Kiwiblog (Free subscription) | 07/18/2008
... We can but wonder what would happen if the approach taken by Justice Judith Potter, who discharged Owen Thor Walker without conviction after he pleaded guilty to six serious cyber crimes, was taken up across the board. Young scamps who convert cars could be sent out on the roads to help motorists who have misplaced their keys. Producers of high-grade cannabis could be redeployed...
Autism Vox (Free subscription) | 07/18/2008
18-year-old Owen Thor Walker of Hamilton, New Zealand, was the “mastermind”—-of a computer hacker sort—behind a worldwide group of criminals calling themselves the ‘A-Team’ and running a “sophisticated operation” that caused more than $20 million (£10 million) in damages to computer systems, the July 16th Telegraph reports. Walker has Aspeger Syndrome and designed software...
security_watchdog (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
Eighteen year old New Zealand hacker, Owen Thor Walker, who is accused of writing malware that could have stolen millions of pounds, has walked free from court and may be recruited by the local police. Although Walker pleaded guilty to...
Security Watch (Free subscription) | 07/21/2008
... judge was worried a conviction would ruin the guy’s potentially bright career. Eighteen year old Owen Thor Walker, known online as “Akill”, wrote sophisticated malware that employed encryption techniques to bypass anti-virus software. This software was then used to steal over $20 million from private bank accounts worldwide. Walker did not apparently hack into people’s...
Sophos security news (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Owen Thor Walker escapes jail, but ordered to pay $11,000 in fines.
Autopia (Free subscription) | 07/19/2008
... Dropped (July 15, 2008) A judge in New Zealand dismissed charges against an 18 year old man, Owen Thor Walker , who had pleaded guilty for his part in an international cyber-crime network that stole over $20.4m from private bank accounts. Walker, who went by the online moniker of "Akill," was accused of writing a sophisticated Trojan which employed encryption techniques...
ZD Net (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
Owen Thor Walker, a 18 years old ringleader of an international cybercrime group, known as AKILL, part of the A-Team, a group of 8 script kiddies which were all caught in a operation called "Operation Bot Roast II" bust executed by the FBI and several international law enforcement agencies in...
Top Tech News (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
A New Zealand teenager who admitted illegally hacking into a computer system at a university in the United States was discharged without conviction Tuesday but ordered to pay some costs for his actions. Owen Thor Walker, 18, known by his online name "AKILL," was involved in a network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers around the world and skimming millions of dollars...
Sci-Tech Today (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
A New Zealand teenager who admitted illegally hacking into a computer system at a university in the United States was discharged without conviction Tuesday but ordered to pay some costs for his actions. Owen Thor Walker, 18, known by his online name "AKILL," was involved in a network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers around the world and skimming millions of dollars...
Dvorak Uncensored (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
Uh, Owen is the one without a uniform… A teenager from New Zealand who was accused of stealing millions of pounds has been let off without a conviction, despite pleading guilty to hacking into computers around the world. 18-year-old Owen Thor Walker, known online as “AKILL”, was ordered to pay just £5,500 in costs and damages after [...]
Switched (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Filed under: Computers Owen Thor Walker is 18, a kid from New Zealand with a talent for computers. He's also one of the world's most important criminal masterminds when it comes to cybercrime, having been arrested late last year for leading an international online syndicate, stealing money from bank accounts, initiating distributed denial of service attacks against any target...
the INQUIRER (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Nick Farrell the Inquirer , Tuesday 15 July 2008. 08:38:00 Crime does pay, after all A TEEN SUPER-HACKER who admitted taking down a US university's computer, was allowed to walk free from court after promising to use his skills to help coppers in the future. Owen Thor Walker, 18, known by his online name 'AKILL', was thought to be the ring-leader of a hacker network...
Kiwiblog (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Some may disagree with me, but I am appalled that Owen Thor Walker has been discharged without conviction for his involvement in bot nets. There is an argument that giving the young offender a dressing down and “harnessing his powers for good” is the sensible thing to do. I agree, this is often the case. But in [...]
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
A teenager from New Zealand who was accused of stealing millions of pounds has been let off without a conviction, despite pleading guilty to hacking into computers around the world. 18-year-old Owen Thor Walker, known online as "AKILL", was ordered to pay just £5,500 in costs and damages after a high court hearing in Hamilton, New Zealand, and could even end up working with local...
Scientific American (Free subscription) | 07/19/2008
... or the hackers can rent their botnets to other criminals. If this sounds farfetched, it's not. Owen Thor Walker, a teen who pleaded guilty earlier this year to six charges of accessing computers for dishonest purposes and without authorization, damaging computer systems, and possession of software for the purposes of committing a computer crime, narrowly avoided going to jail...
