14 DAY TRIAL // A judge in Nottingham, UK, sentenced a 17-year-old teen who carried out short DDoS attacks on an online gambling site.
The accused, Max Whitehouse, 17, from Meden Crescent, Sutton-in-Ashfield, was caught earlier this year after he launched a DDoS attack on an online gambling site, just to see if he could do it.
The company that operated the gambling site suffered some downtime because of the incident and said it lost well over £18,000 ($27,000 / €25,600), the normal figure that it would have collected if the site had been operational.
They filed an official complaint with UK law authorities, and after a quick investigation, the police found a tweet sent out after the incident from a Twitter account belonging to the suspect's mother.
Law enforcement agents served a search warrant to Mrs. Whitehouse. Their investigation revealed that Mr. Whitehouse launched his DDoS account from a computer in his bedroom.
Besides DDoS attacks, the teen also hoarded white arms
Additionally, police officers discovered that Mr. Whitehouse was also in illegal possession of numerous weapons like CS gas canisters, an iPhone-looking stun device, and eight knuckle-dusters, as Nottingham Post reports.
The suspect was sentenced to a suspended prison term of 12 months.
During the trial sentencing, the judge, Michael Stokes QC, had some advice for Mr. Whitehouse.
"Your object was to see if you could do it. You were living your life through a screen, rather than outside," said Judge Stokes to Whitehouse. "Well, you need to get out more and live, take up rugby or something."
The judge also had something to say about Whitehouse's weapon hoarding obsession. He stressed the fact that there was no evidence to suggest that Mr. Whitehouse planned to use or sell the weapons, and he was only collecting them from online shops from China. Otherwise, his punishment would have been much more severe.