Wisconsin man cuffed over Koch-blocking DDoS attack
A 37-year-old Wisconsin man has been charged over his alleged involvement in denial-of-service attacks against Koch Industries, run by the loosely knit hacktivist collective Anonymous.
Eric J. Rosol of Black Creek, Wisconsin, has been charged with damaging a protected computer and conspiring to damage a protected computer in the February 2011 attacks. At the time of the attacks, would-be hacktivists were urged by Anonymous to use the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) to blitz quiltednorthern.com and Kochind.com, both run by Koch Industries.
The attack rendered the Kochind.com website unavailable. If convicted, Rosol faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 on each count, a DoJ statement on the case explains.
Koch Industries is a Kansas-based conglomerate owned by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who earned the ire of Anonymous for campaign donations in support of Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker and his crackdown on public employees’ unions.
An affidavit detailing the results of a preliminary investigation into the case leaked to The Smoking Gun last year named 12 possible suspects, although it seems that Rosol is the first to actually be charged over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Unless secondary precautions are taken, the LOIC exposes the real IP addresses of those who use it to flood sites with junk traffic, leaving them open to identification and arrest. ®
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/28/koch_blocking_cuffing/