back to article Japanese cops arrest their first ransomware-slinging menace – er, a 14-year-old school boy

Japanese cops have, for the first time ever, arrested a ransomware maker – a teenage tearaway. The 14-year-old from Osaka Prefecture in western Japan was collared on June 5 after police tracked him down as the suspected creator of home-grown ransomware that was being spammed out on social media and hosted on an overseas …

  1. ma1010
    Megaphone

    There is no excuse for this

    It doesn't matter what your age, you should know that buggering up other people's computers is NOT GOOD. It's as if one suddenly decided to see if they could make explosives at home and then decided to try them out by blowing up their neighbor's house (when they weren't home), just to see if it works.

    These people cause a lot of damage and expense to others. In some cases, they even could cause injury or death (such as an attack on NHS or someone similar preventing proper treatment because they couldn't access medical records). Punish these little buggers. They don't need to go to prison for 20 years, necessarily, but a little quality detention time and a lot of forced community service (perhaps base the amount on the estimated amount of damage their software nasties did) might help curtail the urge to "try it out for real."

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: There is no excuse for this

      So they can't do anything about N Korean/Russian/Chinese hackers doing real damage - but they have managed to collar some kid who may not have done any.

      A bit like arresting a kid for letting off a banger because N Korea just nuked you

      1. veti Silver badge

        Re: There is no excuse for this

        So what's your suggestion, we should only go after the biggest criminals and leave the smaller ones alone?

        No thanks. One perp stopped is better than none. Particularly as now there's an outside chance he'll straighten up and channel his talents into something productive.

        1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
          Big Brother

          "One perp stopped is better than none. "

          Here, here. Quite right too.

          As the "Dear Father" liked to say "Better a 100 innocent men go to jail than one guilty one goes free"

          Actually the IT equivalent of community service would be to send him down to some local site and sort out the mess his handiwork had made of their data centre.

          Which would be quite educational and teach him that his actions have consequences.

          Unless of course no real data centers have been affected by his work anywhere near where he lives.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "One perp stopped is better than none. "

            > Here, here. Quite right too.

            Where, where?

          2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

            Re: "One perp stopped is better than none. "

            "send him down to some local site and sort out the mess "

            yeah , Any I.T department would jump at the chance to have a criminally minded malware slinger helping out for a few days.

            1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
              Unhappy

              "Any I.T dept would jump at the chance to have a criminally minded malware slinger helping out"

              If your site can be taken down by a 14YO I'd say you need all the (free) help you can get.

              Either he really is the next Alan Turning or the staff you're paying are either too incompetent to stop him or too overworked to ensure the right systems are in place to stop him or too often overruled by PHB's to do their jobs.

              In any case what better than a child to point out that, one way or another, the Emperor is in fact stark bo***ck naked.

          3. DropBear

            Re: "One perp stopped is better than none. "

            "Here, here. Quite right too."

            You're in deep Poe's law territory. This is your only warning.

            1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
              Happy

              "You're in deep Poe's law territory. This is your only warning."

              Not to worry, I have my waders on.

              But I did think the rest of my post gave a pretty good idea of my actual views on such forms of punishment.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There is no excuse for this

      ... if one suddenly decided to see if they could make explosives at home and then decided to try them out by blowing up their neighbor's house ...

      Being there, done that. Except that it wasn't the neighbours house - it was the school. Turns out that the old-style brick-and-mortar buildings are damn tough things. In those unenlightened times, I ended up with a big bruise on my backside, a sore back from cleaning up the mess left by the explosion and the little fire it started, and a special invitation to the local school chemistry fair. I guess if it happened now, I'd still be doing my twenty-to-life, instead of being a respectable and productive member of the society nearing the retirement.

      I know which version of the events I prefer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There is no excuse for this

        Absolutely, the knowledge I accumulated from dusty textbooks in the chemistry section of the school library in those 'unenlightened times' would get me some sharp questions from insistent people in uniforms these days if I were to try and research it online, let alone try it out...

        I hope the notes we left in the margins inspired more experimenters.

    3. Notas Badoff

      Hey 'kiddo', is your hairline receding? Hahaha...

      @ma1010 "but a little quality detention time and a lot of forced community service..."

      Naah, the emphasis must always be on dissuading the other stupid kiddoes. So...

      "It is obvious to the court that you grievously lack the maturity expected at even your young age. Your delayed maturity being the problem, it is the court's determination that your age of maturity will be fixed at 30 years of age. Until then you may not have any of the privileges of adulthood, including auto licenses, ability to execute contracts, such as renting abodes, having an independent bank account, ability to purchase alcohol, or being without the daily supervision of adults as authorized by the court. Barring grant of petition to the court, you will remain residing at your parents abode until age 30."

