Canadian Hacker Pleads Not Guilty to Web Site Attacks

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGID0MW5HBC.html

Aug 3, 2000 - 09:26 PM

MONTREAL (AP) - A 16-year-old boy accused of paralyzing major Web
sites, including those of CNN, Yahoo! and Amazon.com, pleaded innocent
Thursday to charges that could land him in a teen detention center for
two years.  The Montreal high school student, who calls himself
'Mafiaboy' on the Internet, had already faced two mischief charges
after CNN's Web site was crippled in February. He now faces 60 new
charges of hacking and mischief.

Police described the boy, who is too young to be identified under
Canadian law, as bright but not a computer genius. He sat in the
courtroom with a blank look on his face while his attorney entered the
pleas.

The boy is accused of bombarding the sites with thousands of
simultaneous messages, crippling them. Prosecutors allege that he
broke into several computers, mostly at American universities, and
used them to launch the attack against the Web sites.

The attacks flooded sites with so much traffic that legitimate
customers were unable to get through.

Police investigators said he boasted in Internet chat rooms about the
attacks and was tracked through traces he left of his computer
activity.

His attorney Yan Romanowski said the boy understands the serious
nature of the charges.

"It's not a happy moment in his life. He's just anxious that this
whole thing be behind him," he said.

The teen's next scheduled court appearance is Sept. 28, where a trial
date will be set.

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