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Hoaxer Behind 2,400 Fake Bomb Threats Caught After Gaming Site Breach (krebsonsecurity.com)
20-year-old Timothy Dalton Vaughn from Winston-Salem, N.C now faces 80 years in federal prison, reports KrebsOnSecurity.com:
Federal authorities this week arrested a North Carolina man who allegedly ran with a group of online hooligans that attacked Web sites (including this one), took requests on Twitter to call in bomb threats to thousands of schools, and tried to frame various online gaming sites as the culprits. In an ironic twist, the accused -- who had fairly well separated his real life identity from his online personas -- appears to have been caught after a gaming Web site he frequented got hacked...
[T]he real-life identity of HDGZero remained a mystery...as there was little publicly available information at the time connecting that moniker to anyone. That is, until early January 2019, when news broke that hackers had broken into the servers of computer game maker BlankMediaGames and made off with account details of some 7.6 million people who had signed up to play "Town of Salem," the company's browser-based role playing game. That stolen information has since been posted and resold in underground forums. A review of the leaked BlankMediaGames user database shows that in late 2018, someone who selected the username "hdgzero" signed up to play Town of Salem... The data also shows this person registered at the site using a Sprint mobile device with an Internet address that traced back to the Carolinas.
This week America's Justice Department released an indictment of Vaughn and co-conspirator George Duke-Cohan for spoofed bomb threat emails to more than 2,400 schools, according to Krebs, adding that the government also alleges the two reported a fake hijacking of an airline bound for the United States. "That flight, which had almost 300 passengers on board, was later quarantined for four hours in San Francisco pending a full security check."
The two now face charges of conspiracy and eight additional felony offenses, "including making threats to injure in interstate commerce and making interstate threats involving explosives."
[T]he real-life identity of HDGZero remained a mystery...as there was little publicly available information at the time connecting that moniker to anyone. That is, until early January 2019, when news broke that hackers had broken into the servers of computer game maker BlankMediaGames and made off with account details of some 7.6 million people who had signed up to play "Town of Salem," the company's browser-based role playing game. That stolen information has since been posted and resold in underground forums. A review of the leaked BlankMediaGames user database shows that in late 2018, someone who selected the username "hdgzero" signed up to play Town of Salem... The data also shows this person registered at the site using a Sprint mobile device with an Internet address that traced back to the Carolinas.
This week America's Justice Department released an indictment of Vaughn and co-conspirator George Duke-Cohan for spoofed bomb threat emails to more than 2,400 schools, according to Krebs, adding that the government also alleges the two reported a fake hijacking of an airline bound for the United States. "That flight, which had almost 300 passengers on board, was later quarantined for four hours in San Francisco pending a full security check."
The two now face charges of conspiracy and eight additional felony offenses, "including making threats to injure in interstate commerce and making interstate threats involving explosives."
Clearly a horrible person, but life in prison?
He's clearly a psychopath and a danger to society, and should be locked up in a psychiatric institution until he is no longer poses a danger.
Many twenty year olds are horrible people but they usually grow up.
Yeah, but unfortunately . . . sometimes psychopaths are very good at convincing their psychologists that they have been "cured". Some folks like this never grow up.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
News reports like to say things like "He faces 80 years...". But he hasn't been convicted of anything yet, just charged with hundreds of crimes. When he's actually sentenced it'll probably be a plea bargain for something like 6 months.
No Internet access for life.
Mandatory supervised work at a 911 center for life with no chance at advancement.
Though it is unconstitutional, this is the sort of crime I think should be punishable by flogging. Say, one lash per human hour wasted--to be administered at medically-safe intervals over his lifetime at a lot less expense than imprisoning him.
2400 * 100 people inconvenienced for four hours a piece per incident (WAG) is almost a million man-hours wasted because of this guy. A year has just 8760 hours, so he took up 109 man-years of human activity.
This strikes me as both fair punishment and strong deterrence, but I won't be debating the point because I'm trying to finish A Clash of Kings this weekend.
Aside from the usual habit of the news mentioning the maximum possible sentence allowed by the statute as if it were likely, calling in fake bomb threats is a physical assault.
Personally, I wish there were some chance he would get 80 years. Might slow down all the other psychopaths.
Forcing someone to work is illegal. You might want to ask a Black person about it.
Or anyone from any other cultural background, since slavery has been around in every culture, forever. If you're in the US, the only black person you can ask about contemporary slavery is someone who has escaped from the spots in the world that still practice it. Regardless... your point is meaningless. Being kidnapped by slave traders and then sold into a lifetime of slavery, or being born to those who have been, is NOT the same as choosing to commit a long series of crimes and having to suffer the consequences. Why are you pretending you don't get that?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Clearly a horrible person, but life in prison? Many twenty year olds are horrible people but they usually grow up.
Maybe it's time to talk limiting incarceration; perhaps five to ten years, for most offenses lacking physical assault.
Sounds harsh to me too, but on the other hand, some dickweasel just like him named Tyler Barriss got an innocent man (Andrew Finch) killed when he swatted someone. The SWAT team responded and shot Finch the moment he stepped outside. That could have been me or your or your son or father.
And yes, I most certainly DO blame the SWAT team too, but without a shitbag like Tyler Barriss starting the ball rolling, it never would have happened.
Maybe just 20 years in prison to serve as an object lesson to these little fucks who think this kind of shit is funny and no big deal.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...