A Portuguese man was shocked to find that his 17-year-old son had used his eBay account to place a 21,000 pounds winning bid for a server previously used by WikiLeaks.
The teen won the bid to buy the server from Bahnhof, a Swedish internet service provider which had hosted WikiLeaks for about eight months in 2010, and was offering it to raise money for charity.
John Karlung, CEO of the company, received a message from a person soon after the auction closed, saying that his son had the item without his knowledge and he wanted the deal to be cancelled, 'The Independent' reported.
"My son is 17 years old and is crazy about conspiracy theory," the father, an industrial maintenance worker wrote in emails to Karlung.
The boy initially bid 6,500 pounds for the server, before bidding seven more times, to win the auction with a 21,000 pounds bid, according to eBay.
Bahnhof said it had wiped any data from the server and was selling it as an historical artefact.
However, WikiLeaks claimed that Banhof had exaggerated the significance of the server, and tweeted their disapproval.
"We do not support Bahnhof exploiting the privacy and good name of their clients for marketing purposes," the organisation said on their Twitter account.
Unfortunately for the eager teen, Banhof has cancelled the deal and the server will now be sold to the second highest bidder for 20,800 pounds.
