The Apple and its Tree Whodunit

"It was a sales thread disguised as an introduction thread. I did some further searching, and ended up with his real name."
I eventually managed to get hold of [the boy] on Skype through a mutual acquaintance, and informed him that if he wouldn't write an honest letter about his situation, refund those affected, and stay away from any shady/scamming business in the future ... I would be publicly releasing all his information and history of scams/shady practices in a Google-able format. In other words, a last chance for him to clean up his act before really going public with it."
"He has been involved in DDOS-related business [DDOS:distributed denial of service attacks] and some other shady things before, as far as I've been able to find. That was apparently a while ago, through, and he'd claimed to no longer be involved with that."
Sven Slootweg, software developer, Dordrecht, Netherlands

"I decided to call his mother at [her place of employment]. This worked very well and managed to upset him. However, it resulted in him hiding his identity better. He began creating new identities using a local TOR (anonymity network) exit point in Ottawa. The forum staff could see through it every time. It was obvious."
"The caller told the police that he was holding my family hostage and would begin killing the hostages soon. At the exact time that this took place, the caller visited (my company's) website and opened multiple support tickets taunting me about the swatting that was taking place. The visitor came from an Ottawa residential IP address."
Jarland Donnel, 29, information technology worker, Texas

"What I have done is wrong and I understand that you guys will hate me from now on, which I do not blame you."
"I've had a rough life all my life, I thought computers were the best thing for years, however I always liked money. I'd do whatever I had to, to have money. I have a mental issue also (like none of you care anyways), so its really more challenging me for me (to) do things."
"I also like'd to request you leave me and my friends/family alone, I have quit the hosting business and I am sticking to what I like, programming...."
Unnamed Ottawa-area 16-year-old facing dozens of criminal charges for 'swatting'

"He would play some video games with his brother and stuff, but that was it."
"The school mentioned something to me. I never looked into it. It was all bulls--- lies and outright nonsense and I ignored it. I do not believe there is any truth to any of it."
Father of 16-year-old Ottawa swatter/hacker

 

Photos taken by the father of the Barrhaven teen arrested for swatting in May 2014 are alleged to show surveillance devices planted in light bulbs in the family home. The images were distributed by the Anonymous hacker group. *These photos have not been verified as being genuine by Sun Media. SUBMITTED PHOTO

Swatting in the parlance of Internet afficiandos is the making of 'prank' calls to message first responders and have then sent out to emergencies that are not really occurring. Which means, for example, that police or firemen rush out to respond to emergency alerts only to find there was no substance to the message, it was a deliberate false call. And in responding to such false calls, the potential danger to society is obvious enough; rushing off on false leads leaves the responders unable to respond to real emergencies, and is a costly enterprise on a number of indices.

The boy was tracked when an investigation was conducted when sources in Canada and the United States were hit with these false emergency calls to 911. He was also held to have been involved in an online website scam. His activities on websites meant to share information about malicious online activity and sites on "doxing"; mining and displaying personal information led him to the attention of administrators of those online sites who did not appreciate his mischief and threatened to reveal his identity and his exploits if he did not cease and desist.

So this is a young man who takes an especial delight in pulling fairly noxious tricks on people and on social emergency responders and who also became skilled at gulling people out of their money on false promises, whose activities had to be halted. Which led to police laying charges against him. His father, just incidentally, is employed as an IT specialist. And his father denies that his son has been involved in anything untoward; why his son is not even particularly interested in computing and the Internet, to begin with, aside from the usual online games, like any other kid.

In May, the teen was arrested on 60 charges stemming from incidents in three provinces and eight American states. Months after multiple criminal charges were filed against the teen, a hacker identifying himself as "Aerith" appeared online to claim he was with Anonymous, which group denied any affiliation with him. Aerith set about attacking City of Ottawa websites, putting them temporarily out of commission, including the website of the Ottawa Police Service. He went on from there to interfere with the websites of various government departments, forcing them to temporarily go off line to protect their integrity.

Now, it seems police have identified the boy's father as a "person of interest", although he strenuously denies any personal knowledge either of the hacker "Aerith", or of the events that led to criminal charges being laid against his son. They are both victims, it would appear, of a malicious entity who has targeted them for some mysterious reason. And then Aerith informed an area newspaper investigating the events, that he attacked the website of a defence contractor because it had come to his attention the contractor was preparing to terminate the employ of the teen's father.

"Very often what we see with hackers is that they are self-centred individuals. They are very egocentric individuals who do not necessarily think through the ramifications of their actions and what they are calling for."
"It's a world of techies trying to impress other techies: 'See what I was able to do'?"
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, president, chief executive of security firm The Northgate Group Corp