13 September 2001 saw the Canadian hacker nicknamed Mafiaboy sentenced to eight months in a youth detention centre. In 2000, the Montréal teenager crippled major internet sites like Amazon and Yahoo!, causing an estimated $1.7 billion in damages. The Mafiaboy hacks also roiled the Internet last year as hugely popular Web sites such as E*Trade, Datek Online, and Buy.com -- as well as those of Harvard and Yale universities.The boy, who pleaded guilty in January 2000 to 55 charges of mischief, cannot be identified under a Canadian law protecting young offenders. Mafiaboy, however, runs his own website (mafiaboy.com) where he sells his own "mafiaboy" merchandise.
The sites victim to mafiaboy were bombarded with thousands of simultaneous messages, which prevented users from accessing them for up to five hours. The charges include the illegal use of computers to help with the attacks. Mafiaboy is accused of breaking into computers in 54 different locations around the world, most of them at universities in the United States, but also as far away as South Korea.
The boy's trial, which was expected to last several months, had been watched closely by a number of interested third parties, including legal observers looking for evidence standards in hacking cases; Internet security officials interested in learning about hacker tactics; and the e-commerce community, which stood to lose billions of dollars from such attacks
In addition to his eight months in a detention centre, the judge also ordered the teenager to face one year of probation after his detention ends, and fined him $160.
I wish there was more to say about this guy. But it seems that I've chosen a fairly boring hacker. It's also possible that no hacker case has ever been interesting. Either way, it stands that this assignment is over and done with.