The HackerGiraffe Quits Hacking After Immense Pressure and Threats of Prosecution

• The HackerGiraffe states he/she will never touch a computer again, having panic attacks and pressure.
• A detailed Pastebin message lays out the whole picture of the hacker’s psychological situation.
• It remains unclear whether FBI is really after the hacker or not.

The HackerGiraffe, the person behind the recent printers and Chromecast hacks announced his/her decision to quit the white-hat hacking activities in his twitter account, essentially succumbing to extreme pressure imposed by FBI investigations and people threatening the hacker online.

The hacker has written the following message on Pastebin: “So, here we are. At the endgame. I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly, and I'm sorry for all of you who expected more tutorials, guides, or anything. I can't do this. It may not look like it, but the constant pressure of being afraid of being caught and prosecuted has been keeping me up and giving me all kinds of fears and panic attacks. I just wanted to inform people of their vulnerable devices while supporting a YouTuber I liked. I never meant any hard, nor did I ever have any ill intentions. I'm sorry if anything I've done has made you feel under attack or threatened. I guess there is a lesson to be learned here, don't fly too close to the sun and then act like you don't know you'll get burned. Well, here I am, burned and roasted, awaiting my maybe-coming end. I thank you all, thank you all so much for the past month. It's been amazing to see all of you who wanted to learn hacking/cybersecurity. Please do push on, don't give up! Stay safe, stay legal, and most of all, be civil. What will I do now? Probably suffer from this horrible panic for the next few days before I completely lose my mind until either my end comes or this all flies over and I'll probably never touch a computer again.”

From the above message, it is evident that the hacker feels threatened by the authorities, and while his hacking was meant to be “for the fun of it”, as well as to educate people on security matters, his work gained huge publicity on the media. This is likely to have brought the searchlight of FBI and other investigation agencies upon the hacker, as disruption of other people’s devices and data remains illegal no matter the intentions or the severity of the results. Other security researchers and hackers choose to expose vulnerabilities for bug bounty, while reporting them to the concerned companies, but prank hacks are a wholly different thing.

What do you think of HackerGiraffe’s decision? Do you believe that the FBI is really after him? Let us know in the comments below, and also share your thoughts with our online community, on Facebook and Twitter.