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Finnish KRP Questions Suspected Lizard Squad Member

Posted by timothy on from the breaking-off-the-tail dept.

An anonymous reader writes Coming on the heels of the UK arrest of Vinnie Omari, Yle reports that Finnish police have interviewed "Ryan", the Finland-based hacker reportedly responsible for hacking the PlayStation and Xbox networks on Christmas day, but have not arrested him — contrary to reports in the international media (such as Washington Post). Lizard Squad had tweeted that the Finland-based hacker had been detained. Chief Inspector Tero Muurman of Keskusrikospoliisi (Finnish National Bureau of Investigation) confirmed Yle that reports of "Ryan" having been detained were wide of the mark. He had been interviewed at the start of the week, but then released. Finnish police are continuing their probe and co-operating closely with the FBI.

33 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Script kiddies at work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In case you might have missed it, this "Ryan" is 17 and wasn't detained obviously because he's underage. When he showed his face on Sky News Finnish authorities knew exactly who he was as he's been caught of being up to similar script kiddie stuff before and escaped being charged due to being underage.

    We're talking literal script kiddies here people... Nothing impressive about renting/borrowing a botnet and then directing a DDOS attack with the command tools.

    1. Re:Script kiddies at work by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      wasn't detained obviously because he's underage

      Yes, very obvious, as we're all so familiar with the Finnish legal system.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:Script kiddies at work by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I see. So there should be consequences for acts of vandalism, other than the parents can "mend" his ways.

      We wouldn't want the poor whittle kiddies having to face consequences. That make might them sad pandas.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Script kiddies at work by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      Criminal immunity up to age of 15. 15 to 18 you get incremental increase to full criminal responsibility.

      You remain liable financially however, so you can incur an impressive debt from damage you cause

    4. Re:Script kiddies at work by TWX · · Score: 2

      That said, I don't understand why the police would even want to arrest him. I mean, he is a script kiddie, not a dangerous criminal.

      Just because he's a 5cr1p7 k1dd13 doesn't mean that he can't cause significant harm, making him a dangerous criminal. He could simply disrupt important batch processes like bank financial transfers and worker payroll direct-deposits or realtime processes like aviation communication and control or the civilian telephone system if the vulnerabilities discovered by others are exploitable by his scripts, which can have significant real-world consequences for individuals. That's not even getting into disruptions for corporations whose Internet-connected businesses are a revenue source, that are not generating revenue when they're not accessible.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:Script kiddies at work by CurryCamel · · Score: 1

      They DDOSed two gaming networks at a time of their peak load, seemingly for the lulz. There is a non-subtle difference between that and taking down critical networks, both in attitude and required skills.

      I haven't read into these DDOSes any more deeply, but thus far I have not found anything that even suggests at them breaking into the servers (except the headlines that seem to inclucde DDOS attacks as "hacks").

      Furthermore, e.g. the Daily Mail reports that

      Three rival hacking groups have called a ceasefire after admitting their Christmas attack on Xbox and Playstation gamers 'took it too far'.

      It is obvious the script kiddies have started to repent to some extent. Dangerous criminals usually don't.

      Finally, even the arrested brit is out on bail now, so obviously he is not a dangerous criminal either.

      Let me ask this the other way: what benefit would come out of arresting the kid? Do you honestly fear he would continue and escalate his criminal activities now?

    6. Re:Script kiddies at work by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      Causing "minor inconvenience" to *thousands* of people and multiple businesses isn't minor at all. I believe it is you who lacks perspective as to harm to society.

    7. Re:Script kiddies at work by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

      Causing "minor inconvenience" to *thousands* of people and multiple businesses isn't minor at all. I believe it is you who lacks perspective as to harm to society.

      Inconveniencing gaming is minor no matter how many thousands of people or businesses are affected. I know that people and businesses spend millions on it but still, Its Just A Game.

      Sheesh, how many productive hours must be generated for every hour of DDoS on gaming sites???

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    8. Re:Script kiddies at work by ShaunC · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let me ask this the other way: what benefit would come out of arresting the kid? Do you honestly fear he would continue and escalate his criminal activities now?

