http://www.adn.com:80/stories/T98121706.html
Thursday, December 17, 1998
Airman accused of being hacker
Anchorage Daily News
By NATALIE PHILLIPS
Daily News reporter
An Elmendorf airman was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on
charges that he hacked into two U.S. Air Force computers at the base.
A hacker was detected on Nov. 12 by what the Air Force calls an "intrusion
detection system." The system immediately alerted the Air Force Computer
Emergency Response Team. An emergency team analyst then monitored the
hacking as it occurred, according to the indictment.
"The analyst notified personnel at Elmendorf, who verified the attack as
an unauthorized intrusion," according to the indictment.
Using a "numeric identifier" assigned to every computer that logs onto the
Internet, law officials were able to trace the "attack" to a local
Internet service provider and eventually to the home computer of Airman
1st Class Michael Scott Moody.
Moody was indicted on one count of unauthorized access to a computer and
one count of interception of wire or electronic communications. Moody will
be served with a summons to appear in court sometime in mid-January. If
found guilty of the offenses, Moody faces up to six years in prison and
fines up to $350,000, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Cooper said.
Moody could not be reached for comment.
Cooper would not identify what kind of information the suspect was looking
at on the Elmendorf computers.
"It is very difficult to catch these folks," Cooper said. "They are very
bright, able people, and one of the techniques they use is deleting their
footprints."
The software the hacker used to break into the military's computers can
easily be found on the Internet, he added.
Internet service providers usually control a range of several hundred to
thousands of numeric identifiers, which they assign to customers. Once law
officials determined that the hacker subscribed to Absolute Internet in
Anchorage, they obtained the equivalent of a search warrant to search the
business's records to find the hacker.
"It is the first time in our history we have given out user information to
anyone," said Jay Burns, general manager at Absolute Internet. "Privacy is
paramount to us. We required the federal warrant."
Burns said Absolute Internet immediately cut off Moody's account.
"He is no longer a customer," Burns said. "Clearly all of our users are
subject to state and federal laws."
* Reporter Natalie Phillips can be reached at nphillips@adn.com
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Received on Sat Dec 26 12:38:10 1998