This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. Send mail to mimeat_private for more info. --=====================_13462293==_.ALT Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.990116174410.21813Uat_private> Forwarded From: "B.K. DeLong" <bkdelongat_private> 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.'' --=====================_13462293==_.ALT-- -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Internet Security Institute [www.isi-sec.com]
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