The FBI have arrested a Texas man for attempting to blow up the internet. Like, the entire internet.
28-year-old Seth Aaron Pendley appeared in court at the weekend after being apprehended by the FBI for conspiring to blow up and destroy the worldwide web. While this may sound like the kind of scheme a Saturday morning cartoon villain might have come up with, there was kind of a logic to it. That's me being extremely generous, mind you.
See, Pendley's plan was apparently to blow up an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centre. As we've seen from the recent fire at the OVH Datacenter in Strasbourg, disruption and damage to these locations can cause quite a bit of chaos. Pendley intended to liberate the USA from "the oligarchy" that he thinks is controlling his country.
It seems Pendley believed this particular data centre housed "70% of the internet", and he wanted to "kill" it. The would-be internet exploder was foiled when a concerned citizen sent a tip to the FBI that Pendley had been boasting of his plans under the username 'Dionysus' - the Greek God of wine and fertility - on MyMilitia.com.
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The user who came forward ultimately ended up working with the FBI to introduce Pendley to an undercover agent via the forums. On April 8 in Fort Worth, Texas, the agent met with the suspect under the guise of an arms dealer before making the arrest. According to reports, Pendley confessed as soon as he was placed in custody.
A statement from the United States Department of Justice notes that one MyMilitia user had asked Pendley what exactly he was hoping to achieve. "Death", was the answer. Pendley faces up to 20 years in federal prison, if convicted.
The lesson here? Don't try to blow up the internet. I'm not sure that's a lesson any of you needed to hear, but there it is, just in case.