Re: Cybercrime IS serious!
The key word is "denial of service".
The random SSH spam hitting your server isn't really denying service, just a nuisance. And, yes, it's also illegal. There's nothing stopping you reporting it but pretty much the answer will be "out of our jurisdiction" or even "not enough effect on the 'victim' to be worth bothering hunting down".
But if you take a website DOWN by doing it, and it's traceable in the UK, and they can prove you did it deliberately (and not just hit the wrong button when typing in an IP while "infinite retry" was on, or whatever), then you should report it.
There's a HUGE difference, though, between random SSH port-hits from known-spammy overseas servers and actually knocking a website offline through a deliberate data overload. Both are technically crimes, as is driving while phoning. You can report as many people as you like for driving while phoning (which I must see 5-10 times a day) but the chances are that even with all the evidence in the world, not much will happen (because the burden of proof is higher than the actual result you'll get and many times you'll spend so much investigating the crime and it will never get to the point where it can be prosecuted). Drive past a police car while doing it, or have an accident because of it, though and it's a very different matter.
Not saying that's *right*. That's just life. And our police already spend half their lives chasing things that they shouldn't need to, without worrying about your SSH pings. But taking down a public website of a politician (or even celebrity, or charity, or organisation, or company - no matter how small) through attacks and DDoS? Yes, that's something I would expect them to investigate, at least.