Indian teen arrested in US for cyber attack choking 911 lines

November 1, 2016

San Francisco, Nov 1: An Indian-origin teenager has been arrested in the US for carrying out a cyberattack that swamped Arizona's emergency services with several bogus calls, an incident he claimed was a non-harmful joke gone wrong.meetkumar

Meetkumar Hiteshbhai Desai was taken into custody after the Surprise Police Department, Arizona, notified the Sheriff's Office of more than 100 hang-up 911 calls.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office arrested the 18-year-old, accusing him of carrying out a cyberattack on the 911 system, according to a Sheriff's Office statement.

Desai was booked into a Maricopa County jail on suspicion of three counts of computer tampering.

Interference with critical infrastructure could have disrupted the 911 system in the Phoenix area and potentially other states, The Arizona Republic reported.

Investigators traced the calls and discovered they originated from a link posted to Twitter, according to the statement.

The link was to a site named "Meet Desai" and its domain was hosted out of San Francisco. When the link was clicked, it continually called 911 and would not let the caller hang up.

Peoria police and the MCSO also received a large number of calls, and the volume had the potential to shut down 911 service across Maricopa County, the Sheriff's Office said.

MCSO detectives identified 'Meet' and took him in for questioning last Wednesday.

"Meet claims that his intention was to make a non-harmful, but annoying bug that he believed was 'funny'," the Sheriff's Office statement said.

Desai told investigators that he was approached by an online friend with a bug. Desai then tweaked the bug so it would add pop-ups, prompts to open e-mail applications and activation of automatic telephone dialing on iOS devices, all via coding that Desai wrote himself.

Desai told sheriff's detectives that he was interested in programmes, bugs and viruses that he could manipulate and change. Desai said Apple Inc., the hardware and software company, would pay and credit him for discovering such bugs and viruses.

The MCSO cybercrimes unit executed a search warrant and seized multiple items at Desai's residence that will be forensically examined, the Sheriff's Office said.

Comments

naren kotian
 - 
Tuesday, 1 Nov 2016

hahaha madrasa products galige idakku death sentence kodbekanthe ...as per sharia bere anthe ... yaan panpe avu sari ath hahaha ... shariat panda sari ath ... hahaha... pudaar de unduge ,...

first of all he is a computer freek and geek , it is quiet common and he has served apple inc before ... 100% he is brainy ... it is not a terrorist act and more over he doesnot belong to blood thirsty jihadist community ... only immatured madrasa products can demand life long imprisonment ... Inshallah he will be released soon .

Satyameva jayate
 - 
Tuesday, 1 Nov 2016

Why not call him Hidutvas terrorist

hANNI
 - 
Tuesday, 1 Nov 2016

REALY RSS IS TERORIST,IF BJP IS NOT POWER RSS WILL BAN,F THE NOT KILL HEMANTH RSS WILL NOW ALL READY BANED,

suresh
 - 
Tuesday, 1 Nov 2016

If the person from minority communivty then the headline will be cyber attack by terrorists. Now they will give statement as he is psyco patient. This is the double standard.

Mohammed SS
 - 
Tuesday, 1 Nov 2016

well done USA cops these culprits should be behind bars throughout their life

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coastaldigest.com news network
May 13,2020

Mangaluru, May 13: Kannadigas in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have sought additional flights to return to Karnataka during a video conference with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa here on Tuesday.

Noting that most of the ex-pats in UAE were from the coastal region, they urged the state government to ensure that most of these flights land in the Mangalore International Airport.

Many Kannadigas in the UAE were left unemployed due to the lockdown. “Many of them do not have the means to return to Karnataka and the state government should aid them,” representatives of various Kannadiga ex-pat groups urged the CM.

Yediyurappa said that the government has made all arrangements to bring back the ex-pats, and assured to fulfil all their demands.

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coastaldigest.com news network
July 8,2020

Dubai, Jul 8: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has revoked landing permits issued to UAE-based private jets flying Indian expats who are willing to fly back to UAE. With this the operation of private jets from India to the UAE has stopped.

The development comes days after DGCA stopped UAE airlines from chartering repatriation flights to India. 

The DGCA’s decision has come as a huge disappointment for desperate expats who are trying every means possible to return to the UAE, and were shelling out up to Dh15,000 per ticket.
 
All charter flights were operating with the appropriate permissions and clearances for the specific mission, route and destination, said the charterers.

DC Aviation Al-Futtaim, the only integrated VIP handling and hangar facility in DWC, said in an official statement: "As a result of the DGCA suspension of flights into India, our Challenger 604 aircraft which was scheduled to land in Dubai today has been affected."

Afi Ahmed, managing director of Smart Travels, said he has received news from official sources that all approvals for operation of private jets have been barred until July 10.

"Even the flights that had been given approvals stand cancelled. Some flights organised on July 9 have also been grounded," said Ahmed, who was also stranded in Kochi, Kerala, till July 4 but returned home in the UAE on-board Global 6,000, the largest business jet, organised by a Dubai-based aviation company.

Ganesh Rayapudi, a UAE-based businessman who has been trying to organise flights from India to UAE, said: "The government has kept on hold all charters. At least 52 passengers were desperately waiting to come back from Hyderabad on these flights and were willing to collectively cough up Dh400,000."

He added: "I agree that it is unfair to those who cannot afford these prices. However, UAE residents have commitments here; they were tired of waiting and willing to go any lengths, including taking the expensive route."

On July 3, India's DGCA announced via an official circular that scheduled international flights will remain suspended till month-end and only those on a case-to-case basis will be allowed to operate. These flights were suspended on March 22 due to the ongoing pandemic.

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coastaldigest.com news network
February 16,2020

Udupi, Feb 16: A man, who was trapped in 15-feet-deep hole following a landslide during borwell digging work at a remote area in the coastal district, was finally rescued after a prolonged effort today.

The man, identified as Rohit, suffered minor injuries in the incident.

The incident took place at Maravanthe village near Baindur in Udupi district.

Rohit was trapped when the land around borewell was being dug collapsed suddenly. It took around six hours for the rescue workers to rescue him.

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