OSTON (AP) [5.19.98] An Argentine computer hacker pleaded
guilty Tuesday to breaking into a Harvard University computer
to gain access to U.S. military documents.
Under the plea agreement, Julio Cesar Ardita will serve three
years probation in Argentina and pay a $5,000 fine.
According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Ardita returned to
the United States voluntarily from his native Argentine to
face charges of illegal wiretapping and computer crimes.
"If we aren't vigilant, cyber crime will turn the Internet into
the Wild West of the 21st century," Attorney General Janet Reno
said. "The Justice Department is determined to pursue
cyber-criminals at home and abroad."
More than a year ago federal agents used the first ever court-ordered
wiretap of a computer network to track down the the 23-year-old
computer science student and son of a former Argentine military
officer.
During the summer of 1995, the defense department noticed several
intrusions into military and university computer systems containing
sensitive information. The intrusions, which occurred from July 12 to
Dec. 28, 1995, were traced to an Internet host computer at Harvard
University.
In that November and December, a court-ordered wiretap was
placed on a computer run by Harvard University's Faculty of
Arts and Sciences on the Internet.
Ardita's computer and files were seized in December by order
of Argentine Federal Judge Wilma Lopez.
Law enforcement officers have done surveillance without a
wiretap order on computer systems that warn users their
communications might be monitored, but Harvard's system
didn't have such a warning.
Authorities said Ardita broke into the Harvard computer first
in August 1995, stole passwords from some of its 16,500
legitimate users and used the computer to penetrate military,
NASA and other university computers on the Internet.
Ardita also illegally accessed computers at the California
Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts and
Northeastern University, as well as sites in Korea, Mexico,
Taiwan, Chile and Brazil, authorities said.
His activities were first detected at the Naval Command Control
and Ocean Surveillance Center, which contained information on
aircraft design, radar technology and satellite engineering.
A government computer program called Eyewatch searched all
communications on the Harvard computer for Ardita's telltale
trademarks so investigators could pick them out to read.
Ardita regularly referred to himself as "el griton," Spanish
for "the screamer," and referred to his electronic bulletin
board of the same name.
He had used the same name years earlier on another electronic
bulletin board which was posted on the Internet.
Authorities said Ardita accessed some sensitive information on
satellites, radiation and energy, but said none was vital to
national security.
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Received on Wed May 20 08:33:36 1998