A Dutch hacker collective called Revspace aims to "re-educate" Dutch teens suspected of cyberattacks against Mastercard, Visa, and the Dutch National Prosecutors Office, transforming them into "ethical hackers."
Last week, Dutch police arrested a 16-year-old boy for participating in web attacks against MasterCard and Visa as part of a grassroots effort to support WikiLeaks. On Saturday, another teenager was arrested in Hoogezand-Sappemeer for admitting to flooding the website of the Dutch prosecutor. The 19-year-old, known online as Awinee, reportedly encouraged others to join the attack. The teen was released today. Martijn Gonlag, who admitted to using the tool, claimed he only wanted to test software and did not support Wikileaks.
Both arrests were straightforward because the teenagers used LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon), a tool that lacks security features like anonymization. The attackers' IP addresses were visible in all packets sent during the attacks, as reported by the Dutch University of Twente. The university's report explains that this applies to both current versions of the LOIC tool, including the web-based version that runs in any Javascript-supported browser.
The university warns that hacktivists may be unaware that international data retention laws require commercial Internet providers to store data on Internet usage for at least six months, making it easy to trace hacktivists even after the attacks are over.
Revelation Space, a hackerspace in The Hague, recently called for a meeting on ethical hacking. Founder Koen Martens stated that disrupting websites with DDoS attacks does not align with hacker community ethics. "It's like slapping someone in the face when you run out of arguments," Martens said.
According to Martens, anyone can download and start a program to participate in coordinated online crimes. There is no creativity involved; DDoS attackers generally use existing tools without understanding how they function.
The 16-year-old hacker from The Hague was a regular in the hackerspace's online chat room. Martens believes the teenager should not be excluded from the community. "They should be shown a better way to reach their goals," he said.
