Teen Hackers Jailed After Live Streaming Massive Cyber-Attack on TfL
Teen hackers who live streamed cyber-attack on TfL jailed
Two teenage hackers, Owen Flowers and Thalha Jubair, received five-and-a-half-year prison sentences for crippling Transport For London with a live-streamed cyber-attack. Operating as part of the Scattered Spider collective, they impersonated an employee to steal data from millions of Oyster card users. Their actions cost TfL £29m and disrupted critical services, highlighting the growing threat of young, home-grown cyber criminals driven by online notoriety rather than just financial gain.
Policymakers need to address this as a violent youth gang problem, with a gang culture that idolizes the destruction of society and maximising victim harm.
- jonathanlydall
Remembering back, I certainly lacked a lot of critical reasoning which could have led me to do possibly equally stupid stuff like this had I the skill in my early teens. As I remember it, life felt more like a "game" in that you do whatever it lets you, without much consideration of whether people will be (potentially very) upset with what you've done. In person activities stood high risk of getting caught, but online it seems more like a computer game and the people on the other side of your actions feel more abstract.
Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
These kids discovered that their actions have consequences to them in person and not just someone being upset with them remotely.
As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
I wonder if maybe 10 or so years from now, after these kids have actually reached decent emotional maturity, that they'll look back at their actions and think about how stupidly reckless and needlessly destructive they were, to both others and their own lives.
- kayo_20211030
When I see this it makes me depressed.
> gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
The whole edifice was built on a helpful, possibly overworked and possibly harassed help desk worker? The end result is that two kids end up in jail. It could have been so different, and better. What they did was wrong for sure, and has real-world consequences for those whose information was leaked. But, when I look at the contingencies that led to the outcome, it really does depress me.
"all for the want of a nail"
- d-lowl
>Jubair and Flowers who both have autism, gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
What does this have to do with anything in this article.
- henrycoler
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- smallnix
> The court heard the single child was given his first laptop at the age of 10 by his parents - carers who moved to London from Bangladesh.
Ah.. I hate when stereotypes play out like this. It's always those single children.