Mafiaboy Grows Up; a Hacker Seeks Redemption

http://www.pcworld.com/article/152176/

by nickb • 18 years ago

20 7 18 years ago

Jasber• 18 years ago

This is one reason why its so important to keep your home computer secure. A single cable connection doesn't do much, but tens or hundreds of thousands can easily bring down a big site.

It takes half a brain to build a botnet to DDOS. It takes much more skill to be on the other side protecting against these attacks. Good for Mafiaboy.

Haskell• 18 years ago

Look at this:

"Calce estimates that he had hacked into perhaps 40 percent of the major universities in the United States, _using attack code that he picked up online_"

and

"_He took denial of service attack code written by_ a hacker named Sinkhole and developed a way to remotely train all of his approximately 200 university networks on the same target simultaneously, he said."

I think some users are confusing Hacker News with Script Kiddies News.

manny• 18 years ago

Agreed. My first reaction was to post here that this guy is nothing but a script kiddie.

Glad to know someone beat me to the punch.

dhuck• 18 years ago

yeah, that's fine. script kiddies run scripts that other people make. but very few people can say that they took down yahoo. i mean, that's not a typical script kiddie success story, is it?

talk him down all you want, but i remember what it was like when this guy was doing his work (however you want to judge it.) he made headlines. script kiddies don't make headlines, what they do has already been done and automated before them. there was something original to his work, even if he was just using an original combination of scripts. that makes him a hacker, imho.

nickb• 18 years ago

How many script kiddies have taken down Yahoo or eBay?!

This is a classic case of someone hustling. He got caught and now he's saying he's just someone who used someone else's tools and is just a nobody who played around... all to lessen the blame for the crime he committed so he gets a lighter sentence.

Don't believe everything you read.

josefresco• 18 years ago

What kind of self respecting hacker would admit to the cops "yeah I'm a super kick ass hacker with mad skills" and risk invoking more punishment/hassle?

"I learned how from the Intertubes officer."

phil_collins• 18 years ago

i remember it was somebody else who did the time for those ddos attacks

Mafiaboy Grows Up; a Hacker Seeks Redemption

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