ANOTHER PLEADS GUILTY IN BOTNET HACKING CONSPIRACY

http://www.daemonnews.org

The following case is about Tomas James and Frederik Jack also Smith's co-defendant, who pleaded guilty for intentionally cause damage to a protected computer and to commit computer fraud. 
According to the information available ,Smith, Thomas and Edward agreed and assisted each other in causing damages, transmission of a program, information, code,or command, by using an Internet Relay Chat.
Smith and Edward also initiated code application  file by the name NETTICK, which had usage to hack into another person's account computer and control the system. 
Smith was the member of online forums like Darmarker and CcpowerForums.com and in 2006 he posted a public message on several forums in which he offered an executable program to control a bonter for $750, or the source code for 41200.
in addition, he used Edward's website kidindustries.net and demonstrated to engage in a distribution denial of service attack by attaching an IP address at an Internet service provider in North Texas. on the same year, Smith and Edward also accessed, without authorization the T35.net user database, which provided free personal and business Internet web-hosting services for thousand of users. The database subjected to hack by Smith and Edward contained confidential user identification and passwords which they downloaded. Moreover, on October 3, 2006, Smith helped Edward in order to defacing the T35 and make the confidential information include user, IDs, and passwords available to public.  
Each of them faces a maximum statutory 5 years in prison, a 250,000 fine and restitution. 
My comment  
The case that it was discussed above,it's authorize and legal use of computer as a tool for doing criminal actions and includes several scenarios: hacking and unauthorized access, defacing which is unauthorized  modification , DOS  or denial of service that all come under computer crime, and they are punishable by law.
One another thing that it needs to be mention here is, when Smith Helped Edward  for defacing T35 , this is the case that is known as Aiding and Abetting and the person who assist is going to be guilty of an offence, the punishment will be the same as that of the principal offender but cannot be more.  


source:
"Another Pleads Guilty in Botnet Hacking Conspiracy - Silobreaker." Welcome - Silobreaker. Web. 08 Nov. 2010. .

Blaine man indicted for hacking into neighbor’s wireless Internet system and posing as the neighbor to email child pornography and threats to the Vice President

http://money.cnn.com

This case is about 45-years old man, Blaine ,who has been guilty for hacking into his neighbor's wireless Internet system and use it to make threat to kill the Vice President of the United States and also Email child pornography. This guy pleaded gulty for different offences including: one court for aggravated identity theft, making threats to president and successors to the presidency, one court for unauthorized access to a protected computer and another court for possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography. 
Base on the information available Blaine in February 2009, hacked into his neighbor's wireless Internet connection and formed a multiple Yahoo.com email accounts in that person's name and in May 6,2009 he used one of those accounts to email the office of the Vice President of the United State and governor and US senator as well. In that Email he stated:

"This is a terrorist threat! Take this seriously. I hate the way you people are

spending money you don’t have.... I’m assigning myself to be judge jury and

executioner. Since you folks have spent what you don’t have it’s time to pay 

ultimate price. Time for new officials after you all are put to death by us"

Blaine used the emails accounts he created in the victim's name to send sexually-themed emails to three of the victim's co-workers too, in addition to that he attached an image containing child pornography. he also created Myspace page in the victim's name, on which he posted the same image of child pornography. 

Adolf faces a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment on the distribution of child pornography, ten years on the pornography possession and five years on both  the unauthorized access to a computer and and a threat to vice president also a  two-year minimum sentence on each count of aggravated identity. 

My comment

this is the case that involve many offence but one thing that is in common in all of the them, is using a computer as a tool to commit a crime against the person and government as well.

Technically speaking, it is kind of crime that is called Spoofing, that is faking the email sender's identity and tricking the target recipient into believing that the e-mail originated from the supposed mail sender.  

source:

Month, By. "Minnesota Man Indicted for Hacking, Threatening Vice President: The Criminal Report Daily : Investigation Discovery." Discovery Networks: Blogs. Web. 07 Nov. 2010. .