      Hasn't he shown a propensity to do just that? He got caught carding food at DEF CON in 2013. More recently he spent three months in a detention facility for that bomb threat against a Sony executive's airplane; he even joked about his haircut looking bad because they shaved it for him in jail. He got out, went home, and proceeded to step up his game by DDOSing the hell out of PSN and XBL. There does seem to be a pattern of continuing and escalating criminal activity.

      I'm not arguing that he's dangerous or that he needs to be locked up for 5 years, but if he's guilty, I do believe there has to be some sort of punishment. Make him pick up litter every weekend until he's 18, or something productive that benefits society.

      --
      Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
    9. Re:Script kiddies at work by DivineKnight · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I don't know, grounding him for a month, and taking away his computer for a week or two would probably be as effective as a ten year sentence.

      Remember, they're script kiddies, which, before /. and the internet went to the dogs, is one level up from being a newborn user. They're the equivalent of angsty teenagers, and should be dealt with as such; anyone arguing otherwise has had life too good.

    10. Re:Script kiddies at work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Of course there should be consequences; He should be grounded. He should lose several weeks of pocket money.

      Anyone who built a h mserious system which can be trivially disrupted by a 17 year old "script kiddie" as the OP rightly called him should be considered for much more serious penalties.

      Although the FBI is probably wrong about North Korea attacking Sony, they could have done it. People who have been involved in deliverying weak operating systems or weakening crypto systems or failing to react to vulnerability reports should be subject to serious jail terms. If we don't start to handle this soon we will be in serious trouble when some country actually wants to do something a bit more important than just stealing the plans for the F-35.

    11. Re:Script kiddies at work by DivineKnight · · Score: 1

      Being that he's a script kiddy, the hole's he's exploiting have to be known to the world + dog for months, years, possibly decades...this is on the order of having a hole in your living room for weeks, and doing nothing about it, when a hurricane shows up and makes you miserable.

      He's underage, a script kiddy, and is truly a threat only to those people who think that 'pa$$word1' is an innovative password.

    12. Re:Script kiddies at work by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      All it would take is a swift kick to my front door for any burglar to gain access to my living room. A small fire set outside would torch my house. My car is sitting in my driveway, waiting for it's tires to be slashed. Boy, I'm just asking for it, aren't it?

      It's incredibly difficult to practically protect against a very large DDOS attack. Sure, we should look for ways to mitigate this, but at the moment, the only real way to do so is a brute force content of bandwidth versus capacity.

      An open and free society is incredibly vulnerable to vandalism of all sorts. Part of living in a free society means taking responsibility for your own actions. This "kid" is seventeen, old enough to know exactly what the hell he was doing. Assuming he gets found guilty, I hope he's tried as an adult, and he's punished sufficiently to make other kids think twice about pulling stunts like this. In the mean time, we need to figure out how to prevent a kid from being able to take down global networks at a whim.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    13. Re:Script kiddies at work by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      And that is why US is a shithole in terms of crime rates, while Finland isn't.

    14. Re:Script kiddies at work by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      That is the exact opposite of how actual crime prevention works, and the best way to ensure a lot of crime through recidivism and institutionalization of crime.

      Real approach here is involving social workers and psychologists to get the guy sorted out.

    15. Re:Script kiddies at work by TWX · · Score: 1

      Inconveniencing gaming is minor no matter how many thousands of people or businesses are affected. I know that people and businesses spend millions on it but still, Its Just A Game.

      So is professional sports. Yet, someone that disrupts a game is likely to be arrested and prosecuted. Someone that disrupts a broadcast through malicious or intentional act even if the game itself continues will also be arrested and prosecuted.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    16. Re:Script kiddies at work by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      none of which is as serious as hitting someone in the face, for which the jailterm isn't that much in Finland.

      and you know what, if those systems are so shittily built they go the fritz from that, then good riddance. I'm not aware there having been any serious actual damages from whatever the group did. did someone break a bone? did they steal something of monetary value? did they break some hardware?

      DANGEROUS CRIMINAL! CALL THE FEEEEEEEDS!!! bullshit. none of this is as serious as vehicular manslaughter for which you can get off for free in NYC.

      so put your priorities in order, they're messed up.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. Does not sound like hacking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    First hackers were people with skills to do cool things, then it was people breaking in to stuff and now it is anyone who are vandalizing something.

