Michael Calce (born 1984, also known as Mafiaboy) is a security expert and former computer hacker from Île Bizard, Quebec, who launched a series of highly publicized denial-of-service attacks in February 2000 against large commercial websites, including Yahoo!, Fifa.com, Amazon.com, Dell, Inc., E*TRADE, eBay, and CNN.
[2][page needed] Rivolta was a DDoS (distributed-denial-of-service) attack in which servers become overloaded with different types of communications to the point where they become unresponsive to commands.
[7] Calce claimed that when he overheard the news and recognized the companies mentioned being those he had inputted earlier in the day, he "started to understand what might have happened".
[6] The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police first noticed Calce when he started claiming in IRC chatrooms that he was responsible for the attacks.
[9][10] His lawyer insisted the child had only run unsupervised tests to help design an improved firewall, whereas trial records indicated the youth showed no remorse and had expressed a desire to move to Italy for its lax computer crime laws.
[11] The Montreal Youth Court sentenced him on September 12, 2001 to eight months of "open custody," one year of probation, restricted use of the Internet, and a small fine.
[1][12] Matthew Kovar, a senior analyst at the market research firm Yankee Group, generated some publicity when he told reporters the attacks caused US$1.2 billion in global economic damages.
[18] In late 2008, with journalist Craig Silverman, Calce announced he was writing a book, Mafiaboy: How I Cracked the Internet and Why It's Still Broken.
[24] Calce appeared on a TV show, Last Call with Carson Daly, talking about his days as a hacker, how President Clinton became involved, and how it ultimately landed him in jail all at age 15.