heavy handed feebs fuck 16 year old kid
Blank Frank
bf at mindspring.com
Thu Jan 11 17:17:22 PST 2001
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
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