Dshocker AKA Aush0k Hacker Pleads Guilty to Computer Felonies

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Another teen hacker in the news, this guy looks like he has some formidable skills though with the list of crimes he’s perpetrated.

He’s pleaded guilty though, so he should get a reduced sentence and he’s still classified as a juvenile offender being only 17 – so that works in his favour too.

A juvenile hacker with a reputation for stirring up trouble in online gaming groups has admitted to multiple computer felonies, including cyber attacks that overwhelmed his victims with massive amounts of data and the placing of hoax emergency phone calls that elicited visits by heavily armed police teams.

Known by the online handle of Dshocker, the 17-year-old Massachusetts hacker also admitted he breached multiple corporate computer systems, called in bomb threats and engaged in credit card fraud. The defendant, who was identified only by the initials N.H., pleaded guilty to charges in court documents that included one count each of computer fraud and interstate threats and four counts of wire fraud.

Dshocker is best known in hacker and gaming circles as the miscreant said to have perpetrated a series of attacks on members of myg0t, an online confederation dedicated to cheating and disrupting play in online games such as Counter Strike. He also unleashed attacks on other well-known hackers, according to online accounts.

It seems like he’s mixed up in some pretty dodgy online communities and has quite a number of people who have grudges against him.

I think he stepped off the mark a bit when he got engaged in credit card fraud – that’s a really dangerous business and serious if you get caught (which he has unfortunately for him).

To fool police, Dshocker spoofed his phone number so it appeared to originate from a victim who was located thousands of miles away. He obtained the victims’ numbers and addresses by breaking into the computer systems of their internet service providers and accessing subscriber records. Charter Communications, Road Runner, and Comcast are among the ISPs he broke into.

One call falsely reporting a violent crime in progress was made in March to the police department in Seattle. Another in April was made to police in Roswell, Georgia. Both calls originated from a phone located in Dshocker’s home town of Worcester, Massachusetts. He also phoned in a false bomb threat at one school and the presence of an armed gunman at another.

Dshocker didn’t limit his illegal hacking to settling grudges with fellow gamers. From 2005 to earlier this year, he used stolen credit card information to make fraudulent purchases. He also managed to gain free internet access by stealing proprietary software from a large, unnamed electronics company and then using it to modify his cable modem.

He was involved with phone number spoofing too and prank calls about bombs and gunmen. He was also perpetrating all these crimes over free Internet which he’d jacked by stealing the cable modem software.

Apparently he’ll get 11-month sentence of juvenile detention, which could have been 10 years if he was tried as an adult.

Source: The Register