Bitcoin Baron gets 2 years in jail
The self-proclaimed vigilante Bitcoin Baron to serve 20 months in prison. The conviction and sentencing is only for the former attack, in which Randall Charles Tucker, who was 20 at the time, disabled the City of Madison's website for six days, crippled the 911 emergency communication system and degraded the emergency service dispatch system. He went on to boast about the attacks on social media, according to the court documents, and on Skype chats in his gaming community. The motivation is unclear, but came shortly after a fatal shooting of a 19-year-old unarmed black man by a Madison police officer that sparked outrage. Police brutality soon became a recurring theme for Tucker.
In the Texas attack, he contacted an activist news site to claim responsibility for the attack, which took down the City of San Marcos' website, as well as the San Marcos Police Department's site. He claimed he was protesting an attack on a 22-year-old Texas woman, whose teeth were reported to be bashed in by a police officer. He stated that he wanted to do "what these police can't do," in punishing the officer. The officer had already been jailed one year prior to the threat.
Far from being a simple hacktivist filled with an impulse for social justice, a different picture emerges when his activity is analyzed together. In 2014, when he was 19, the Bitcoin Baron sent the D.C. based video news site News2Share a video of his that he claimed was related to a campaign for hacker group Anonymous. When the site declined to post it, he launched a DDoS campaign. After that he started his municipal attacks, all taking place in 2015. In addition to Madison and San Marcos, he took down the town website of Moore, Okla., and demanded 100 Bitcoins, to demand justice for a man who died in police custody. It's not clear how he would have used the money for that since the town refused the ransom. Tucker's other activities include launching DDoS attacks against municipal networks in the Phoenix suburbs of Chandler and Mesa. He has also been behind DDoS attacks on a number of IRC chat rooms related to hacktivism and gaming.
Some of this story is much more sinister. He claimed responsibility for an attack on the website for the Shriners Hospitals for Children organization, which he allegedly defaced with child pornography, according to the Observer. hacker pleaded guilty in April of last year to one count of intentional damage to a protected computer, in Madison. In addition to the jail time, U.S. District Judge Douglas L. Rayes of the District of Arizona also ordered Tucker to pay $69,331.56 in restitution.