UK judge Michael Stokes of Nottingham Crown Court gave a 12 month sentence in prison to a teen computer geek for targeting an online gambling website with a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. The 19-year-old Max Whitehouse was accused of attacking an unnamed betting site and for boasting about it on social media channels. However, the judge suspended the prison sentence because he believes that locking up the teenager with hardened criminals would be damaging for him.
The attacked website has reportedly suffered £18k in damages due to the inability to transact with its players when the attack had taken place.
Whitehouse apparently launched the attack when he was 17 years old. He also bragged about his plans to attack the site on Twitter via his mother’s account. The police could easily track the attack. When Whitehouse was arrested the police also found tear gas containers, several knuckledusters and a stun gun masked as an iPhone.
The lawyer defending Whitehouse told the court that Whitehouse is suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder and that his actions are more like hoarder of weapons, rather than a criminal intent. The judge said that he was happy that Whitehouse didn’t sell any if the items he had stolen, however, he accused him of attacking the website simply because the accused wanted to see if he could do it.
The judge also accused Whitehouse of living a life through a computer screen and suggested that he needs to go out more and take up a sport.