back to article Brit teen pleads guilty to Minecraft-linked bomb and airline hoaxes

A British teenager has pleaded guilty in court to making hoax bomb threats to schools and airports while posing online as part of a hacker crew, a police agency has alleged. George Duke-Cohan, a 19-year-old from Garston near Watford in Hertfordshire, England, pleaded guilty at Luton Magistrates’ Court yesterday to three counts …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. pɹɐʍoɔ snoɯʎuouɐ

      "The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25"

      I was at a presentation at the royal institute a while back regarding the teenagers brain. When asked the audience all though the brain was not fully developed until 25, but apparently its much younger. rationality comes with experience.

      1. Mayday
        Stop

        Brain not ready yet

        Yes, you can argue that a 25yo is not "mature" yet if you will, but even a 4yo knows that making threats such as these is "bad" and that they are doing something wrong here and would get into trouble if caught.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Brain not ready yet

          He's old enough to vote, die for his country, operate a vehicle and get married.

          If he's STUPID enough to do what he did then they should throw the fucking book at him.

          For his atrocious English if nothing else.

    2. gotes

      Not sure if this is some kind of weird joke.. Yeah, let the poor kid off, he had no idea what he was doing because his brain wasn't fully developed! Boys will be boys...

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Facepalm

      "The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25"

      Does that mean his juvenile actions get him tried as a juvenile? [I hope not]

      Yeah, he's going to 'big boy' prison. Good riddance.

      And that bit about "running around the internet with our 1337 bootnet!"... could that 'Apophis' group be any MORE lame?

      /me facepalms at the lame - hence icon

  2. streaky

    1337

    1337 as F. GL in prison.

  3. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    FAIL

    Mega fail indeed!

    What a complete and utter pillock!

    Unfortunately there is no means of compensating all the innocent people who's lives he screwed up.

  4. ArrZarr Silver badge
    Angel

    If you're going to tweet that you're untouchable, then fate will take an interest and then you're getting caught no matter what.

    I wonder if any of them have heard of John Sedgwick?

    1. Mark 85

      I was thinking hubris but Sedgwick is a better reference.

  5. FlamingDeath Silver badge

    Muppetry

    By hacking crew, you surely mean scriptkiddy crew

    Not sure why Minecraft is even mentioned, except to give it a bad name by associating it with this morons antics. Feuds happen in lots of different games, sometimes resulting in Swatting. The games are not at fault, its the low IQ idiots playing it with no idea how to behave in a society, that's the problem!

    Are you sure that photo was taken when he was an adult?

    He looks about 12

  6. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    Problem dissolved

    In terms of disruption, hoaxes are much more effective these days than any physical form of terrorism - enabling and responding to these suggests that all our security theater is shooting us in the foot.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Problem dissolved

      "enabling and responding to these suggests that all our security theater is shooting us in the foot."

      "SWAT" hoaxes have resulted in actual fatal shootings by police.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Back in my day, we just played knock-a-door-run.

  8. AlexGreyhead
    WTF?

    What the...??

    How on earth does anybody get to the stage where they think this kind of behaviour is in any way cool or acceptable...?

    I can't for a second believe this lad was unaware of the fear and damage he was causing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What the...??

      How on earth does anybody get to the stage where they think this kind of behaviour is in any way cool or acceptable...?

      I can't for a second believe this lad was unaware of the fear and damage he was causing.

      When a person does not think about what behaviour is acceptable, that person can get to the stage to do it.

      When you have a sane mind, you can be aware of the fear and damage it can cause. But for this lad who do not think, care or know of the fear and damage he was causing, he will very much do it without thinking of the consequences.

  9. diver_dave

    Garston

    got to be Lemonfield...

    never trusted anyone from there :-)

  10. Crisp
    Boffin

    He should have used seven proxies.

    Script kiddies today aren't as good as they used to be.

  11. ratfox
    Meh

    He's going to be so much more l33t after spending a couple of month in jail. That's street cred, that is!

  12. Andrew Moore

    Handy...

    I keep forwarding articles like this to my daughters who still believe its possible to be anonymous online.

  13. The Nazz

    Rather than jail ...

    Couldn't it be arranged to drop him from 38,000ft with a parachute and a bomb attached. Let him wonder which will "open" first?

    Must be the cheaper option.

    ps ain't it gonna be a lot of fun when those with double barrelled surnames get hitched, and then breed?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It should prison for you son and rightly so.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A true twit using twitter

    What else can you say?