DUBLIN WOMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO HACKING EMAIL ACCOUNTS AND DELETING DOCUMENTS IN DOMESTIC RELATIONS DISPUTE

http://www.gohacking.com

Jamie Staley,26 years old, pleaded guilty in United State district for changing the Email passwords without authorization also accessing those account and deleting Emails from them. 
according to the information available, Staley was involved in the case of child support and visitation argue with her child's father and grandparents in 2008 and then in July 2008 Staley decided to hack child's grandmother and deleted emails between grandma and her attorney regarding to th custody and dispute but the email provider notified the grandma of the password change and when she reset the password, she found out some of the emails had been removed. 
at that time FBI started to investigate and determined Staley also accessed to emails, Facebook and Myspace and accounts of 16 people including her child's elementary school teacher.
Staley pleaded guilty for in felony that is punishable by law up to five years. 
My comment
when I read this case I said thanks God that I am not in the place to judge because what she did it was for love to her son but the law is applicable to anyone and when you do something wrong is wrong and a person shall be guilty of an offence if:
1.the person causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer
 2.the access is unauthorized
3.the person knows at the time when she causes the computer to perform the function that is the case. 


source:
"Woman Pleads Guilty To E-mail Hacking, Deleting Case Documents | NBC 4i." Home | NBC 4i. Web. 06 Nov. 2010. .

WOMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO HACKING INTO PRIVATE BOXES ON PERSONAL AD COMPANY COMPUTERS AND THREATENING A CUSTOMER

http://spybusters.blogspot.com

The case that I am going to share today is about the woman, Barbara Denenburg, who pleaded guilty for hacking the ad company and  making death threat against Massachusetts woman who she met through company's personal ad service.
the way that the company works is ,the personal ad goes to the newspaper but instead the reader calls directly, in respond, a reader calls a phone number at the company and leaves a message for the person who put th ad on the newspaper.
Using a computer and from he skill Barbara accessed voice-mail boxes of around 200 people who put the ads on the newspaper and changed the password of 40 of these voice-mails and also greeting 25 of them. following her actions, she harassed number of women through personal ad company among them she began harassing a woman by series of Emails, one of which stated that the victim would be executed by lethal injection. in addition to the emails she sent a package including cardboard tombstone which had been written "RIP" , victim's name, date of birth and "Hated by ... all women everywhere" on it. 
the defendant faced a sentences ,under binding plea agreement,  a time served, 23 months already served, following by three years supervised release and $67000 in restitution. 


My comment
this is kind of crime that at the first place is cyber-crime under property and then cyber-crime against a person with the use of computer such as Emails.
this case involves both Hacking and at the same time Cyber Stalking where the victim got the repeated-threatening Emails and it is punishable by law.
For those that are confuse with biding plea arrangement mentioned in the last paragraph of the caes, it is kind of arrangement in which a prosecutor and defendant arrange to settle the disagreement against defendant. 

Source:"The United States Department of Justice - United States Attorney's Office - District of Massachusetts." Welcome to the United States Department of Justice. Web. 02 Nov. 2010. .

EXTRADITED HACKER SENTENCED TO 10 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR MASTERMINDING FIRST-EVER HACK INTO INTERNET PHONE NETWORKS

http://www.voip-weblog.com

This case is about the very first individual hacker that hacked VOIP service and reselling it for profit.Edwin Andrea Pena 27, penetrated the networks of internet phone providers and transmitted over 10 million minutes of unauthorized telephone calls over the victims's network and selling discounted service to his unsuspecting customers. he was able to offer at such low price because he hacked into the computer networks of suspecting VOIP providers, to route his customers'calls. 

Pena fled the United state in 2006 but the chase ended in 2009 when he got arrested in Mexico.Pena Pleaded guilty for computer hacking and wire fraud. United States Attorney Fishman stated: Theft is theft whether he robs a bank or a network and their services. Hackers should assume if they operate from shadow or other countries the law can not keep up with them.

