Virtual court hearing for alleged teen Twitter hacker bombarded with porn
An online bond hearing for a Florida teen accused of hacking prominent Twitter accounts was itself hacked and bombarded with rap music and porn videos, much to the surprise of the judge and lawyers involved.
The initial hearing for Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was conducted over Zoom on Wednesday (local time). On a number of occasions it was interrupted by rap music and pornographic videos from users who took over the feed but apparently disguised their names.
The visibly startled Judge Christopher Nash was forced to temporarily halt the session after the carnal images took over everyone’s screen, while the State Attorney for Florida's 13th Judicial Circuit, Andrew Warren, looked equally stunned.
That is apparently my "someone just interrupted our court proceeding with pornography" face. First and hopefully last time I ever make it.
— Andrew Warren (@AndrewWarrenFL) August 5, 2020
Judge Nash reopened the hearing, but the users continued their disruptions.
“Predictably, the Zoom hearing for the 17-year-old alleged Twitter hacker in Florida was bombed multiple times, with the final bombing of a Pornhub clip ending the zoom portion of the proceedings,” well-known security expert Brian Krebs wrote of the incident.
The presiding judge ultimately declined to lower Mr Clark’s bail, which was set at more than $AUD1 million when he was arrested on Friday last week.
Prosecutors allege that Mr Clark was the mastermind of the scheme that hacked accounts of celebrities and politicians, and sent tweets from their accounts seeking payments of Bitcoin
Lawyers have said he has $US3 million in Bitcoin under his control, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Prosecutors had sought to have Clark held on $US30 million bond, which is $1 million for each charge. Clark faces — 17 counts of communications fraud, 11 counts of fraudulent use of personal information, and one count each of organised fraud of more than $5,000 and accessing computers or electronic devices without authority.
During the high-profile security breach on July 15, authorities say, tweets were sent from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, also were hacked.
with AP
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