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- Peninsula Hackers Busted
- Uploaded by Elric of Imrryr
- Lunatic Labs News & Archieve Deptment
-
- Friday, July 26, 1985
- Millbrae police arrest alleged teen 'hackers'
- by John Curry - Times Staff Writer
- MILLBRAE -- A telephoned bomb threat to the White House early this summer led to
- the arrest Wednesday (7224) of two teen-age "computer hackers" in Millbrae,
- police report.
- The youths, 17 and 14, allegedly had hacked into access lines by computer and
- made phone calls all over the world. So far, the tab to Pacific Bell and MCI is
- over $10,000, police Sgt. Ron Caine said.
- The investigation began with the hacked phone call to the White House,
- leading federal authorities there to ask American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T)
- to back-trace the call. When it was determined where the call came from, the
- lines were monitored and evidence of phone fraud came out, Caine said.
- "They apparently have some very sophisticated equipment in Washington
- and they can do things like that," Caine observed.
- The White House call was traced to a teleconference system that included as
- many as 59 illegal users, investigators reported.
- "They were just shocked that we had any knowledge of it," Detective Ray
- Celeste added. "The parents, of course, did not have any idea what their kids
- were doing."
- Police seized the youths' computers, an illegal hacking program and a
- homemade "blue box" that can simulate the tones made by puch-button telephone
- users, Celeste said.
- The object was to hack into someone's access code by computer, with the calls
- then to be billed to that someone else's number, Caine said. The 1.5 month
- investigation by federal and AT&T officials resulted in a 24-page search
- warrant documenting every call the boys allegedly had made up to that point, he
- added. The total could increase because there may have been other calls made
- this week since the search warrant was prepared, Caine went on.
- The hacking program was used to try up to 3,000 phone numbers and access codes
- per day to see what numbers could be abused, Celeste said.
- The boys were arrested at their homes and released back to their parents
- pending juvenile court action, Caine said. They could face charges of
- computer crime and telephone fraud, the officers said. Caine noted also that the
- parents could be held liable for the costs of the phone calls.
- This was not the Peninsula's first experience with alleged high-school
- hackers. In December 1984, police followed up on a tip that three
- Burlingame youths had invaded the GTE Sprint computer system via a "blue box"
- to use it without paying toll charges. The trio's phone lines were monitored
- for two weeks while they ran up over $500 worth of calls to the East Coast.
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