  16. steviebuk Silver badge

    I know they appear to have nothing on there that really needs it but....

    ....surely the NCA site should have an SSL cert now. If they are trying to be cheap just get a Let's Encrypt one which is fucking free.

    Jesus.

    Doesn't look great when you go to their site and Chrome says NOT SECURE :)

    For a national security agency.

    1. Shades

      Re: I know they appear to have nothing on there that really needs it but....

      "I know they appear to have nothing on there that really needs it "

      There's your answer. What does is need to be secure for?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More proof

    "Sky News claims to have spoken to Duke-Cohen at the time that he made his hoax bomb threat to schools, reporting that it had all started over a Minecraft feud."

    Further proof that computer games provoke violent tendencies. Time to ban pickaxes, swords, and bows/arrows.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: More proof

      "Sky News claims to have spoken to Duke-Cohen at the time that he made his hoax bomb threat to schools, reporting that it had all started over a Minecraft feud."

      ... Time to ban pickaxes, swords, and bows/arrows.

      I always knew those low-poly pixel cubed tools are scary stuff. Just think about how when you hit stuff with it, everything turns into compressed floating cubes!

      /joke

  18. BebopWeBop
    Headmaster

    I hope the book is weighed down and chucked at grewat speed towards the prick.

  19. pɹɐʍoɔ snoɯʎuouɐ
    Facepalm

    what a complete dick !!!!

    its getting to a point where you will need to pass a competence test before allowing online... sort of a internet version of a driver licence, one that you loose if you can behave yourself...

  20. MiguelC Silver badge

    Nothing says more top level hackers than announcing they have a "1337 bootnet"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I thought that 13375p34k was pretty much passé. It seemed to go into a steep- and terminal- decline just over a decade back. Almost certainly not coincidentally this was around the time it had become so common and cliched that newspapers like the Independent were printing guides to that strange new language your children were using online.

      When your Dad knows what "1337" means and tries to use it in conversation, that's probably the kiss of death for something like that.

      Question is, why are these people using it today? Are they really out of touch, or has it made a comeback? We may never care...

  21. ma1010
    Flame

    Fools like this should pay

    Idiots who think it's funny to make hoax threats shouldn't be put in jail. Instead let them pay civil damages equal to the cost of all the emergency responses they generated. If he gets a good job, it shouldn't take him more than 100 years or so to settle the bill while he lives on subsistence.

  22. adnim

    Hubris,

    has never before, been so well defined.

  23. defiler

    Ah - 19...

    When you thought you know how the world worked. How to fix everything. Bad guys were bad, and all the good guys were on our side. But best of all, you were bulletproof.

    Seems like this trumpet is going to have to grow up awfully suddenly.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the worst part of it all...

    ...was that he had to set foot in Luton to go to court. Poor sod.

    1. Teiwaz
      Trollface

      Re: And the worst part of it all...

      ...was that he had to set foot in Luton to go to court. Poor sod.

      First they was Escape from New York...

      Then there was Escape from Los Angeles...

      ...Now Escape from Luton ???

      1. THMONSTER

        Re: And the worst part of it all...

        There's no escape from Luton, its one way system around the town centre ensures a steady collection of cars are funnelled in and will never escape.

        I think there is some sort of attempt to get enough cars to collapse themselves into a half arsed black hole so that Luton an disappear from the face of the earth forever, a worthy cause if ever I heard one.

      2. defiler

        Re: And the worst part of it all...

        I'd watch that. A post-apocalyptic nightmare with an Easyjet hub.

        Went to Luton once. Saw Steve McFadden (plays Phil Mitchell on Eastenders, apparently). Didn't go back.

  25. Flywheel
    FAIL

    Parental Reponsibility

    the parents of Duke-Cohan have exclusively revealed to The Telegraph that their son was targeted and “groomed” online by Apophis Squad because of his vulnerabilities and being repeatedly bullied at school

    There seems to be very little mention of the parents in any of the media reports, which is unusual. It would be interesting to know if they actually exercised any Parental Responsibility to try and get him back on course. As he was living at home and had "already been released on pre-charge bail with conditions restricting his use of technology" it doesn't like his parents had a fecking clue!

    PS .. yes, he's an adult in the eyes of the Law, but being an attentive parent doesn't stop at 18.

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