Archetyp Links

Open this photo in gallery: Most Wanted: Teen Hacker follows the investigation of Aleksanteri “Julius” Kivimäki's cybercrimes.Crave All the cybersecurity training in the world wouldn’t prepare the average person for an attack by Aleksanteri “Julius” Kivimäki. After all, not even American Airlines, PlayStation or Elon Musk saw him coming. How could they, given that the hacker was just a 13-year-old living in his parents’ house in Finland when he started his 11-year crime spree? Most Wanted: Teen Hacker is a Max documentary series (streaming on Crave in Canada) that digs into Kivimäki’s crimes, which date back to 2010, and presents them with modern context. Over four episodes, the show provides incredible insight and details from the FBI agents and international law enforcement that investigated him, journalists and cybercrime experts, and fellow hackers who found themselves on the receiving end of the criminal’s wrath. For all of the voices featured in the docuseries, the most impressive access is Kivimäki himself. Award-winning filmmaker Sami Kieksi nabbed in-depth interviews with the now-adult subject from a maximum-security prison in Finland. These snippets paint a picture of a bored teen who found and then tormented online communities through targeted attacks, doxing and swatting. At times Kivimäki seems bored with the questions, other times boastful. His disdain for the law enforcement he also tormented is clear, although his motives for other reported crimes are murky. Even though it’s been at least a year and a half since the man has been near a computer, it’s impossible not to see the connections to current cybercrimes and how he influenced a new wave of cybercrime investigators. What to watch this weekend: CBC Gem’s Rise of the Raven is a fascinating historical romp, and The Morning Show returns to Apple TV+ Another colourful voice featured throughout is Blair Strater, who claims to be Kivimäki’s “favourite punching bag” since Strater was 20 years old. The fellow hacker recalls his seeming friendship with Kivimäki that turned toxic, resulting in years of legal issues and emotional distress for Strater and his family members, some of whom had to create brand new identities and lives for themselves as a result. Strater doesn’t hold back in his interviews and adds some of the best one-liners to the series. Given the vast number of crimes Kivimäki reportedly committed, it’s impossible to put them all into context. However, the episodic structure does a decent job of depicting the jaw-dropping work at hand. In the first episode, we learn about the 50,000-plus attacks a 17-year-old Kivimäki was convicted of in 2015. He received a controversial, two-year suspended prison sentence. In the second instalment, the narrative shifts to swatting (making prank calls to emergency services to bring a SWAT team to a certain address), and the hacker’s involvement in founding the harmful practice. By episode three, it’s impossible not to recognize the magnitude of Kivimäki’s continued crimes, nor the evolution of them. Hacking into Elon Musk’s Twitter account was child’s play. The series explains how Kivimäki was able to shut down the Xbox Live and PlayStation networks one Christmas Eve, ruining the holiday for thousands of kids. Or how he forced an airplane to make an emergency landing with a bomb threat because one of his enemies was on the plane and he wanted to create chaos. More television: Five uplifting shows to help ease the end-of-summer doldrums The series wraps with a look at Kivimäki’s biggest and most devastating crime to date: The 2020 incident in which he blackmailed some 33,000 psychotherapy patients and became one of Europe’s Most Wanted. He was eventually found in Paris living under a false identity, charged with more than 9,000 counts of disseminating information violating personal privacy and more than 20,000 counts of attempted aggravated extortion. At least one suicide was linked to the case. Kivimäki denies the charges, but was found guilty last year and sentenced to six years in prison under Finland’s lenient laws. He now plans on appealing the sentence, while others are vocal about how the man deserves more. It’s those voices that ultimately stick with you in the end, reminding us that while cybercrimes may seem faceless, they have devastating effects on millions of people globally. There are plenty of true crime docs that amplify the voices of murderers to better understand their impact on humanity, but the long-term effects of cybercrimes and the contextualization of those who commit them are still largely unexplored. In that sense alone, Teen Hacker couldn’t come at a better time.