshit media attention grabbing.

That line bothered me too, but it's not like the average person would know the difference. Mention DDoS, hacker, etc. to most and watch their eyes glaze over.