Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontierDreyfus, Suelette
Science
Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier
Dreyfus, Suelette
Computer crimes -- Australia; Computer hackers -- Australia -- Biography; Computer security -- Australia
The hacking didn't stop at European Community's computer, Richardson
told the eager crowd of journalists. Wandii had hacked Lloyd's, The
Financial Times and Leeds University. At The Financial Times machine,
Wandii's adventures had upset the smooth operations of the FTSE 100
share index, known in the City as `footsie'. The hacker installed a
scanning program in the FT's network, resulting in one outgoing call
made every second. The upshot of Wandii's intrusion: a [sterling]704
bill, the deletion of an important file and a management decision to
shut down a key system. With the precision of a banker, FT computer
boss Tony Johnson told the court that the whole incident had cost his
organisation [sterling]24871.
But the FT hack paled next to the prosecution's real trump card: The
European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer in
Brussels. They had been left with a [sterling]10000 phone bill as a
result of a scanner Wandii left on its machine,5 the court was told.
The scanner had left a trail of 50000 calls, all documented on a
980-page phone bill.
The scanner resulted in the system going down for a day, EORTC
information systems project manager Vincent Piedboeuf, told the jury.
He went on to explain that the centre needed its system to run 24
hours a day, so surgeons could register patients. The centre's
database was the focal point for pharmaceutical companies, doctors and
research centres--all coordinating their efforts in fighting the
disease.
For the media, the case was headline heaven. `Teenage computer hacker
"caused worldwide chaos"' the Daily Telegraph screamed across page
one. On page three, the Daily Mail jumped in with `Teenage hacker
"caused chaos for kicks"'. Even The Times waded into the fray.
Smaller, regional newspapers pulled the story across the countryside
to the far reaches of the British Isles. The Herald in Glasgow told
its readers `Teenage hacker "ran up [sterling]10000 telephone bill"'.
Across the Irish Sea, the Irish Times caused a splash with its
headline, `Teenage hacker broke EC computer security'.
Also in the first week of the case, The Guardian announced Wandii had
taken down the cancer centre database. By the time The Independent got
hold of the story, Wandii hadn't just shut down the database, he had
been reading the patients' most intimate medical details: `Teenager
"hacked into cancer patient files"'. Not to be outdone, on day four of
the trial, the Daily Mail had christened Wandii as a `computer
genius'. By day five it labelled him as a `computer invader' who `cost
FT [sterling]25000'.
The list went on. Wandii, the press announced, had hacked the Tokyo
Zoo and the White House. It was difficult to tell which was the more
serious offence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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