Teen Sentenced in Computer Hacking Case

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000921/ts/crime_hacker_dc_1.html

Thursday September 21 4:24 PM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Miami court on Thursday sentenced a 16-year-old
youth to six months in a detention center after he admitted hacking
into military and NASA computer networks, forcing a three-week
shutdown of the space agency's systems, the U.S. Justice Department
said.

The juvenile -- known as ``comrade'' on the Internet -- pleaded guilty
in a Miami district court to two acts of delinquency that, had he been
an adult, would have been violations of federal wiretap and computer
abuse laws, according to a Justice Department statement.

His name was withheld because of his age.

He admitted that between and August and October 1999 he broke into a
military computer network in Dulles, Virginia, used by the Defense
Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which guards against nuclear,
chemical, biological and conventional weapon attacks.

He intercepted more than 3,300 electronic messages and gained at least
19 names and passwords of DTRA employees, including at least 10 on
military computers.

``Comrade'' also hacked into 12 NASA computers located at the Marshall
Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama in June 1999.

He downloaded NASA proprietary software from NASA worth about $1.7
million that supported the International Space Station (news - web
sites), including control of temperature and humidity in the living
quarters.

The data theft led to the shutdown of the NASA computer system for 21
days in July 1999.

``This case, which marks the first time a juvenile hacker will serve
time in a detention facility, shows that we take computer intrusion
seriously and are working with our law enforcement partners to
aggressively fight this problem,'' Attorney General Janet Reno (news -
web sites) said in the statement.

The judgement also requires the youth to write apologies to the
Defense Department and NASA.


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