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Teenage hacker admits to stalking and 'swatting' female gamers who turned him down
Teenage hacker admits to stalking and 'swatting' female gamers who turned him down
Harrison JacobsMay 25, 2015, 04:05 IST
A 17-year-old hacker from British Columbia, Canada, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to 23 charges of extortion, public mischief, false police reports, and criminal harassment.The teen had been targeting "mostly young female gamers" who had resisted his advances and denied his friend requests on the popular video game "League of Legends."The hacker, whose name has not been released because he is a minor, had been shutting down the internet access of those who rejected him, as well as posting their personal information online and calling them repeatedly.According to The Tri-City News, the teen would tell the police he was holding a family hostage, had napalm bombs, or had killed someone in the house, sometimes demanding ransoms. The teen would do this to force the police to send SWAT teams and police helicopters to his victims' homes.The practice, known as "swatting," has become prevalent in the gaming community, and it often targets those who are live-streaming their game-playing sessions, allowing an audience to see the SWAT team arrive.The hacker would brag about the pranks on social media, streaming himself carrying out many of them.The most egregious case involved an Arizona woman who withdrew from the University of Arizona after the hacker threatened her and her parents. The hacker called the Tucson police, claiming he had shot his parents with an AR15 rifle, had bombs, and would kill police officers on sight.This prompted a SWAT team to raid the woman's home. He pulled the same prank five days later while the woman's mother was visiting and then again on her parents' house, where her father and brother were dragged out at gunpoint.His harassment didn't end there. He posted the woman's parents' credit-card information online, sent his victim 218 simultaneous text messages, and hacked into her email and Twitter accounts.His reign of terror peaked when he posted an eight-hour live stream on YouTube under the usernames "obnoxious" and "internetjesusob" of his swatting and harassing a victim in Ohio. People watching the stream notified the police.He was caught after numerous swatting incidents from September through December were identified as being from the same source, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.The hacker was well known to Canadian law enforcement and was already on probation for similar crimes in Canada. The hacker was reportedly a member of the hacker group Lizard Squad, known for knocking both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network offline in 2014.After the hacker was arrested, the police uncovered numerous other false reports sent out by the hacker, including a 2013 bomb threat to Disneyland.
