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A schoolgirl learning online (symbolic picture)
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Because he is said to have disrupted online classes, cybercrime investigators had the apartment of a 21-year-old YouTuber in Augsburg searched on Wednesday.
The accused is said to have dialed into homeschooling lessons without authorization, disrupted the lessons with provocations and then distributed a recording via the streaming platform YouTube.
According to SPIEGEL information, the investigators consider the 21-year-old to be the operator of a YouTube channel in which numerous disruptive actions from digital lessons are shown.
In a video compilation published there, almost two dozen disruptive attacks on online lessons in various classes are shown within a few minutes.
The videos can be heard playing recorded insults and loud music and provoking teachers with chants and heckling.
The YouTuber, who had previously uploaded joke and prank videos on other topics, describes his actions as "storming" online lessons.
He says he installed various online conference apps on his cell phone.
In the past few weeks there have been numerous disruptions from online lessons across Germany.
In one case, a stranger posted nude pictures on a learning platform that were shown to an eight-year-old student.
In other cases, learning platforms or school clouds were temporarily paralyzed by overload attacks.
The raid that has now been carried out on the YouTuber is the first publicly known case in which investigators have been able to identify a suspected perpetrator of such disruptive actions.
Investigations against students
In order to gain access to the school video conferences, the YouTuber had asked his viewers to send him access data for their lessons.
In the case of a middle school in Unterallgäu, a 14-year-old student is therefore also being investigated because he is said to have passed on the dial-in data for his online lessons to the YouTuber.
Regular lessons were no longer possible in the case, said the investigating public prosecutor's office in Bamberg.
The YouTuber is being investigated in several cases because of the violation of the confidentiality of the word.
Fines or imprisonment of up to three years are provided for this.
"On the verge of a serious crime"
The criminal police in Memmingen and the public prosecutor's office in Bamberg are responsible for the raid.
"Well-functioning online lessons are particularly important at the moment, which is why we, as cybercrime investigators, take these incidents seriously," says Chief Public Prosecutor Thomas Goger.
"In many of these cases we are on the verge of a student prank to a serious crime," said Goger.
The central office Cybercrime Bavaria, which is located at the Bamberg Public Prosecutor's Office, has bundled all investigations into attacks on homeschooling throughout Bavaria.
After the raid, the 21-year-old YouTuber from Augsburg is unlikely to be expected to further disrupt online lessons for the time being: The investigators have confiscated the suspect's computer and mobile phone.
In order to protect against attacks on the classroom, it is advisable for teachers to activate the waiting room function in the video conference programs.
You can read here how this works in the case of the Zoom program.
Other programs usually offer comparable options.
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