A rocker, in his sixties, has found himself doing jail time after joining the ranks on Anonymous in 2010 to take part in a mass online hack in 2010. Geoffrey ‘Jake’ Commander has been on the British rock scene for decades and has performed with the likes of Elton John and ELO. It was in 2010 that Commander joined an online Anonymous chatroom to participate in the hack using the LOIC code.
The LOIC code can be used to create an onslaught of traffic through to specific servers to disrupt and shutdown the target for a duration of time, essentially crashing the system targeted. Commander, along with some 2000 other participants used the LOIC, eventually costing MasterCard up to the tune of 1 million dollars.
The act, which occurred in 2010 didn’t result in prosecutions against the rocker until his return to British soil in 2013. There he faced a court and a potential 10 year sentence which was eventually whittled down to a 10 day sentence as it was considered his first misdemeanor. Thirteen others were also prosecuted between 2010 and 2013, with most results of sentencing unknown.
During his time in court, Commander told the judge presiding over his case that he considered his act as one of haste, “impulsive, spurious and foolish…” but that he also considered that his protest was a declaration against the banks that have “brought the country to its knees.” [1]
Upon his arrest Commander has had to surrender his British passport and opted to take his sentence in full rather than the option of serving 10 days over consecutive weekends. The prosecution stated in its argument that such an attack could have caused a detriment not only to the banking and finance sectors that were attacked but also to the consumers and to the economy. The rocker didn’t at any time argue that he didn’t know what he was doing.
The hack attack on MasterCard was part of a larger Anonymous operation named “Operation Payback.” Operation Payback was part of an action to display its support for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and an ongoing campaign against major anti-freedoms campaigners, targeting at the time, Sarah Palin, MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and the likes of Julian Assange’s Swedish prosecutor.
[1] Schneider, M. Billboard. (2014, 8 December) Rock veteran gets jail time for participating in Anon attack http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6386028/jake-commander-anonymous-operation-payback-jail-federal-court (Retrieved 2015, 4 January)
Atleast he is fighting back. I would have took a life sentence as long as I made a difference in this world.
How in the world did he manage to get caught? He clearly wasn’t very anonymous.
LOIC cannot make you safe when ddosing :/
Loic isn’t very secure and is incredibly easy to track if used poorly.
1) he clearly didnt stay anonymous very easily
2) they DOS’ed not hacked. (which is so lame)
3) anonymous is a collective term for people concealing identity. so there is no origin state or country etc.. anonymous in general are just as bad as the media. no morals or regard for others
Hey anonymous.. On some of ur links on this page when clicked on, go to a page that says error or not found or service unavailable or something else of the sort. I was wondering is there something going on with your site or is it my phone?
Heyyy anonymous, I was just wondering, when I click on some of these links to other articles sometimes they go to a page that says service unavailable or some kind of error message,is there something wrong with your site or is it just my phone? 🙁