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T-Moblile Cracker Pleads Guilty

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-directly-to-jail dept.

hackajar writes "The Register is reporting Nicholas Lee Jacobsen plead guilty to cracking into T-Mobile's phones. He was picked up in mid October of last year in the "Operation Firewall" sweep by the FBI. He faces "maximum five years' prison and a $250,000 fine" according to the site."

20 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Summary is misleading... by FrYGuY101 · · Score: 5, Informative
    He cracked into the network, not just phones... from TFA:
    Nicholas Lee Jacobsen accessed US Secret Service email, obtained customers' passwords and Social Security numbers, and downloaded candid photos taken by Sidekick users, including Hollywood celebrities, as we reported in January.
    --
    "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."

    - Seneca
    1. Re:Summary is misleading... by mboverload · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It is one thing to crack into a network. Stealing social security numbers and personal photos is another, however.

      Other than the "respect" we give him for being able to pull it off, he had no noble intensions in mind what so ever. This man deserves none of our, or your, sympathy.

    2. Re:Summary is misleading... by blowdart · · Score: 5, Funny

      he had no noble intensions in mind what so ever

      Whereas if he'd managed to use the intrustion to delete every single custom ringtone off every connected mobile he would have been sainted. :)

    3. Re:Summary is misleading... by DaRiachu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Always the subject of debate, eh?

      Why not just call 'em all hackers and let things like adjectives sort 'em out.

      Oh, wait! That'd get people to stop being righteously indignant, and we can't have that. :(

    4. Re:Summary is misleading... by milletre · · Score: 4, Funny

      Uhhhm, yes, the _crackers_ that crack viruses deserve no respect. Uhhhm, yes, the crackers that expose mal/spyware deserve no respect. Yes, the crackers that crack commercial drivers to find out how hardware should be programmed deserve no respect. Etc, to infinity.



      Please, let's leave race out of this.

    5. Re:Summary is misleading... by digitalchinky · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Perhaps the easiest way to access the cellular network is via the microwave link they normally have on each cell site. The transmission from there is typically just a standard T1, 24 channels, few bits of overhead - a couple of channels handle the SS7, the rest are devoted to the (unencrypted) vocoders from each active mobile telephone.

      You can learn a lot just from the SS7 packet stream - including text messages and phone numbers, imsi's and other data (SS7 can get pretty complicated, it has a standard, but phone companies usually twist it a little for their own usage)

      There are codecs available online for most transmissions - GSM is usually a 16kbps signal, bust it out and it rasters at around 180 bits wide (from memory) - hook on to the sinc and feed it in to your demux real time - There are probably off the shelf scanners that do all of this these days.

      Those small microwave dishes are either pointed at an exchange, or another cell site - find one going to an exchange and you'll get more data to sift through. They transmit at around about 2GHz so you'll need a receiver, downconverter, modem, and some type of capture card for your trusty little portable Pee Cee.

      Not cheap, but not impossible. (Make sure to buy two of each or you'll be marked as a 'spy' or terrorist straight off the bat) All of this stuff can fit in to one of those silver metal camera cases.

      I'm not making any of this up either :-)

  2. Few thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    As I recall, he wasn't picked up in the Operation Firewall sweep (although he would have been), instead, he turned himself in several days before the arrests.

    Secondly, the maximum five year/$250,000 fine thing is standard for a single felony. In all likelyhood he will get MUCH less, especially because he cooperated and plead guilty.

  3. Secret Service! by mboverload · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Nicholas Lee Jacobsen accessed US Secret Service email...

    Why the hell are the secret service sending unencrypted emails (!!!) other a PUBLIC, wireless phone system. I don't like our president or anything, but he deserves more than some hack jobs practically advertising themselves to the world.

    1. Re:Secret Service! by digitalchinky · · Score: 5, Informative

      A great deal of inter-organisation banter is considered 'unclassified' so it makes sense to use public systems that are already in place - saves money all round. Also workers will send personal stuff like banking and email to friends and family, it's got to leave the 'secret service' building somewhere.

      I seriously doubt he got anything hard core. Air Gap - (and no, I did not say WiFi gap)

  4. Operation Firewall by mboverload · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is an article about Operation Firewall. Interesting that wikipedia does not yet have an entry on it... http://www.viruslist.com/en/news?id=154205192

  5. Better article by mboverload · · Score: 4, Informative
    This article has WAY more information. Great read

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/12/hacker_pen etrates_t-mobile/

  6. Punish him constructively by [cx] · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Make him work unpaid with only room and board as a slave for T-Mobile as a security technician.

    Oh yeah..slavery...

    I guess it's not such a good idea, but without the bad past of slavery, but incarceration is just a waste of money, when he could be using his "talent" positively. By forcing them to atone for their crimes perhaps they will learn the error of their ways by dealing with (in this case) people trying to crack the same security network he is now trying to secure.

    Monitor him, which will probably cost less than the prison fees. He is not a danger to society, he is just simply someone who overstepped their legal boundary. I believe prison should be for violent criminals. Not that he will go to a real tough prison.

    But if he screws up in the program outside of prison as rehabilitation, then he would be sent to a maximum security prison to serve the sentence to the end.

    [cx]

  7. 'Honest, Judge... by Sensible+Clod · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought I was accessing my WiFi AP. Its SSID was T-Moblile!"

    --

    The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
  8. Re:Get a clue, idiot. by DeepHurtn! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, it is going to happen to some extent anywhere, but the thing is that there seems to be a culture of tolerance and acceptance of it in the States. It's expected. I can never believe that rape is something that is just casually joked about in the US. Also, many states have severe overcrowding with understaffed and undertrained security. That certainly doesn't help.

  9. Throw the book at him... by ttys00 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... and hope nobody realises that if this guy can read secret service emails by himself, foreign government intelligence agencies (ie. whatever the KGB is called these days) with more resources and more staff must be finding it laughably easy.

  10. Re:T-Moblile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's "vendetta"

    HTH
    The Society For Correct Spelling.

  11. Re:no way, jose by mboverload · · Score: 4, Insightful
    No way. Even for a hacker restricting computer use is WAY too far. Computers are a part of life that one can not avoid. It would be like restricting the use of the kitchen because you hurt someone with a knife.

    As for your comment about fuck up once and your out, keep in mind many convictions are of innocent people. Also, the only way to start to get these people into society is to get them JOBS! Give them a meaning to life and a way to support it. I know I would want help if I ever fell into crime. To humans purpose is extremely important. Onc eyour in jail long enough you just loose all sense of that. I had an uncle in prision and he told me all about how it screws with your mind. He is now legit and all, but some of it still lingers.

  12. Re:ironic, bank lending = counterfeting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    All your dollars are worth-less.... buy gold now @ kitco.com

    If my dollars are worthless why are you going to give me gold for them?

  13. Re:Get a clue, idiot. by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    by offering them a chance to wank off instead of turning into raping each other? by making it less accepted, making the prisons less overcrowed? with that attitude, why do you mind about rapes outside of prison?

    you know, it's not really civil to punish one from selling crack by few years in prison and 88 assrapes - it would be considered quite uncivilised if it was said out loud like that in court(it would be torture! or death sentence if you manage to get hiv). for a country that prides on having standard freedom and rights for all it's quite backwards to be thinking that you lose them the second someone deems you guilty.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  14. A mere pittance by QCompson · · Score: 5, Funny

    $250,000? That's nothing! At least he wasn't caught sharing four or five songs...