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Hacker Sentenced to Prison
by James Glave and John Gartner
7:00 p.m. 22.Feb.99.PST
A Rhode Island hacker who broke into universities, disabled Internet
services, and ran a Web site for hackers will have to break through more
than firewalls after receiving a one- year federal prison sentence.
US District Judge Patti Saris recommended Sean Trifero, 21, of Middleton,
Rhode Island, spend 12 months in a boot camp and ordered he pay US$32,650
in damages to the institutions he violated.
During 1996 and 1997, Trifero broke into computers at Harvard University,
damaged servers at Amherst College, and stole passwords and disrupted
services at numerous sites in Alaska, Nebraska, and Florida.
Trifero pled guilty to computer-hacking charges in October 1998 and
admitted running a hacking-group Web site called Virii.
Colleagues of Trifero who contributed to the site said his sentence was
too harsh. "Let the punishment fit the crime. Rapists don't get that much
time," said a colleague who identified himself as Calldan, a 21-year-old
from Oregon.
Fellow hackers familiar with Trifero's actions said he was a scapegoat for
other hackers' crimes and poorly secured Web sites.
"If you leave your car parked in Harlem with it running and walk away, do
you expect it to be there in an hour?" said a hacker identified as
Neverend. The interview was conducted in Internet Relay Chat, a medium
where identities can easily be concealed or forged.
Calldan added that any competent system administrator could have stopped
the attacks within five minutes.
"I think [the sentence] was appropriate," said Bill Fread, director of
information technology at Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, one of the
companies that was compromised. In a telephone interview, Fread said
although the damage to his company was limited, hackers need to be
deterred. "There is a level of trust on the Internet, and it never hurts
to use a hammer to reinforce that trust from time to time."
Fread said the hacked server was a test server outside the firewall and
did not contain sensitive information. Fread said Trifero used known entry
methods and was not viewed as particularly expert.
The criminal investigation was a cooperative effort between the US
attorney's office, the FBI, the Middletown Police Department and the
Inspector General of NASA.
-o-
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Received on Thu Mar 11 17:27:43 1999