A B.C. man accused of overwhelming the American social media giant Twitch with an army of spambots now faces an unprecedented charge of “mischief in relation to computer data.”
Brandan Lukus Apple is also subject to an unusual civil order restraining him from creating or selling “any robot, bot, crawler, spider, blacklisting software or other software” aimed at harming the popular streaming service.
’Multiple repetitive messages’
Twitch Interactive hosts more than two million people from around the world who earn money by streaming video-game related content. The site claims to attract 100 million viewers each month, many of whom engage in chats with both Twitch broadcasters and each other in the channel’s margins.
The incident which sparked the criminal mischief charge allegedly happened between February and May of 2017 when thousands of Twitch broadcasters were deluged with a crippling stream of racist, homophobic and otherwise harassing comments.
According to a filing sworn in Port Coquitlam provincial court last month, Apple is accused of “wilfully causing multiple repetitive messages to be transmitted.”
The criminal charge is separate from a B.C. Supreme Court civil action which saw Twitch file a notice of claim last April to stop the 20-year-old from running a web service that promised it could “be used to bomb/spam/flood any TwitchTV chat.”
Volume of spam 'was enormous’
Apple did not file a defence in relation to the civil claim.
The Supreme Court documents describe a spambot as “a computer program used to send unsolicited messages (or spam) via email or other online forums.” They claim that “spambot flooding” renders a broadcaster’s chat service unusable.