Webcam hacker is released for the time being

The now nineteen-year-old boy, who is suspected of hacking thousands of PCs, has been released for the time being. The boy hacked underage girls’ webcams and distributed nude photos he took with their webcams.

It is unclear why the hacker got out of pre-trial detention; a spokesperson for the court talks to NRC about ‘personal circumstances’. According to Jaap Spigt, the boy’s lawyer, he has now been detained for four and a half months. “I think that’s enough for what he has done,” he told the NRC.

Until now, the boy has been in custody. Until his case is served, he must adhere to certain conditions: for example, he must cooperate in the investigation, his personality must be examined, he may only use his PC for schoolwork and he may not cross the line again.

The boy wouldn’t have had an easy time in prison; according to his lawyer, he was transferred because other detainees would have known that he was suspected of distributing child pornography. According to Spigt, that has been ‘totally taken out of context’. “But in prison you are right at the bottom of the ladder,” he tells the newspaper.

The boy was arrested in October. In December, it emerged that he was behind the hacking of thousands of PCs. For this he used freely available tools. The impact of his actions was huge: he switched on the webcam on the computers he broke into, with which he took large amounts of photos. He then distributed it, including through the social media accounts of his victims. The nineteen-year-old boy is also suspected of leaking a French exam.