Feds link boy, 16, and plot to 'take down Internet' Agents seize youth's computer equipment; family says it's all a misunderstanding Thursday, January 11, 2001 By SCOTT SUNDE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER To the FBI, a Snohomish County teenager is a suspected cyberterrorist who planned to join others in unleashing a program that could "take down the Internet." Agents swooped in days before the program was to be tested, seizing computer equipment at the 16-year-old boy's home north of Lynnwood on Dec. 22. To the boy and his family, it's all a big misunderstanding. The FBI is making far too much of a little computer noodling and adolescent boasting, they say. "They got it totally wrong," the boy complained yesterday. An FBI spokesman said yesterday the agency is working closely with prosecutors and can say little about the international case. The FBI has made no arrests so far in the United States, said Matt McLaughlin, a spokesman at the bureau's Los Angeles office. The investigation began in October, according to documents used to obtain a warrant to search the youth's Alderwood Manor home. DALNet, a San Diego company that provides Internet chat networks, contacted the FBI and complained that several computer users had begun attacks on it. The hackers caused computers to become disabled and denied other users access to DALNet, according to an affidavit by John Pi, a computer expert and FBI agent in Los Angeles. Investigators traced the user names of the alleged hackers, leading them to the 16-year-old and computer users in California, Michigan and Israel. In an interview yesterday, the boy said he used DALNet but didn't attack it. When an administrator there accused him of attacks, he said he "flooded her with messages. That's not illegal." A DALNet systems operator told the FBI last fall that a person using the user name "Booterror" had created a program that could "take down the Internet on New Year's Eve," Pi wrote in the affidavit. Booterror planned to send test versions of the program to other computer users by Dec. 25, with the intent of then spreading it world-wide, according to Pi. "That's totally invalid," the 16-year-old said yesterday. The teen acknowledged that his computer nickname is Booterror but said it is pronounced "Boot-Error." "Boot" is a common computer term used when a system comes online. The FBI agents raiding his home made it sound more sinister -- pronouncing it "Boo-Terror," he said. He said he tried to create a "Trojan," a program that can be sent out and used to control someone's computer. But he folded the project two months ago, he said. "I was just playing around and learning something. I was just going to make a small Trojan, and I just got caught up in this." He started working with computers and surfing the Internet two years ago, he said. He built his own computers. The youth had been attending a community college to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma. But he hasn't shown much interest in that or much of anything else since the FBI paid a call, the boyfriend of the boy's mother said. He said the boy is guilty only of getting a little "mouthy" over the Internet. "He's just 16 years old. That's all it was -- bragging. He had no intention of doing all that crap." But federal authorities and DALNet are serious about the investigation. The company's Web page provided a link this week to news reports from Israel, where police arrested four 17-year-old hackers suspected of planning an attack on U.S. computer systems on New Year's Eve. DALNet said in a prepared statement that it is cooperating with the FBI and law enforcement outside the U.S. and "will continue to pursue all individuals responsible for attacks upon our systems." http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/hack11.shtml