Teen hacker terrorized kids across North America

Teenager convicted of swatting crimes, calling in fake bomb threats to schools

He’s the Ottawa hacker who liked to brag at school about his online powers, the ones he abused.

Out of twisted revenge for his own troubles at school, the 16-year-old boy launched a dark online campaign in 2014, first by calling in a fake bomb threat at his own school, and then beyond.

And he made time to taunt police on Twitter, saying “Catch me if you can.” Well, they did. On Friday, the Barrhaven teen who terrorized children by calling in fake bomb threats at schools across Canada and the United States was convicted of the swatting crimes.

Ontario Court Justice Mitch Hoffman found the teen guilty on 34 counts (from public mischief to uttering threats) related to a series of fake bomb calls that prompted SWAT teams to respond to schools from Calgary to Florida.

The boy used a Twitter account to advertise his swatter-for-hire services, and business was brisk, with troubled teens enlisting him to call in bomb threats to their schools.

A 14-year-old Ontario boy enlisted the hacker to call in a bomb threat at his school because he wanted to be cool. He felt anything but cool when detectives came calling, and he promptly gave a tearful confession.

In some cases, the Barrhaven hacker would give advance warning on Twitter and later claim responsibility.

The judge-alone trial that began in 2015 also heard a Quebec boy who used the hacker’s swatter-for-hire services also confessed on the spot and later pleaded guilty for enlisting him to call in a bomb threat to his Laval high school.

The judge also rejected the boy’s cover story, in which he claimed he had been framed by Anonymous, the international hacktivist collective.

The judge said Anonymous may have methods that some disagree with, but the hacktivist group is known for its justice crusades and political goals, and was certainly not in the business of framing “innocent persons and terrorizing schoolchildren.”

The judge also said there was no evidence “in real life, nor online” to suggest, even “theoretically” that the teen had been framed.

“It is not a rational deduction that the (teen) was framed,” Hoffman told court in a daylong reading of his verdict in the high-profile case.

The judge also rejected the defence-raised suggestion that a third-party could have planted the evidence on the boy’s computer that police seized. The judge noted the boy is a “sophisticated computer user” who was frequently online and known for stocking up on antivirus software. It would be implausible for this to go undetected, he said. The judge also rejected that a third-party suspect could have remotely accessed the boy’s computer through a Trojan program.

The Barrhaven hacker was also convicted for calling in a fake bomb threat to a Quebec shopping mall.

Assistant Crown attorney Kerry McVey led the successful prosecution against the teen who still has outstanding warrants in Florida.

The boy — whose identity is shielded by law — was arrested by Ottawa police in 2014 after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation traced his IP address to his parents’ home in Barrhaven and forwarded the information, court heard.

The teen awaits sentencing.