I actually understand 12 year olds in this context quite well, since i’ve been working in k-12 IT support for 7 1/2 years, at a company that specializes in k-12 IT support. I’ve been directly involved in foiling a number of child hackers, and I know about what ages they start to attempt nefarious things and what ages they begin succeeding.
People have a wildly inflated idea of what children are capable of with technology primarily because of their own unfamiliarity with it. Any little thing seems impressive to them, so if the child seems like a natural with using an ipad(a user friendly device) surely they could hack the pentagon!? Except that is fiction, something from a kids movie or tv show.
Even if they are one of the child prodigies who really is that advanced, it still takes a lot of resources to carry out a successful DDOS on a large and hardened target. It either takes money to buy access to those resources, or it takes more knowledge than a child is going to garner from a couple of youtube videos.
“ANYways, the actual point of all this is, don’t go posting links (or be surprised at others that do) as it’d only magnify an offender’s impact otherwise it’ll just ripple outwards, and you’d just end up aiding them rather than stopping them.”
But does it really? If you notice, i’m not posting any links myself. I don’t think i would be accomplishing anything by doing it, but I am really skeptical that anyone is being aided or any serious harm is likely from people who are.