Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bumbling Hacker 'Bitcoin Baron' Sentenced To 20 Months In Prison (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the piece-of-work dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "A hacker once considered 'the Internet's most inept criminal' received on Monday a prison sentence of 20 months in prison for launching DDoS attacks against the city of Madison, Wisconsin -- attacks which caused delays and outages to various municipality services, including its 911 emergency call center," reports Bleeping Computer. He was sentenced for this attack in particular, part of a plea deal, but his attacks span over two years.

The hacker, Randall Charles Tucker, 23, known as Bitcoin Baron, never bothered hiding his attacks, advertised them on Twitter, and used public chats and Skype to brag about his deeds. According to a timeline of events, Tucker carried out all of these hacks -- most of which were downright silly -- as a way to boost his reputation before going to jail for stabbing his father with a prison knife. The plan backfired when authorities linked him to the hacks and received another 20 months in prison on top of the original 18 months.

21 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Sentencing by jrumney · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So the message to take away from this is that an inept hack will get you more time in prison than stabbing your father with a prison knife (I don't actually get this bit - he was doing his hacking while he and his father were in prison for something else?)

    1. Re:Sentencing by ls671 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also, what is the robustness of their 911 service to be affected by a DDOS? I mean, I could understand the system experiencing problems if every citizen in the city called 911 at the same time but an Internet based attack without actually dialing 911?

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    2. Re:Sentencing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It says his attacks "caused delays and outages to various municipality services, including its 911 emergency call center." Causing outages to the 911 service could lead to multiple deaths, and is far more serious than stabbing somebody.

    3. Re:Sentencing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      POTS systems are all but dead in many locations. It's all VoIP now.

    4. Re:Sentencing by ls671 · · Score: 2

      Sure I know this and I thought about this possibility. But having your VOIP 911 system DDoSable from public IP addresses seems weak. Just use a dedicated link unreachable from the Internet for your critical VOIP systems heck, for all your critical IP systems.

      1) DDoS 911
      2) Hit target
      3) Profit!

      That seems too simple for me! Especially since it looks like the guy isn't that smart!

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    5. Re:Sentencing by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

      In capitalism, the property of rich citizens is more important than the life of the poor.

      --
      Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
    6. Re:Sentencing by jon3k · · Score: 1

      I was wondering the same thing. Maybe it was using a distributed set of VoiP clients to actually dial 911 to tie up all the lines. Not sure how they manage to get routed the the same PSAP to overwhelm it if it was distributed.

    7. Re:Sentencing by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      So the message to take away from this is that an inept hack will get you more time in prison than stabbing your father with a prison knife (I don't actually get this bit - he was doing his hacking while he and his father were in prison for something else?)

      I assumed it was a typo for "kitchen knife".

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  2. Prison knife by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He stabbed his father with a kitchen knife, not a prison knife.BR>
    Also, if your website is defaced by some script kiddie hacker, you have serious opSec problems.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Prison knife by ASDFnz · · Score: 1

      He stabbed his father with a kitchen knife, not a prison knife.

      I was wondering.

      I started to think they came up with an innovative way to cut down prison population my issuing the inmates with knives... Perhaps we should tweet that to Trump, he may run with the idea.

    2. Re:Prison knife by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      A prison knife is a makeshift weapon, like a spoon with sharpened handle, or other sharpened piece of metal the inmate obtained by ripping it off off some infrastructure, then shaped, sharpened by grinding against whatever would serve as the abrasive, and added a handle by wrapping it in a strip of cloth or plastic.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  3. Um... you're gonna have a hard time by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    convincing me this guy isn't mentally ill. Seriously, there's something wrong here. Should we really be locking this guy up for several years as opposed to diverting him to the care of a facility. Hell, thanks to private prisons it would probably be cheaper.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Um... you're gonna have a hard time by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      convincing me this guy isn't mentally ill.

      Uncyclopedia describes this guy's mental condition:

      http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/...

      Asshole Personality Disorder (APD) is the most common mental disorder found in humans.

      The disturbances caused by Asshole Personality Disorder are usually not suffered by the patient at all, but by those around him: tension headaches, frustration, impotent rage, high blood pressure, suicidal or homicidal urges and a complete failure of rational thinking processes when trying to deal with this asshole. Being subjected to someone's Asshole Personality Disorder can cause a wide-ranging and pervasive negative impact on relationships in work, home and social settings.

      As to your suggested treatment:

      Should we really be locking this guy up for several years as opposed to diverting him to the care of a facility. Hell, thanks to private prisons it would probably be cheaper.

      In this guy's case, a fitting punishment would be making him pay for his incarceration. Saddle him with debt, just like we do to college students.

      Uncyclopedia on treatment:

      The condition renders the patient not susceptible to normal therapies. Long-term psychotherapy only seems to encourage them. Skinnerian cattleprod application can produce practical results in many cases, and if it doesn't they almost certainly deserve it anyway.

      Blanket party therapy is used with a high success rate in the armed forces, with only occasional recourse to fragging therapy being required. Some therapists have had great success treating Asshole Personality Disorder with arsenic therapy, cyanide therapy or high-velocity lead therapy, but these treatments remain technically illegal.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Um... you're gonna have a hard time by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      Seriously, there's something wrong here.

      Yeah, he's a narcissistic dick. And he decided to do a number of criminally stupid things. Locking him away is a reasonable consequence for being a criminally dangerous dick.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  4. Prison will be good for him by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Funny

    It'll make him get out of his comfort zone a bit, meet new people... who knows, maybe he'll become a girlfriend.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Prison will be good for him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, because being sodomized 240+ times is the appropriate punishment for a non-violent crime. /s

      p.s. IMO, joking about prison rape is implicitly saying that prison rape is okay. Prison rape is not okay. Prison rapists should have their genitals cut off.

    2. Re: Prison will be good for him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      The guards and especially prison administrators allow and encourage this peculiarly American form of torture should be:

      - fired without compensation
      - publicly shamed
      - barred for life from public service

    3. Re:Prison will be good for him by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      for a non-violent crime

      Like stabbing? ;)

      is implicitly saying

      Highly debatable.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  5. Wait ... doesn't he now ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... qualify for a pardon?

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  6. I liked the beer barron better by istartedi · · Score: 1

    Because it was Homer, and that was a pretty decent episode of the Simpsons. Also, beer is actually good and Bitcoin just goes "bloop!" or something on a computer.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  7. Re:Some Important Info by khandom08 · · Score: 1

    Best troll post of the year kudos! :)