RUMOR MILL
Thursday, April 20, 2000
HACKER NABBED FOR SHUTTERING YAHOO, CNN, OTHERS
"Mafiaboy" Bragged About Attacks In Chat Rooms, Also Claimed To Be Supermodel/Nymphomaniac
Canadian authorities today said they've charged a 15-year-old boy with two counts of mischief for his part in cyber-attacks against CNN, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon and other Web sites.
The coordinated February attacks crippled some of the world's most popular sites with a barrage of messages generated by hackers, inconvenienced millions of Internet users and raised questions about Internet security, reports The Los Angeles Times.
Inspector Yves Roussel of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the youth had boasted in Internet chat rooms frequented by hackers about what he had done. Roussel said police obtained a search warrant and went to the boy's Montreal home on April 15.
Computers and software equipment were seized and the boy was arrested. He appeared before a Youth Court judge on Monday and was released on an undisclosed amount of bail, but with strict conditions that only use a computer at school for schoolwork under close supervision and cannot go to any store dealing in computer equipment or computer use, Roussel said.
The suspect goes by the computer name "Mafiaboy,' but his real name cannot be disclosed under Canadian law.
The investigation conducted jointly by the computer investigation unit of the RCMP and the FBI and U.S. Justice Department was continuing, and more arrests could be made, Roussel said.
The coordinated February attacks crippled some of the world's most popular sites with a barrage of messages generated by hackers, inconvenienced millions of Internet users and raised questions about Internet security, reports The Los Angeles Times.
Inspector Yves Roussel of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the youth had boasted in Internet chat rooms frequented by hackers about what he had done. Roussel said police obtained a search warrant and went to the boy's Montreal home on April 15.
Computers and software equipment were seized and the boy was arrested. He appeared before a Youth Court judge on Monday and was released on an undisclosed amount of bail, but with strict conditions that only use a computer at school for schoolwork under close supervision and cannot go to any store dealing in computer equipment or computer use, Roussel said.
The suspect goes by the computer name "Mafiaboy,' but his real name cannot be disclosed under Canadian law.
The investigation conducted jointly by the computer investigation unit of the RCMP and the FBI and U.S. Justice Department was continuing, and more arrests could be made, Roussel said.
