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From: bcn@mit-eddie.UUCP (Clifford Neuman)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Intruder roundup
Message-ID: <974@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Nov-83 23:53:21 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.974
Posted: Mon Nov 28 23:53:21 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Nov-83 02:16:30 EST
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 80

From: Mark Crispin <MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: they got one of the cretins!
Date: Wed, 2-Nov-83 21:55:06 PST
Date-Received: Wed Nov  2 21:55:06 1983
To: su-bboards


AM-Computer Crime,580
UCLA Student Accused of Penetrating Defense Communication System
    LOS ANGELES (AP) - A 19-year-old UCLA student was charged Wednesday
with using a home computer to break into a Defense Department
communications system linking government and private computers
throughout the United States and Europe.
    Ronald Mark Austin was arrested at his Santa Monica home and booked
into the Los Angeles County jail on a district attorney's complaint
accusing him of 14 felony counts of maliciously gaining access to a
computer system.
    Bail was set at $10,000, and a Municipal Court arraignment was
expected Thursday.
    ''This is not some childish prank,'' District Attorney Robert
Philibosian said. ''We're talking about an individual who has cost the
federal government, private organizations and universities literally
hundreds of thousands of dollars in reprogramming costs.'' He said of
the information was ''very sensitive.''
    The complaint also charged Austin with one count each of theft and
receiving stolen property involving four stolen airline tickets to
Europe found at his home. If convicted he faces up to six years in
prison.
    District attorney spokesman Al Albergate said the tickets were made
out to people who lived in Austin's neighborhood. He said
investigators also found $800 in hundred-dollar bills, possibly
proceeds from the sale of other tickets.
    Investigators said they did not know if the tickets were related to
the computer scheme.
    Austin's arrest followed an investigation by the district attorney's
Electronic Crimes Section in cooperation with the UCLA Computer
Sciences Department.
    Philibosian said the investigation indicated that the unauthorized
access to computer systems at UCLA began July 7. Albergate said UCLA
officials contacted authorities after noticing that seldom-used
computer accounts belonging to UCLA scientists suddenly were being
used with unusual frequency.
    Philibosian said the computer systems reached by Austin all had to
be reprogrammed.
    ''Using local telephone connections, Austin gained access not only
to local computer accounts but also, through the UCLA system, to the
Advanced Research Projects Agency Network'' linking computers that
store data on research projects for several agencies, including the
Defense Department, Philibosian said.
    ''Some of the information was very sensitive,'' the district
attorney said. ''We can't give a more complete description at this
time.''
    The complaint said Austin gained access to more than 200 computer
accounts at 14 different locations, and that in some cases he blocked
out legitimate account users.
    ''We don't know what he was doing with the data,'' Philibosian said,
adding that Austin's motives are still under investigation.
    Austin allegedly gained access to computers at the Naval Ocean
Systems Center in San Diego; the Naval Research Laboratory in
Washington, D.C.; the Norwegian Telecommunication Administration in
Norway; and the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica.
    Rand spokesman Paul Weeks said the company determined that on Aug.
29, an unauthorized person used ''a Rand computer that is used to
forward electronic mail on a national network of computers.''
    Weeks said the computer was used only ''sort of like a relay'' to
tie into other computers in the Advanced Research Projects Agency
Network and ''there was no penetration of any Rand data or files.''
    ''Rand has standard security practices that prevent unauthorized
access to its unclassified research information, and no such
information was involved in this instance,'' Weeks said.
    Other computers systems Austin allegedly accessed: Purdue
University, Lafayette, Indiana; BBN-Communications Corp., Cambridge,
Mass.; University of California-Berkeley; University of Wisconsin;
UCLA; SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif.; Computer Science Network,
Madison, Wisc.; The Mitre Corp., Bedford, Mass.; Cornell University,
Ithaca, N.Y., and ISI (Information Science Institute), Marina Del
Rey, Calif.
    
ap-ny-11-02 2007EST
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