.... and Hitler only invaded Poland after a game of Truth or Dare.

I dunno - perhaps he just opened an email attachment in Outlook?

Comparing an autistic child with Hitler on the first comment. That's why I come here: for the brilliant repartee!

...only ever posted anonymously. Pillock.

That just means they can't figure his Perl code out.

I am also mildly Aspergian and was bullied at school, and yet, somehow, I managed to avoid accidentally acquiring control of a huge number of other people's computers and unintentionally exploiting them for a variety of illegal and/or unethical purposes.

After reading this story I can only count myself lucky.

I blame the parents. Did she never ONCE ask him if he was trying to take over the world?

"What you doing on the PC all the time love?"

"Same thing we do every night mum"

Ah , the lad has excellent potential to be a future employee of ASIO/ASIS as most of those wowsers they employ barely have an adequate number of brain cells to switch on their government issue laptops and have a known history of leaving secret files behind in buildings being demolished !

Although I hear all their cars have a boot full of right arms and mirrors just to find you know what !

Perhaps the misunderstood lad needs a mentor like Paris ?

Your right. This will go away and he will dissapear in a black hellicopter and spend the rest of his life hacking the chineese

... He's a very naughty boy!

"was something of a loner at school who was picked on by bullies."

We've probably a whole range of people reading this, who were also picked on by bullies at school. Very unpleasant. I think it's a shame that this incident will probably be "processed" without drawing attention to the part bullying played in it.

there is yet hope for the world when "Pinky and The Brain" are still remembered!

"Narf! Zoit!"

lesson that can, does not equal shall. Honestly if he had any imagination he would have realised he could get caught, and not done it does Aspergers syndrome keep you from imagining jail.If every geek on earth who had a socialisation problem did this there'd be no internet. Now get off of my lawn.

This guy is from NEW ZEALAND.

ASIO is AUSTRALIAN.

I know the two country's are close together and get on pretty well but i dont think ASIO has the right to black bag kiwi's in New Zealand yet...

So a person who masterminded an operation to take over thousand's of computers and infect others with malware, etc "did not actively set out to get involved in cybercrime". Right...

Do you think I'm a megalomaniac?

The Tourist eventually goes home

(Kiwi - New Zealanders)

I'm a tad upset to find that Hitler posts anonymously here.

Will the anon cow who is actually Hitler please stand up and make himself known?

Is he using "adolf.hitler@thirdreich.eu" as a login? (Harvest that you b******s).

"Apologize to ze nice Geahhman mann, dollink, ohhr you vill be shott, ya?"

yes, he must be the very epitome of evil. don't tell me, you've never dealt with a case of arrested social development before?

it is common for slightly retarded humans (it's not PC, it's harsh and offensive, but it is accurate, and not meant pejoratively - no flames please) to have little or no moral judgement. many can benefit from formal statements of society's rules, and/or psychological counseling, but few receive such advice. societies do not teach that sort of thing in a structured way, it falls under the "upbringing" and "parenting" catchalls (as if normal parents are trained to deal with such situations).

i moved from the USSR to the US at age 10, and the socialization process was extremely uneven, traumatic, and unpleasant. the culture shock was more severe because most kids in my school didn't like immigrants. i adjusted, but some people do not.

i can easily see how this guy could have developed into a criminal (a desire for acceptance and validation was likely a big part of it), and he's definitely not an isolated case.

at least he didn't shoot anyone. comparing him to Hitler is absurd.

Trashman is that you?

It's a shame, how I carried on at school. I think back to the way I treated some kids and I'm surprised they didn't kick me to death.

All the same, I bumped into one of my victims the other day, and he's turned out good-looking, successful, fabulously wealthy, and is fending off the advances of the hottest chicks in town.

I, OTOH, am now a complete dork, sell insurance, and couldn't get laid at a hooker convention.

So, kids, keep it real and don't use bullying as an excuse to commit horrendous crimes against humanity, like selling the odd spam-distributing botnet.

A kid with Aspergers isn't "retarded".

Social issues he may have.

Is there anyone reading this that can concentrate on the details of thousand of lines of code, has a limited social life mostly with like minded blokes and can be fascinated or obsessed by precise technical details?

Or as Wikipeadia puts it;

"AS.... is one of several autism spectrum disorders (ASD) characterized by difficulties in social interaction and by restricted and stereotyped interests and activities. AS is distinguished from the other ASDs in having no general delay in language or cognitive development. "

Now that's Aspergers. or is it just Geekiness?..

Heh... Should have figured the press would pick up on the whole AS thing.

Seriously, AS shouldn't provide this kid with any sort of excuse- how many people here have AS, have been subjected to heavy bullying and HAVEN'T been tempted to commit serious cyber-crime? Our social difficulties do not extend to not knowing the difference between right and wrong...

"That just means they can't figure his Perl code out."

"Brilliant" computer programmers don't use perl.