Finnish KRP Questions Suspected Lizard Squad Member

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.

Comments

Script kiddies at work

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Script kiddies at work

[wonkey_monkey]

wasn't detained obviously because he's underage

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

Re:Script kiddies at work

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:Script kiddies at work

[Luckyo]

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

Re:Script kiddies at work

[TWX]

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.

Re:Script kiddies at work

[ShaunC]

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.

Denied involvement?

[eli pabst]

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.

KRP is in Cincinnati, not Finland

[BigIrv]

duh

Re: KRP is in Cincinnati, not Finland

[jones_supa]

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