The German author of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack tool known as Tribal Flood Network (TFN) has been convicted of unrelated hacking charges by a court in Hannover and sentenced to six months' youth probation. The young man, who uses the alias 'Mixter', was convicted of computer trespass and "data spying", but not of creating the TFN tool, since no evidence exists that he ever used it to carry out a DDoS attack. Mixter's utility programme was among those used in the headline-grabbing DDoS attacks against Yahoo!, eBay and CNN back in February. He's lucky he's not an American. His sentence is extremely light compared with those handed down in the US for similar offences, and no doubt the US Department of Justice will complain that the German court sets a bad example, especially when they're working so hard to impose ruthless punishments on teen-aged threats to Truth, Freedom and the American Way. Mixter's most recent Web site is currently inaccessible, possibly as a result of court requirements, but an older mirror is still up here. ®