Teen UK hacker pleads guilty after earning $385k from DDoS tool A 19 year-old Hertfordshire man has pled guilty to running the Titanium Stresser booter service that offered distributed denial of service (DDoS)-as-a-service. Such services are often marketed as innocuous and legitimate stress testing tools, but are instead often used for cheap and effective attacks of websites. Prosecutors …
This post has been deleted by its author
Yes - but there are considerably fewer instances. According to BAILII's website, 'pled' appears in 1946 entries and 'pleaded' appears in 50732 entries. Incidentally, 'pled' shows up as misspelt in my spell checker. It is not valid to compare it with words like 'bred' or 'bled' because, although their present-tense forms are all pronounced similarly (plead, breed, bleed), the spelling is different - there is an 'a' in 'plead'. Interesting that the present tense of another 'ea' verb pronounced 'ee' (read) only changes its pronunciation, not its spelling, when in the past tense - whereas 'lead' becomes 'led'. Not to say that a past-tense 'plead' pronounced 'pled' is valid - though there are a few instances of it. Isn't English wonderful?
As for our transatlantic friends' spelling: when their ancestors left this side of the Pond in the 17th century, they took with them a form of English spelling and pronunciation that was extant at the time. Language is constantly changing, so it is to be expected that subsequent changes would be different. A major influence on the west side of the Atlantic was one Noah Webster, who started compiling 'An American Dictionary of the English Language' in 1807 that was finally released in 1828. This is responsible for the loss of the 'u' in words like 'colour'; the substitution of 's' for 'c' in words like 'defence'; the reversal of the final letters 're' in words like 'theatre', among others. The rationale behind this was an attempt to simplify spelling by making it more phonetic.
So it's incorrect to say these spellings are wrong - just different, even though they may appear alien to some British eyes.
>Seems a waste to send him to jail when we could use kids like this.
Well given Philip Hammond's recent re-announcement of an initiative previously announced by George Osbourne and this reference from Detective Inspector Martin Peters of ERSOU's Regional Cyber Crime Unit:
"My team has learnt a lot from this complex investigation, due to the nature of the criminality, the sheer volume of data and the global reach of the offending."
[ http://www.heart.co.uk/fourcounties/news/local/herts-teen-admits-mass-cyber-attack/#b4ry1XO86pG85r6o.99 ]
Combined with observations from other professionals:
"Vince Warrington, cyber-security lead at the Financial Conduct Authority, works with a variety of bodies to help turn talented young computer enthusiasts into gainfully employed cyber-security professionals, as opposed to talented cyber-criminals. This, Warrington told SC, is “a classic case study of how we need to change getting young people into cyber-security”.
Teenagers need to be given a path into cyber-security, not only a well paid sector, but one in desperate need of the kinds of skills Mudd may have developed.
[ http://www.scmagazineuk.com/ddos-services-teenage-inventor-pleads-guilty/article/569661/ ]
I would expect that someone from TPTB will be talking to Adam about his future and how if he makes the right choices his future could be a lot brighter...
I would expect that someone from TPTB will be talking to Adam about his future and how if he makes the right choices his future could be a lot brighter...
I suspect, in reality, that is pretty unlikely. Few, if any, organisations will hire someone with a criminal record and what they really want to do is win over people like Mudd before they become criminal-mini-celebrities.
Unfortunately for Mudd, his future is likely to involve a fair amount of bullying until he can offer his services to an organised crime gang in return for protection.
We all lose out a little bit more.
Totally agree. While nobody here (I hope) would condone Mudd's actions, it must be taken into account he was only 15 when he committed this 'crime'. It just shows how cr4ppy and vulnerable some systems are that a kid can get in so easily. His 'penance' should be to write 'hardening' software for these vulnerable systems. In jail he'd just be bullied as a nerd and then get sucked into the underworld of the seriously bad.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
