The public prosecutor requested a three-year prison sentence, including two years suspended, against “Yannox”. On Monday June 12, this young 22-year-old Internet user from the Ile-de-France was tried by the 12th correctional chamber of the Paris judicial court for around thirty offences, swatting – 80% of the file for the defense -, denial of service attacks, hacks or threats committed between September 2020 and April 2021.
“We have an immeasurable number of offenses while he was on probation, there is a need to have a firm part,” justified substitute Audrey Gerbaud. “What we see with the repetition of the facts is that he is improving, she adds. It also suggests that his awareness seems quite light, with a risk of recurrence which seems high to me.
Altered behavior
The portrait of this frail young man with long curly hair darkened significantly over the course of the hearing. He had been identified in the surveys by his telephone number – rare configuration errors -, his boasting or the archives of his spoofing software, this process to deceive the recipient of a call about the caller. The lawyer for this notorious cheater, handicapped by serious health problems, first painted the picture of a fragile person with “frankly altered behavior”, according to the terms of a last psychiatric report indicating schizophrenic psychosis.
But this defense was complicated by silent laughter – a nervous reflex according to the defendant – at the mention of some of the alleged offenses. Finally, before the prosecution informs the court of the reasons for his last police custody, several weeks ago. This hearing followed the purchase of five kilograms of explosive materials to manufacture, assures Yannox, simple firecrackers. “He is someone who is steeped in a racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic ideology, and who wants to attack institutions or sow terror in individuals,” warns Me Philippe Gonzalez de Gaspard, Ubisoft’s lawyer, one of the victims.
Traumatic swatting
The video game studio had already condemned the young Ile-de-France for rotting parts of Rainbow Six. This time, the company returned to the benches of the civil parties following several swatting attempts attributed to Yannox. The first, that of November 13, 2020, had traumatized its employees in Montreal. This false hostage-taking, supposedly carried out by five armed men, had led to a major police intervention, the evacuation of the employees as well as the children received at the daycare.
Gaël, in a letter read to the hearing, reported for example an “incredibly stressful day” and “eight hours of hell” punctuated by the anguish of relatives. The company had quantified its damage at 1.4 million euros, a sum that it spent by loss and profit by limiting itself to requesting a symbolic euro.
Gain Twitter Followers
The Cned, also the victim of a denial of service attack attributed to Yannox, asked him for 40,000 euros in compensation for his damage. In April 2021, when France had just entered its third confinement, the first days of the distance learning service, “My class at home”, had been hampered by denial of service attacks.
Questioned at the hearing, the defendant admitted to having been behind one of his denial of service attacks, explaining that he wanted to “gain followers on twitter” by surfing on these malicious actions which were causing buzz. Before minimizing its role: the thousand-second attack operated was only a “glass of water thrown into the ocean”.
Disputed charges
Most of the other offenses were challenged on the stand. Accused of having tried to extort 20 euros from an Internet user victim of a hacking of his Snapchat account, Yannox assures that it was not him. Prosecuted for other swatting against a high school, a police station, or even a gendarmerie, he claims not to remember or evokes the action of a third party. “At this time, I was sleeping”, disputes for example the defendant. “It’s your phone number, no one uses it when you sleep”, is surprised the president of the court.
Defending himself for having wanted to intimidate the targets of swatting, Yannox finally explained that he had not measured the consequences of this kind of call. “I didn’t think anyone would believe me,” he adds. A reasoning undermined by the chronology of certain acts, as with this attempted scam against a resident of Aubervilliers. According to the prosecution, after failing to take control of his bank account, Yannox retaliated by swatting his victim.
Deliberate on July 3
An alternation between denials and half-confessions that disappointed. “We expected a lot from this hearing, but we remain unsatisfied, it is not really explained”, regrets Me David Bachalard, the lawyer for a company, Fuze III. “We just know that he is angry with us because he could no longer clone objects” in the game, points out the lawyer.
This company, which manages a Minecraft server, had been the victim of denial of service attacks. His Discord had previously been drowned in private messages sent en masse, a dubious mixture of Islamist videos featuring beheadings and pornographic images which was not charged to the defendant for lack of evidence. “It is not because he knows how to make denial of service attacks that he is at the origin of all of them”, recalls the defense lawyer, Armando Frignati, before pleading for a sentence. principal of socio-judicial follow-up. Judgment will be rendered on July 3, 2023.