Lizard Squad member convicted of 50,700 charges, receives no jail time

Scorpus

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Remember Lizard Squad? They were the group that took credit for the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that took down both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network shortly after Christmas last year, among other digital crimes.

One of the group's members, 17-year-old Finnish boy Julius Kivimäki (aka "Ryan" and "zeekill"), was recently convicted by a Finnish court of 50,700 counts of cyber-crimes, ranging from harassment and data breaches to fraud. Many of these charges relate to his activities with Lizard Squad, including the attacks on the aforementioned gaming networks last year.

Unfortunately, the only punishment that Kivimäki received for his 50,700 crimes was a two-year suspended sentence. This means that Kivimäki will not go to jail unless he becomes a repeat offender, and will not have to pay any financial penalty for causing millions of dollars of losses to both Sony and Microsoft.

The sentence handed down by the Finnish court doesn't really do much to discourage other people from committing online crimes such as these. Kivimäki was a minor, so he likely received a reduced sentence due to his age, but the fact he was convicted with over 50,700 crimes still doesn't seem to fit the punishment.

Kivimäki is one of several Lizard Squad members who have been convicted, including "obnoxious", a 17-year-old boy from Canada who was charged with a number of offences related to "swatting" earlier this year.

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So basically the Finnish court system just gave their endorsement to criminal hackers to continue their hacking activities.
 
They should have tried the little **** as an adult like they would have in the US, it would have been understandable had their been a couple criminal offenses committed, but over 50 thousand! WTF They should at a minimum ban this **** from the internet for life, unacceptable that someone can cause 100s of millions of dollars of damage and get let off with a first offense warning, like the first time your caught speeding...
 
They should have tried the little **** as an adult like they would have in the US

That's the main difference, the finnish do believe in rehabilitating people rather than going max punishment for first time offenders.

Yes, the kids caused millions in damages, and yes, maybe they should have gotten a punishment a little more harsh, but should they be trialed as an Osama-and-Hitler's offspring just because they didn't allow you to play?

It's not like they brought down a building.
 
They should have tried the little **** as an adult like they would have in the US

That's the main difference, the finnish do believe in rehabilitating people rather than going max punishment for first time offenders.

Yes, the kids caused millions in damages, and yes, maybe they should have gotten a punishment a little more harsh, but should they be trialed as an Osama-and-Hitler's offspring just because they didn't allow you to play?

It's not like they brought down a building.
I was wondering if the Finnish government got a free security asset for a couple of years? Good hacking talent is hard to find and very useful these days.
 
Honestly, I don't think he should have gotten jail time either... However, I don't quite agree with the sentence. He should be paying some sort of fine and he should be getting more than 2 years. A friend of mine got 5 years probation for garage hopping back in highschool, which I saw as an appropriate sentence. I think this guy should get at least 10 years probation.

He'll have a different mindset and attitude when he's 27.
 
That's the main difference, the finnish do believe in rehabilitating people rather than going max punishment for first time offenders.

Yes, the kids caused millions in damages, and yes, maybe they should have gotten a punishment a little more harsh, but should they be trialed as an Osama-and-Hitler's offspring just because they didn't allow you to play?

It's not like they brought down a building.

I actually wasn't affected by this **** disturbers actions, it's the principal that you can get away with doing this much damage, but it's almost like people don't realize the cost, the time, the pain in the ****ing *** for the people who have to fix the problem now because some immature kids felt like pulling a prank.

So are you suggesting that as long as the damage isn't physical damage it shouldn't be taken seriously?
 
I actually wasn't affected by this **** disturbers actions, it's the principal that you can get away with doing this much damage, but it's almost like people don't realize the cost, the time, the pain in the ****ing *** for the people who have to fix the problem now because some immature kids felt like pulling a prank.

So are you suggesting that as long as the damage isn't physical damage it shouldn't be taken seriously?

There was no damage apart from Sony and Microsoft pride. And I would call it tuition fee for both of them for making such vulnerable and crap products that can be brought down so easily by kids. Also they didn't steal anything for their own profit. Also the "millions in damage" is also bullshit argument, as the crime is the same if you kill a website with 10 users or a website with 10 million users ...
 
Also the "millions in damage" is also bullshit argument, as the crime is the same if you kill a website with 10 users or a website with 10 million users ...

This is the second most ignorant statement I've read today. Halting the operations of a website with 10 million users and one with 10 is the difference between halting a container ship and a canoe club.
 
This is the second most ignorant statement I've read today. Halting the operations of a website with 10 million users and one with 10 is the difference between halting a container ship and a canoe club.

if their 10 million people website is as vulnerable as it is, it's their fault that they didn't treat their super important webpage better .... OBVIOUSLY.

and you are seriously out of touch with reality if you compare some website with container ship. ... in the end the hackers took down JUST A WEBSITE!
 
He'll have a different mindset and attitude when he's 27.
And it is possible he will have a different mindset now that he is caught.

Besides how do we know they are not the fall guys because of their age? This whole thing stinks of someone with more wisdom that set them up for a fall. Especially when they are being let off so lightly.

On a different note, why is everyone looking at the 50K counts as anything more than one offense?
 
And it is possible he will have a different mindset now that he is caught.

Besides how do we know they are not the fall guys because of their age? This whole thing stinks of someone with more wisdom that set them up for a fall. Especially when they are being let off so lightly.

On a different note, why is everyone looking at the 50K counts as anything more than one offense?

I was looking at the magnitude of what he did, not how many counts he was convicted of.
 
if their 10 million people website is as vulnerable as it is, it's their fault that they didn't treat their super important webpage better .... OBVIOUSLY.

So, if a service is successfully attacked, it is because the owner was not vigilant enough. That principle at odds with all of programming. Unless, of course, you've conclusive evidence of gross negligence by Sony and Microsoft, or that a network with zero vulnerabilities exists?

and you are seriously out of touch with reality if you compare some website with container ship. ... in the end the hackers took down JUST A WEBSITE!

It seems to me that you have difficulty understanding analogy. I'll give you the less abstract version: A service with millions of users generates more transactions per hour than a service with ten. A service with millions of users also experiences a much greater and longer term real negative impact as result of bad press. Therefore, the impact of a major disruption, especially due to a cyber attack, to first and third parties is demonstrably more costly for a large service than a vastly smaller one.

It is also worth noting that they did not take down "just a website." They, in fact, disrupted the operation of the entire Playstation and Xbox Live networks. While the attack was taking place, paying customers could not access the store fronts, online services, or authentication systems required to use the products they paid for.
 
"if their 10 million people website is as vulnerable as it is, it's their fault that they didn't treat their super important webpage better .... OBVIOUSLY."

Look up what a DDOS attack is. It's basically flooding target servers with so much data it can't use its own internet connection to do anything else. A DDOS attack is based on how much collective bandwith you have to slow down or stop someone else's connection. Lizard Squad did not hack into a firewall or use some elite coding as if they are geniuses. They didn't hack into anything. They just overpowered the connection using a bunch of smaller ones basically.

I could bind a bot with some program everyone wants like some fake gaming mod, post it on youtube, get 100 people to download it, and assuming my bots weren't caught by security software (which they often are not) I would then have close to 100 machines ready to spam some website until it crashes WITHOUT EVEN HACKING INTO IT.
 
He should be hung from the tallest tree in order to make Americans happy. Because apparently only long prison sentences and total ruining of a person's life and future could rectify this situation.
 
He should be hung from the tallest tree in order to make Americans happy. Because apparently only long prison sentences and total ruining of a person's life and future could rectify this situation.

That wouldn't make Americans happy. Our environmental groups would be hopping mad for the tree.
 
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