We've just heard from the Met that they are dropping their investigation into MN Swatter

[JustineMumsnet]

We received this mail from the Met today. Not great news but I thought some might be interested in the outcome.

Hacking enquiry

"I am afraid that we can no longer pursue the hacking investigation of Mumsnet any further, there are no other lines of enquiry that we can follow up on. In order to identify the user of the online moniker of DadSec we have approached Twitter for their assistance however they cannot. The suspect used a number of different methods to hide their true identity from using TOR, proxy websites, compromised details and jurisdictions which are not Law enforcement friendly. All of this added together means that we do not at this stage have any viable leads and therefore will have to close this investigation.

I am more than happy to come across and discuss this in more detail in person. Please let me know a date and time and I can visit your offices to speak further.

I am sorry that in this instance we could not find the others who were responsible. If there is anything else that I can help with please do let me know.

Kind regards..."

Is this the person who published usernames etc

Ahh, thank you for keeping us informed. A sad outcome but not overly suprising

I think it was the lad from Haslemere ( David Buchanan ) who published the user names - he was a student at The Royal Grammar School in Guildford, a very posh private school He used to advertise for part time work as a computer security expert - guess the hacking was educational for him

Oh I'm so sorry Justine. It's infuriating to know that the fucker's got away with it. I hope he gets a plague of boils.

Sorry for being thick: so Twitter are not obliged to give info or IPs or they have said they would but can't because the only info they have is proxies?

Well that suck balls doesn't it.

I'm confused though. Someone was caught etc as said upthread but as he was a posh kid at a very good school he wasn't prosecuted. Does this mean that they can't catch a further person?
It's a real shame because the smug cockend will be sat there thinking he has won.

Ah well it was only an act of extreme aggression against women.
So nothing to make a fuss about hey?

Well. That's rubbish.

So sorry Justine and the other MNer who was swatted. It's shit

It sounds like this person covered their tracks so well the police decided it was not worth the resources to try further to crack it. I can kind of understand their decision. The internet remains ungovernable in many ways - servers in different countries that have different laws, ways to fake IP addresses and hide tracks etc. it can take a huge amount of resources to catch hackers and even with the best investigations it can sometimes be impossible to find the culprit. Even govt agencies who have been hacked don't always see justice.

It's still a horrible thing to have happened to you and I hope the culprit is caught one day. I doubt it's the only nasty thing he's done.

I'm confused though. Someone was caught etc as said upthread but as he was a posh kid at a very good school he wasn't prosecuted. Does this mean that they can't catch a further person?

The boy, David Buchanan was prosecuted and was sentenced to a 12-month community order and 200 hours community work plus £220 in court costs and a whopping £60 victim surcharge. While he wasn't the person who organized the swatting attack - the person who was got the personal information about his victims from the information that David Buchanan hacked and published.

Ah. So posh boy wasn't the one on twitter?

It sounds like they couldn't find out who Twitter twat was. He, she or they could have been anybody, anywhere in the world. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Disappointing - but thanks for the update.

So what are MNHQ doing to make sure it doesn't happen again?

Well Justine is unlikely to go into detail on a public board that anyone can read. (I seem to recall that security consultants were called in though and doubtless made recommendations.)

Well Justine can probably clarify that herself or send me a PM
My password was one that was plasteres into the net. So yeh, I want to know.

Sorry to hear that. I wondered if some of them were from the US - swatting is a US gamers thing isn't it?

I think so - and some of them may well have been from the States.

Oh

Well that's shit.

Publishing what you are doing to stop someone from hacking you is counterproductive.

This is why the Goverment need more powers to force companies like Twitter to disclose information. When the last government tried to introduce such powers everyone cried that the powers were draconian, yet these companies constantly thwart investigations of all kinds in the name of user privacy. I've seen violent crime cases thwarted the same way and time critical ongoing cases where people are still at risk.

Twitter et al only care about user privacy because it makes them money and they don't want to lose customers. Fuck the consequences as long as those consequences don't impact their profit margin.

I don't think it reads as though Twitter refused to help. The way he hid his online tracks seems very thorough and perhaps there just isn't a way to unpick their way through all the proxies etc.

What TheFirstMrsDV said.

Ah well it was only an act of extreme aggression against women.
So nothing to make a fuss about hey?

Exactly. There were posters at the time who were saying that they couldn't see how the hacking was a misogynistic act. Of course it was. You can be damn sure this wouldn't have happened had this been a male based forum. These nasty little shits are pissed off that women have one corner of their internet.