Forwarded From: "B.K. DeLong" <bkdelong@pobox.com>
http://www.gazettenet.com/01151999/news/7881.htm
Computer hacker sent to prison
Friday, January15, 1999 -- (BOSTON -AP) - After being sentenced to prison
for hacking his way into others' computers, a 21-year-old Rhode Island man
said he may start a computer security consulting firm after he's released.
Sean Trifero, who said on the witness stand he used to run the national
computer hacking group known as the Virii, was sentenced Thursday in U.S.
District Court to one year and a day in prison. He pleaded guilty last
October to tapping into five academic and commercial computing systems
without permission in 1996 and 1997. That disrupted on-line services at
Harvard and Amherst colleges, and other places.
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris, who sentenced him, said the $8-an-hour
retailing job he held was a waste of his talents, and suggested he might
teach children how to use computers. ``Other people were charging $50 an
hour to fix the problems you created,'' she told Trifero.
After the sentencing hearing, Trifero said he wants to return to college
after prison, and may start that consulting firm. ``I do want to start a
business of some type,'' he told The Boston Globe. ``It would make sense
to do what I know.''
Saris questioned whether the disruptions and damages Trifero caused
amounted $67,500, as prosecutors claim.
Further hearings will be held on the amount, and Trifero may have to pay
for the damages.
He could have been sentenced to 18 months in prison, but prosecutors
recommended the lesser sentence and agreed he could serve it in a federal
camp, which could mean he will be freed in six months. The judge rejected
a request that Trifero be banned from the Internet, except for work.
Prosecutors said members of Virii bragged of breaking into computers of
NASA and other governmental agencies, and threatening national security
interests.
Two high school students in California who were connected to the Virii
admitted last year that they looked through Pentagon computers. They were
put on probation.
Trifero said the Virii's main aim was to test computer security, and not
to abuse systems.
He said he and others in the Virii intruded into computers, shut down chat
rooms and used abusive language on line.
But, he told the Globe, those activities were not malicious. ``I feel
badly that they couldn't patch up their systems easily,'' he said. ``But
my intention wasn't to steal money out of their pockets. It was to
learn.''
-o-
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Received on Thu Mar 11 17:00:37 1999