WAR:Reprinted from Government Computer News

   YOUTH FINED $300 IN FIRST TEST OF VA.'S CRIME LAW By Suzanne Scott
and Lynne M.Constantine

   In one of the first prosecutions under Virginia's 1984 comprehensive
computer crimes law, a 14-year-old boy was ordered to make restitution
for $300 in damages sustained by a Fairfax County computerized
bulletin-board system operator when the boy broke into the system and
erased a substantial part of the stored data.

   Virginia's long and complex Computer Crimes Act of 1984 provides
relatively stiff penalties to discourage mischief making and unthinking
criminal trespass as well as the more calculated, purposeful and
selective erasures, such as when people enter a financial institution's
computer in an attempt to alter credit or other financial data.

   Under the statute, the boy's removal of the bulletin board files,
which he intended to exchange with friends, was an act of criminal
trespass.

   The boy's story sounds similar to other cases of illicit hacking
cited in the Virginia Assembly's discussion preceding passage of the
statute - a combination of youthful computer wizardry and childish
arrogance.

   On Jan. 5, 1985, the boy, who referred to himself as "Phineas
Phreak" and whose name has not been released because he is a juvenile,
place a call from his Montgomery County, MD. phone to the number for
the Washington Networks computer bulletin board service, operated
part-time by Allen Knapp out of his Vienna, Virginia home.

   The BBS requires a password for entry; Knapp provides that password
to anyone who pays $10. But "Phineas Phreak" managed to enter the
system without a password.

   Once his computer was connected to Knapp's, the boy discovered a
programming error that allowed him access to Knapp's own special
password, used to perform maintenance and other chores on the bulletin
board service. With this password, "Phineas Phreak" erased a large part
of Knapp's storage file and transferred "one or more" files to his own
home computer. Knapp estimated the loss at about 180 hours of
programming and tracking time.

   After capturing several of Knapp's files, the boy called Knapp's
telephone answering machine and made "ransom demands," spelling out
conditions under which he would return the files. That answering
machine message, however, allowed the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone
Co. to trace the call, and the boy was arrested. The boy was charged
with a misdemeanor under that section of the computer crimes statute
designed to discourage erasing or altering computer data. Because of
his age, he was allowed to plead "not innocent" - a plea that allows a
juvenile to avoid having a permanent criminal record if he stays out of
trouble.

   He was sentenced in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations
Court to one year of inactive probation and ordered to pay $300 dollars
in restitution out of money he earns himself to compensate Knapp for
damages.

   Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney V. Britt Richardson, who prosecuted
the case, said he would have pressed for conviction and perhaps also a
suspended jail sentence if the offender had been an adult. Otherwise,
the handling of such cases would be similar regardless of the
offender's age. "Under the statue, an adult offender would have been
required to make restitution, just as the juvenile must," said
Richardson.