14 DAY TRIAL // The apprehension of Pakistani hacker Badoo has caused a lot of waves and many of his fans are demanding his release. The hacker Hitcher has protested his arrest by defacing the site of Lehava, an Israeli government organization.
As we’ve reported earlier, Ali Hassan, aka Badoo or Mr. Badoo is one of the 24 individuals arrested by authorities on suspicion of being involved in payment card information trafficking.
According to the FBI, he is suspected of selling complete credit card details that he allegedly obtained by hacking into hotel booking websites.
22-year-old Hassan was apprehended in Milan, Italy, based on a provisional arrest warrant obtained by United States authorities.
He is accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, punishable by 20 years in prison, conspiracy to commit access device fraud, for which he may receive 5 years, and aggravated identity theft, which adds another 2 years to his possible sentence.
While in the eyes of the FBI Badoo is seen as a carder, Pakistanis and Muslims worldwide know him as the hacker who breached the computer of the user who launched a competition that invited everyone to draw a picture of the Prophet Mohammed.
At the time, the Pakistani government even banned websites such as Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia in response to the incident.
Yesterday, Hackers Media called for protest against Badoo’s arrest and as it turns out Hitcher, the Pakistani “ghost” we interviewed some time ago, was the first to act.
He has breached and defaced the website of the Lehava, an organization that aims to “reduce the digital gap in Israel’s society.”
Hitcher claims that Mr. Badoo's protest “was positive.” He says that the hacker simply wanted to stop that event and spread his message to let everyone know that they should “respect each other and each other’s religion.”
“He didn’t publish Andy’s [the individual who launched the drawing competition] data and personal info,” he wrote on the defaced page.
“This hack is just a protest. We want him free. And this is just a teaser,” he added.