Alleged Gene Simmons web site hacker is arrested

THE ALLEGED HACKER of the web site of Gene Simmons, lead vocalist and bassist for rock band Kiss, has been arrested.

Kevin George Poe, 24, believed to be a member of hacktivist group Anonymous, was arrested in Connecticut on Tuesday and ordered to appear before a Los Angeles court on an unspecified date, according to a report at Reuters.

He is accused of using a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the Genesimmons.com web site over a series of five days in October of last year, flooding it with illegitimate traffic that forced it offline.

Poe allegedly used Anonymous software called the Low Orbit Ion Cannon, a DDoS tool that can be easily downloaded from the internet for free, offering the potential to turn any internet user into an attacker of web sites.

It is not clear why Simmons' web site was targeted, as usually Anonymous goes after political and ideological targets like Sony, Visa, MasterCard, the FBI and CIA, among others. It might be that Poe was operating on his own and had some vendetta against The Demon or was in some way disappointed with the band's latest work.

He faces charges of conspiracy and unauthorised impairment of a protected computer. If convicted, he could serve up to 15 years in prison, a sentence that judges might be inclined to impose to act as a deterrent to other hackers out there. µ