The Final Words of a 15-Year-Old Hacker Banned from the Internet

[morningfog]

Cosmo is a 15-year-old boy who just received the hacker equivalent of a death sentence. All of his electronics: gone. The Internet: off-limits until he's 21. He's completely vanished from the world he called home.

I met Cosmo the God (hacker alias, of course, to go along with with the phony profile picture up top) by mistake. When Twitter went down over the summer, rumors quickly erupted that it'd been taken down—and a group of young web malefactors who went by "UGNazi" claimed responsibility. The hacker group had seen its share of mild online destruction in the past: killing the CIA's website last spring, once hijacking all of 4chan. They were players.

It's doubtful they wrestled down Twitter—it was probably just a bug. Most other hackers I spoke with doubted UGNazi had the DDoS power to derail such a massive online service; Cosmo's claims were just opportunism, they said.

Cosmo, for his part, remained adamant that the Twitter hack had been his group's doing, and we stayed in touch even after the story had blown over. Unlike his peers at Anonymous, Cosmo rarely masked the fact that he's just a screwed up kid. The lazy attempts to shock with a Hitler-themed hacker homepage, the occasionally offensive, arbitrarily bigoted tweets—the online attacks that didn't seem to follow any coherent agenda. Cosmo hacked like other high school kids spray paint walls or set off smoke bombs. Sabu wanted the terrorized respect of the entire Internet—Cosmo just wanted to piss people off and scare adults. Always friendly, good at what he does, but essentially just a punk, and very much a child.

http://gizmodo.com/5963952/the-final-words-of-a-15+year+old-hacker-banned-from-the-internet

[GeorgeGist]

1. Ill try ...

[MADem]

2. ...just wanted to piss people off and scare adults...essentially just a punk, and very much a child.

There are schools that would suit him--some computer tech parents send their kids to these:

http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2011/10/24/tech-execs-send-kids-to-anti-computer-school/

Tech execs send kids to anti-computer school
...The thinking is that technology interferes with creativity and young minds learn best through movement, hands-on tasks, and human-to-human interaction. Students at this school are gaining math, patterning, and problem-solving skills by knitting socks. They aren’t exposed to fractions through a computer program. Instead they learn about halves and quarters by cutting up food. Sounds a bit like summer camp? Well, yes, but parents in Los Altos and at over 150 similar schools across the country say the Waldorf method works and they’re sending their kids to top colleges, from Oberlin to Berkeley.


Of course, the "no computer" thing happens in the elementary grades, and this little fart is in high school. Maybe an Amish school...?

[Posteritatis]

3. Meh, Mentor departed-stage-left with rather more class. (nt)

[Odin2005]

4. A future Republican.

His parents must be proud!