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At 16, he is accused of launching a campaign of online harassment that authorities allege spanned three provinces and eight U.S. states.

Yet while the dozens of criminal charges against him made headlines in May, it has been the past week and a half that has truly thrust the suburban Ottawa teenager into the spotlight.

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In that time, a mysterious hacker has emerged to take down the City of Ottawa website and other sites and threaten further online vandalism — all, the hacker claims, in the name of helping the accused teen.

Who is this hacker? Who is the teenager? They are not the same person, insist the hacker and the boy’s father.

The hacker goes by the name “Aerith” and has a consuming interest in the case of the Barrhaven teen. Little else is known about him, or her.

The teenager, in the charges made public in May, is accused of offences relating to what’s known as swatting, or making prank calls to send emergency responders to bogus locales. The charges have not been proven in court.