Man Faces 120 Years for Installing Distributed.net Client

A computer network administrator faces multiple felony charges and years in a Georgia prison for allegedly installing Distributed.net clients without permission. Prosecutors say its justice, others aren't so sure

A college computer technician who offered his school's unused computer processing power for an encryption research project will be tried next month in Georgia for computer theft and trespassing charges that carry a potential total of 120 years in jail.

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"This is a hacking statute," says McOwen, "but obviously this is not

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By Ann Harrison
Dec 20 2001 12:44AM PT

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/300More...


:3pow:

Thats sounds prettty bad...it seems these ppl need a GOOD lawyer..

is there something that we ppl at antionline can do something about it.?

well that could be us too... considering most of us here use illegal software.. and use cracks and all that..

i just think that the govt is pushing too much..

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Originally posted by s0nIc
A computer network administrator faces multiple felony charges and years in a Georgia prison for allegedly installing Distributed.net clients without permission. Prosecutors say its justice, others aren't so sure

A college computer technician who offered his school's unused computer processing power for an encryption research project will be tried next month in Georgia for computer theft and trespassing charges that carry a potential total of 120 years in jail.




By Ann Harrison
Dec 20 2001 12:44AM PT

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/300More...

It look to me as a DA who has no idea on what is a computer crime.
I got into a similar pickel several years ago when my former
ISP tried to blame his security problems on me when that
isp was stupid enough to leave an in the clear password file
on there ftp server that was used for uploading websites to
the net.

Most DA's will never say when there wrong, If they did it would be a
better world to live in and maybe, just maybe we would have a better
justice system.

I wonder what crime would be charge if he used SETI instead of
Distributed.net ??? on the college computers.

My info can be found at http://www.geocities.com/cecomet/

I did not use my local webservers because I do not trust
my former ISP and the local law enforcement people.

:3pow:

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The man has to pay restitution for the costs they had to pay technicians to remove the program. Instead they should have immediately had him do it without pay and fired him. Since he had time to put them on, he should take them off. Second 120 years is a little stiff, maybe 6 months to a year max. This guy did break the law, and a fine plus community service should be enough to protect against him doing it again. $400,000 is a little high though, this guy was working as a computer lab tech do they really think that he can pay that?

Meanwhile, rapists, murderers, molesters, thieves, and every other bottom-of-the-cesspool type is allowed out after 2 years or so of "good behaviour". Right on...what I love is when people who have NO IDEA on what "computer" anything is, they push for the absolute maximum because "it must be terribly wrong". Bunch of Ivy-league no-brain fscknuts... Just like Highlander said, "maybe, just maybe" we'd have a better system if they admitted when they were wrong instead of hanging someone high just because they could.

OK, so using a schools computing resources to try and crack RC5 (or whatever) is not the best idea. I do think that there might be a real use for all that processor power. My college has over 100 PC's, 70 of them have P!!! 700 or 933 CPU's. Surely medical science and other computing-intensive tasks could use what, in the UK alone must be giga flops of computing power!