    1. Re:Does not sound like hacking by TWX · · Score: 1
      "Hacker" was a poor choice of term from the beginning if one didn't want it to become a pejorative. Think of all of the other actions that the word hack gets applied to:
      • Hack saw - a saw to make rough or nonprecision cuts in material
      • to hack at a problem - to inexpertly attack a problem through excessive trial-and-error rather than to approach with experience
      • a hack - an individual that may achieve results, but through coincidence or through excessive uninformed stumbling through the problem, often selling themselves as an expert anyway
      • hack and whack - a melee, a free-for-all with little skill or planning or strategy, relying on brute force or quantity

      That's the legacy of "Hacker", and it's already a negative. It's worse now, but it was never a positive thing to start with.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:Does not sound like hacking by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      IMHO, "hacker" is as good or bad a term as "amateur", to me they are really the same thing. The word "amateur" starts out great - doing something for the love of it, rather than money. But you mostly hear it used as a pejorative - oh, he's just an amateur, he doesn't really know what he's doing (because obviously people who get paid to do what they do really do know).

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  3. Denied involvement? by eli+pabst · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the linked article: "Muurman had said that the investigation was in its early stages, but that “Ryan” was suspected of aggravated data crimes, but denied involvement."

    That's not terribly convincing considering that he did a 5 minute video interview with Sky News the other day where he described the attack and took responsibility for it.

    1. Re:Denied involvement? by Wintywasthere · · Score: 1

      It seems these guys really aren't all that smart.....never been involved in anything like this in my life but FFS....if you were, you don't advertise it.

    2. Re:Denied involvement? by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      It may come as a shock to you, but a lot of people confess to crimes they don't commit.

      That's why we have courts of law that have high standard for evidence they accept, instead of lynching mobs that require "this guy looks different enough" to get the rope out.

  4. KRP is in Cincinnati, not Finland by BigIrv · · Score: 2

    duh

    --

    --Good morning fellas; Hand me that thing; Boy, this work's hard; Guys, break's over.
    1. Re: KRP is in Cincinnati, not Finland by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      Well, at least the Ku Klux Klan Supermarket can easily be found.

    2. Re:KRP is in Cincinnati, not Finland by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Mod +1, (Funny)

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    3. Re:KRP is in Cincinnati, not Finland by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      they really should have been more careful. see, the phone cops are real. they've always been real.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  5. If only by easyTree · · Score: 1

    If only murders were investigated with as much rigour as IP-related 'crimes.'

    --
    Requiem for the American Dream
  6. Re:Skript kiddies by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    Because I asked them to.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  7. Lost in translation? by mbeckman · · Score: 1

    Let me get this right: Ryan wasn't detained, but after being interviewed he was "then released."

    Perhaps the Finnish language is to blame here, but by this translation he was clearly detained.

    1. Re:Lost in translation? by CurryCamel · · Score: 1

      Precisely.

      According to a news article dated 29.12, the police announced they intend to interview 'Ryan' in the coming days.
      (http://yle.fi/uutiset/epailty_suomalaishakkeri_krpn_kuulusteluun/7710003) Sounds to me like they asked him to come to the interview. No detaining or arresting involved.

      I guess it is not the Finnish language that is to blame here, but the mentality.

  8. Hacked PlayStation and Xbox networks? by lippydude · · Score: 1

    "Coming on the heels of the UK arrest of Vinnie Omari, Yle reports that Finnish police have interviewed "Ryan", the Finland-based hacker reportedly responsible for hacking the PlayStation and Xbox networks on Christmas day"

    Timothy this is slashdot, try and be a bit more technical. They didn't 'hack' the PlayStation and Xbox networks, they ran a DDOS attack on them from thousands of compromised Windows desktops ..

  9. Re:Lets just hope... by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    Not quite. Under Finnish law, overwhelming personal debt expires in three years after entering a mandated debt repayment agreement. There are also significant limits to what can be taken from him to repay such a debt.

    These laws were put in place after a massive disaster in the 1990s when Finnish economy suffered a crisis similar in magnitude to that of 2007 in US which pushed a lot of small business owners into scenario you describe. Current system is designed to allow these people to get back on their feet and start business again.