German DDoSer jailed for World Cup gambling extortion
Frankfurter menaced bookies with rented bots
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A hacker based in Germany has been jailed for 34 months over a DDoS-based extortion scam against gambling websites in the run-up to last year's World Cup.
The unnamed Frankfurt resident was also ordered to pay damages of 350,000 Euros ($504,000) by a Düsseldorf court following his conviction for attempting to run a protection racket against six online betting sites. None of the affected sites have been named.
The miscreant reportedly hired a botnet at a cost of just $65 before threatening to blast target sites with junk traffic during the World Cup unless they paid him 2,500 Euros ($3,700).
Three targeted sites paid a combined total of 5,000 euros, while the other three sites refused to play ball, Deutsche Welle reports.
Details of the case, decided in March, were first published this week.
The case is one of the first of its type to be considered by the German courts. An earlier prosecution, involving a politically motivated denial of service attack against German airline Lufthansa back in 2001, failed to result in a conviction.
That case was brought against two non-profit organisations, who objected to Lufthansa's participation in the deportation of people seeking asylum in Germany. Considered by the courts back in 2005, the case failed essentially because the DDoSs had a purely political motive and were considered to be a non-criminal form of "civil disobedience". ®
COMMENTS
Precedent
"Considered by the courts back in 2005, the case failed essentially because the DDoSs had a purely political motive and were considered to be a non-criminal form of civil disobedience"
So hacking in a government computer, dumping its date and distributing is also a civil disobedience surely? Unarguably purely political motive.
Only half a story
So, why is his name withheld? And how did they catch him?
I don't know about you, but I often daydream about committing the perfect crime - and extorting money from bookmakers must be as near as you can get to the victimless crime. That's ignoring the poor saps who got their PCs hacked, of course, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, or so they say.
Incidentally, according to the cited source, Deutsche Welle, it was 65 dollars a day, not just 65 dollars. It would be interesting to know whether the German police have managed to follow that money. Maybe that's why they're not telling us the perp's name yet.
Aww
I rather liked flying Lufthansa internationally, truly a pleasure. Much better then the American bastards they outsourced my return trip to.
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