Christopher Andrew Phillips turns himself in
A student at the University of Texas was charged by federal prosecutors today with hacking into the school's computer system and obtaining thousands of Social Security numbers.Christopher Andrew Phillips, 20, a junior majoring in computer science, turned himself in to the U.S. Secret Service and was taken before a magistrate at the federal courthouse in Austin. He was released without having to post any money but would be liable for $10,000 if he violates any of various conditions, including a prohibition on the use of any computers without prior permission from the court.
Phillips is accused of two counts ? accessing a computer without authorization and using Social Security numbers without authorization. The maximum possible penalty is eight years in jail, $500,000 in fines and payment of restitution, said Matthew Devlin, an assistant U.S. attorney.
Phillips turned himself in to federal officials Friday morning and was released on personal recognizance after a court hearing in front of U.S. Magistrate Stephen Capelle.Under terms of his release, if Phillips uses a computer, he will be required to tell authorities why he is using it, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Devlin.
Outside the courthouse, Phillips did not comment to reporters, and his attorney, Allan Williams, said "we're not going to make any comments today about guilty or innocence or how our plea is going to be."
"His position is that he is cooperating with the government in every way he can," Williams said.
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The TXCLASS Web-based service that Phillips said he accessed was designed to track training classes attended by university employees but access to it also resulted in access to other information, such as names and Social Security numbers, the affidavit said.
According to computer logs, the database was hacked by a computer in Austin on Feb. 26 through Feb. 28, and again by a computer in Houston on March 1 and March 2. The university learned about the attack March 2.
Secret service agents carried out a search warrant at Phillips' Austin and Houston residences on March 5. They seized Phillips' personal computer from his Austin residence along with computer hardware, software, media and electronic devices. On the computer, they found a large file listing thousands of Social Security numbers and names and the program used to access the database, the U.S. Attorney's office said.
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o.O I always thought Secret Service was only there to protect politicians 'hehe' Well I looked it up now and seems ther's more to them ^^"
Bout the case, do they already know why he did it? I think since he turned himself in and prolly didn't abuse the gained knowledge they can be glad, I mean afterall he shoed em that their system was lacking security, now they can fix that before some with really evil intentions try it too.
It's kinda weird how important the social security number has become, a second ID o.O Here it is only for social insurance purposes. Mhm well that might be because here you have to walk around with your ID card while in the US as far as I know you don't have to, so the market improvised and took it as a replacement.
I haven't run across any reports which say why he may have done this. It's still too early to tell.
Our SSN (Social Security Number) is the principle means of individual identification in the US. Each citizen has one, or a taxpayer ID. Financial and government transactions depend on knowing that each person or entity involved are actually those people, so over time, the SSN and TID have become the de facto ways of tracking individual people. Well, those and state driver's licenses.
Posted by: Drizz on March 17, 2003 09:12 AM