Teen Phone Phreak Targeted by the FBI

Wired has an interesting editorial on the latest resurgence of the old days of phone phreaking and the latest phreak that is rising into the FBI crosshairs. The most recent hoax, "swatting", involves malicious pranksters calling police with reports of fake murders, hostage crises, or the like and spoofing the call to appear as though it was from another location. "Now the FBI thinks it has identified the culprit in the Colorado swatting as a 17-year-old East Boston phone phreak known as "Li'l Hacker." Because he's underage, Wired.com is not reporting Li'l Hacker's last name. His first name is Matthew, and he poses a unique challenge to the federal justice system, because he is blind from birth. If he's guilty, the attack is at once the least sophisticated and most malicious of a string of capers linked to Matt, who stumbled into the lingering remains of the decades-old subculture of phone phreaking when he was 14, and quickly rose to become one of the most skilled active phreakers alive."

Comments

phreaker isn't only one liable.

[JetScootr]

I've felt for a long time (since I began to understand Windows security issues) that whenever a teenager is caught for hacking/phreaking/whathavu, that TWO entities should be prosecuted:
1> the teenybopper;
2> The company that designed a digital infrastructure so insecure that a teenybopper could hack in and cause those zillions of dollars damage they always claim at trial.

Re:Challenge? Why

[someone1234]

You know what? I don't care. If a toddler calls police repeatedly onto innocent people, i don't mind if that toddler is shot.
Along with its parents.
You can also apply the reverse of this argument up to an age of 100 years (where they are usually the same responsible as a toddler).
So what?