      

Pena caused a loss of more than $1.4 million around one year for networked based company, moreover Pena admitted the help of others, including, Robert Moore who helped Pena for finding vulnerable network ports. 
Pena with the money that he got from this illegal business purchased real state, new cars, also a 40-foot motor boat under the name of someone else, except one car that the court executed a warrant for Pena's 2004 BMW M3. 
Pena was sentenced three years in the prison and in addition to prison time he also had to pay restitution in the amount of $1,012,311. 


My comment:
There are some points regarding to this case, Firs: as United States Attorney Fishman stated a person can steal and many other criminal activities through cyber-space without having physical existence at the place that he wants to commit a crime and the crime is more complicated to what it used to be, But the law is applicable in cyber space the same as real world. 
Second point  is when Pena fled to Mexico and he got arrested in there and then he was return to US for justice, this is because there is an agreement between tow countries regarding to the this case and similar ones that each side needs to send the person for justice to the country that he had caused damages. 


Source: "Federal Bureau of Investigation - The Newark Division: Department of Justice Press Release."Federal Bureau of Investigation - Newark - Homepage. Web. 02 Nov. 2010. .

Comcast Hackers Sentenced to Prison

http://www.wired.com

Four mans that were associated with the hacker group Kryogeniks ,by the names Lewis, Nebel, Jr.a.k.a and co-defendant, were sentenced to 18 months in prisons. 
the way they commit a crime was ,they used their skills in order to redirect all traffic directed to www.comcast.com to website that they'd designed. Therefore, the customers that intended to read their emails and listen to their Emails redirected to the website that they found this message  “KRYOGENIKS Defiant and EBB RoXed COMCAST sHouTz to VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven.”


The costumers that connected to the website were around 5000 per day and the damages caused by this group of hackers  cost Comcast around $89,578.13 .
The four persons in addition to prison time they punished to pay restitution in the amount that they caused damage.  


My comment
when we talk about Cyber-crime simply we can put them into three categories:
Cyber-crimes against: 1. Person  2. Government  3.property
in this case you can see, it is kind of crime against property which incurred damages to Comcast.
moreover, this is good example of unauthorized modification under property damages that is punishable offence.


Source:Poulsen, By Kevin. "Comcast.net Hijacker Gets 4 Months | Threat Level | Wired.com." Wired News. Web. 02 Nov. 2010. .  


Hacking and cracking are  the most well known among these type of activities. 

A fired Information Technology Director was sentenced to 27 months for hacking employer's website

http://enterpriseblog.net/

In 29th October 2010, Assistant Attorney General Lanny announced "Albert-El pleaded guilty to one count of intentionally damaging a protected  computer belonging to Transmarx LLC without authorization. 
According to the information available Albert-El got fire by Trnsmarx when he was information technology assistance. During his employment he had access to administrative-level information and also computer network, which contain the company website hosted on a computer network in Suwanee. 
He accepted that on 25 July, 2008 used a personal computer an administrator account and password in order to access the computer hosting the Transmarx website.  After he got access, he started the transmission of a series of commands that intentionally made damages,  without authorization to the computer by deleting around 1000 files. Furthermore, he admitted he made the dames because he was angry about got the sack. Albert action caused around $6000 losses to Transmarx.1


My comment


when you read this post the very first thing you would realize is that who and for what purposes the person commit a cyber-crime. there are many different people for different purpose commie a cyber-crime. include: student ,member of organized crime syndicates, terrorist and what apply to this case disenchanted and mad employee and they do commit a crime many different purposes, include: for the purpose of a gain, pleasures or retaliation which for this case the latter one can be applied.
there are two elements that they need to be consider for any case of crime .
1. Intention
2. Knowledge
for this case ,it is obvious that the intention act is to cause damages and loss to the company that he used to work for and also the guy had enough knowledge of computer technology for doing illegal activity.  

1.Source:"Virginia Information Technology Director Sentenced to 27 Months in Prison for Hacking Former Employer’s Website." World News and Headlines at Net News Publisher. Web. 01 Nov. 2010. .