      No jail time at all, just jail them at home. Parents would become *very* interested in 'maturity', yes?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        flunked adulthood

        "Until then you may not have any of the privileges of adulthood"

        Thats a creative idea I've not heard before. I like it , its better than the traditional "fine or custody" .

        You'd have to couple it with laws forcing parents to be more responsible for their kids (possibly including taking the punishment for them) - another alternative crime & punishment method I've come up with. Wouldnt work work in all cases , but nothings perfect

      2. Keven E

        Re: Hey 'kiddo', is your hairline receding? Hahaha...

        "Barring grant of petition to the court, you will remain residing at your parents abode until age 30."

        He was gonna be a 30 year old nerd living there anyway.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There is no excuse for this

      "It's as if one suddenly decided to see if they could make explosives at home", actually in the UK they actively preempt this and have a law for even thinking about it but in microsoft land they do not.

      If windows was secure then it would not be childs play to knock up malware, however since this is not the case then malware is rife

    5. cantankerous swineherd

      Re: There is no excuse for this

      there's no excuse for having computers that can be hacked by kids. time for some standards and consumer protection.

      1. Truckle The Uncivil

        Re: There is no excuse for this

        Would you like compilers to be declared 'weapons of mass destruction'? That seems to be what you are asking for. Even that does not stop me editing a binary file.

    6. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: There is no excuse for this

      When I was young and stupid ...

      Pyromania was my bag. Fortunately there was no Internet so any effects were local. Do I now think it was a good idea? However, in hindsight, it taught me a lot about risk management.

  2. Pen-y-gors

    Arrests

    Expect more arrests soon

    Of the really nasty perps in Russia or wherever?

    Don't hold your breath...

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    "He's not a malware writer"

    He's a very naughty boy.

  4. NanoMeter

    "entrepreneurial"

    Very, "entrepreneurial" of him. Should have tested his skill in other ways.

  5. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    for i:=1 to 9999999

    showmessage('I must not write ransomware');

    Press F9 and sit at the keyboard until program has finished.

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: for i:=1 to 9999999

      or sit there until we've brute forced the files you encrypted

      1. Tweetiepooh

        Re: for i:=1 to 9999999

        If it's true ransomware then he wouldn't need to brute force. (Unless it was time dependant and the decrypt mechanism had expired.)

  6. joeldillon

    I mean, technically a script kiddie is someone who doesn't know how to code well themselves but downloads someone else's scripts to hack with. It's pejorative. This kid apparently has actual technical chops.

  7. DropBear

    "Appropriate" response is wholly determined by what your true goal is concerning the offender. There are four possibilities depending on what you want to achieve:

    - Scaring anyone else away from doing the same - well then he must clearly be hanged, quartered and burned at the stake (and his entire family exterminated, including any puppies / kittens / goldfish involved). Apply the same to any neighbours in an arbitrary radius at your discretion, for failing to notice and rat him out sooner. I just hope you don't have a delicate stomach, and didn't plan on using the word "justice" much.

    - Punishing him for the consequences of his actions - exactly the same case as above, with the exact same caveat. You're clearly a vindictive bastard and embracing it - you deserve kudos for how well in touch you are with your inner Vlad the Impaler.

    - Punishing him for his actions - well now, not to take it lightly but you should think of something seriously inconvenient that will nevertheless be no more than an unpleasant memory and a lesson learned the hard way a year from now.

    - (Hopefully) preventing him from doing the same again, by making him understand what he did was wrong, while making every effort not to push him away out of, but to claim him back into society - awww now you gone and done it Sunshine... I got no idea how to go about that, no matter how much I'd prefer this one. Which, incidentally, totally does not mean I think we should stop even trying - but it might take more effort than slavishly applying a set of terse rules whichever way it best serves our sadistic and power-crazed tendencies of glorified apes that we are.

    1. Alistair
      Windows

      @ dropbear:

      You have a judge for a drinking buddy don't you?

  8. kaseki

    Summer Wars

    On a more pleasant aspect of this article: The image used is from Summer Wars, one of the best Japanese animation movies I'm aware of covering both computer hacking and gaming (both personal and governmental) and the mix of ancient and modern in Japanese culture. I highly recommend it to those who enjoy anime. The boy on the left is the protagonist.

  9. the Jim bloke

    Consequences happen

    I follow the 'heads on sticks' school of legal thought. You will never catch all the criminals, so make disproportionate examples of the ones you do catch, to give the others something to think about - not effective for 14 year olds but eventually it will do some good.

    Any punishment should not only take into account intended results but also any unintended damages.

    If he is shutting down businesses, the financial cost should go to him, if he is locking up personal computers, he should make amends to the people involved. If he is preventing his peers from accessing social media... he should get a scholarship and a job when he graduates.

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