Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Bomb Threat Hoaxer, DDos Boss Gets 3 Years — Krebs on Security
The ringleader of a gang of cyber hooligans that made bomb threats against hundreds of schools and launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Web sites — including KrebsOnSecurity on multiple occasions — has been sentenced to three years in a U.K. prison, and faces the possibility of additional charges from U.S.-based law enforcement officials.
George Duke-Cohan, 19, caused a massive uproar earlier this year after communicating a series of bomb threats against 1,700 schools, colleges and universities across the United Kingdom. But shortly after being arrested on suspicion of the threats and released, Duke-Cohan was back at it again — this time expanding his threats to include schools in the United States. At the same time, authorities in the U.K. and U.S. discovered that Duke-Cohan was responsible for falsely reporting the hijack of a plane bound for the United States. That flight, which had almost 300 passengers on board, was later quarantined in San Francisco pending a full security check.
Duke-Cohan was part of an attention-seeking group of ne’er-do-wells who called themselves the Apophis Squad. Duke-Cohan and his crew modeled themselves after the actions of the Lizard Squad, another group of e-fame seeking online hoodlums who also ran a DDoS-for-hire service, called in bomb threats to airlines, DDoSed this Web site repeatedly and whose members were nearly all subsequently arrested and charged with various cybercrimes.
[...] Further reading:
Schools Bomb Hoaxes: Teenager Jailed for Nationwide Threats
A video of the the U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) questioning and detaining Duke-Cohan.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday December 10 2018, @12:18AM (8 children)
and let's give him more by writing about him by name.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 10 2018, @12:29AM (5 children)
How far is "fame" going to get him in prison?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday December 10 2018, @12:35AM (3 children)
About three years in, but how far will prison increase his notoriety?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @12:44AM
Guys like this don't want the notoriety. In fact, their freedom and prosperity depend on going unidentified.
I don't think it hurts to show that clowns like him get jail time, and that he is facing extradition to the US.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @03:08AM (1 child)
Wait for the book rights, documentary rights, maybe even a movie in 2035.
He should have gotten 3 years PER count. His choice to call 1700+ schools and airlines... _his_ choice.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday December 10 2018, @06:19PM
He should have gotten 3 years PER count. His choice to call 1700+ schools and airlines... _his_ choice.
I don't get this idea of adding sentences serially - certainly once you get beyond 50 years or so, it is meaningless.
The point of restricting someone's freedom is not only punishment: it should also be for rehabilitation, where possible (some people are criminally insane and unable to be rehabilitated). It makes economic sense to rehabilitate criminals, because in the long run, it is cheaper than incarceration alone. I won't insult your intelligence by linking to the many studies that support this.
Sentences that extend beyond a normal human lifetime make no sense as retribution: what are you going to do - leave a skeleton in the cell for the required number of years? As a deterrent, anything beyond 'life' has no additional deterrent effect. Obviously, in a system where parole can reduce the time served incarcerated, increasing the tariff may be the means by which 'freedom-via-parole' is prevented, which is just a bureaucratic way of pre-emptively specifying that parole should not be allowed.
If you want to stop people from committing crimes, the empirically effective method is to increase the likelihood of them being caught, rather than increasing the harshness of the punishment when caught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @12:44AM
Maybe he'll get to share a cell with Elizabeth Holmes!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday December 10 2018, @12:43AM (1 child)
And while we're at it, let's mandate nationwide homeschooling to prevent school shootings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @12:51AM
https://a2zhomeschooling.com/teens/act_test_results_homeschoolers/ [a2zhomeschooling.com]