> Big Pipes’ Allison Nixon says she hopes that softer tactics like those can intercept would-be booter service operators early, before they start committing felonies: She’s found that most booter operators start as customers before launching their own service. But for people who aren’t dissuaded by those interventions, she says, Big Pipes and its partners at the FBI will still be watching them.

> “The hope is that this whole show of force will convince some of them to quit and get a real job,” Nixon says. “We want to send a message that there are people tracking you. There are people paying attention to you. We have our eyes on you, we might get you next. And it might not even be on Christmas.”

So the honeypots sound like a sort of catch-and-release strategy to scare kids before they start their own DDoS enterprises.