Swatting teen a glimpse of the dark side of connectivity

In the prisoner's box, the teen from Coquitlam, B.C., presented a shambling image: fidgeting with bowl-cut bangs while a judge pronounced his fate, scrubby facial hair barely covering blemished skin.

He was a different person in the safety of his room.

A vengeful master of the internet, the 17-year-old sadistically punished female gamers who had the temerity to reject his friend requests.

He exposed their private secrets to the world, put their lives in danger and shut down Disneyland in the process.

"You caused trauma, distress and financial harm to many of your victims," Judge Patricia Janzen said as she sentenced the teen to 16 months in youth custody.

"Swatting is not a harmless prank."

The boy inside the man

Janzen summarized the teen's crimes in what amounted to an hour-long primer on the dark side of connectivity: the internet links the most remote of people, but the lonely, disaffected and troubled can just as easily scorn the global community as they can embrace it.

The 17-year-old was originally charged with 46 criminal acts. He pleaded guilty to 23 charges of criminal harassment, public mischief, extortion and uttering threats.

"You were not always the person who appears in court today," Janzen told him.

Three psychiatric reports trace the transformation of a challenged child into a narcissistic, grandiose and self-centred loner.

His father dealt with multiple addictions while living a life of crime. His mother had her own struggles with mental illness. The Ministry of Children and Family Development was involved, but never seized the children.

In kindergarten, the teen was described as caring and hardworking. By Grade 3 teachers recommended him for a program that involved multimedia skills that spoke to his growing ability with computers.

"It was noted that you had excellent work habits and study skills," Janzen said.

Over the years, the boy's social skills and school performance deteriorated. He failed Grade 10, missing 122 days of classes. His lawyer called him a "computer geek" — a loner with no friends.

'Doxing' and 'swatting'

But as the real life boy disappeared, his online persona thrived. 

Janzen said he specialized in 'doxing' and 'swatting': using the internet to find and expose a target's personal information; and faking emergency calls to trigger the deployment of SWAT teams to a victim's house.

She described a long list of cases from Ontario to California. The details were particular to each victim, but a pattern emerged.

The teen would contact female gamers, many of whom streamed their play through Twitch, a popular video platform and online community.

If they rejected him, he retaliated, targeting their social media accounts and overwhelming their phones with text messages.

He accessed credit card information to order online goods and services, changed email addresses and interrupted internet service.

In one instance, Janzen said he called police and threatened "to kill everyone" at a Florida high school using an Arabic-sounding name and referencing Allah.

An Arizona victim lost a full term of her university education to his harassment; he called police and said he had just killed her parents and was inside their home with a gun.

And for kicks, he phoned in a bomb threat to Disneyland, shutting down Space Mountain.

'The life of a loser'

The teen's identity is protected by a publication ban, but his activities are well-known. 

One of his victims wrote to an online forum, asking why the teen was able to operate with such seeming impunity, carrying out many of his crimes while he was on bail awaiting trial for others.

"I was one of the females that was targeted by this kid and he took my job from me," the woman writes.

"The police need to speed up this process for all swatters and hackers like him, too many people lost their jobs, their homes, ruined relationships with family members, destroyed finances and gained anxiety or depression from his actions."

As she sentenced the teen, Janzen grappled with essential difficulty of punishing an introvert who — according to his lawyer — longs for a life of nothing more than computer games, pizza, and isolation.

"That is the life of a loser," she said. "You are too smart and too talented."

The emphasis in youth court is on rehabilitation. Janzen said the teen has the ability to finish high school and post-secondary education.

As unique as the case may be, her final challenge to the boy will sound familiar to anyone who has worried they might be losing their child to an online community they know nothing about.

"It will be your job to find that young boy inside of you who had so much potential," Janzen said.

"You need to care again."