US Busts Military Network Hacker

yorgasor writes " KATU has an article announcing the case of a mysterious hacker who has broken into roughly 100 military networks has been solved. The hacker is a British citizen and authorities were considering extradition for the case. Although no networks containing classified information were compromised, they do consider the hacker to be a professional rather than recreational due to the large number of networks he hacked."

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[Anonymous Cowdog]

Here's a link to the story on Yahoo!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/ 20021111/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/hacker_investigation_1

Re:This is not 'hacking'

[lpontiac]

thats what breaking into the US millitary is, terrorism

No, it isn't. Terrorism is the use of violence and/or threats to frighten a civilian population, to coerce or punish them.

Re:100 Sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Anybody have any good stories of catching elusive hackers, or insights into how they might have got him?

The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll is an engaging story of a grad student assigned to track down a 75 cent discrepency in computing resources. He eventually uncovers a ring of crackers working out of Germany for the KGB.

Read a review .

Another re-write of the language?

[Zemran]

Professional (adj) - practicing for a livelihood.

Either this person was making his money from this (which I doubt) or this is another case of "they don't know the what they are saying".

Just like the abuse of the words "theft" and "pirate" in relation to software when no one is permenantly deprived of anything.

These terms are being misused, not out of ignorance (although the ignorance is obvious) but out of a desire to create a false impression and make the crime seem worse than it is.

Re:Punish those responsible...

[PhxBlue]

Well-said!

I'll add--the reason this guy didn't get into any classified information is because the military doesn't store classified information on the NIPRNet, that is, Unclassified but sensitive Internet Protocol Router Network. This NIPRNet is the Internet that DARPA originally developed and that everyone here uses today. Classified information is transmitted only along a SIPRNet, or Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, which is not actually connected to the public Internet.

Releasing or altering classified information would almost certainly require physical access to one of the computers that's already linked to the military SIPRNet. If the rest of the computers across the military are protected in similar fashion to the ones where I work--behind a foot-thick wall of steel with armed guards stationed at the entrances--I feel pretty good about the security of our classified information networks.