113 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
113 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
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COMPUTER CASE TAKES A TWIST
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By Danna Dykstra Coy
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This article appeared in the Telegram-Tribune Newspaper, San Luis Obispo, CA.
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March 29, 1991. Permission to electronically reproduce this article was given
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by the newspaper's senior editor.
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*****
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A suspected computer hacker says San Luis Obispo police overreacted when they
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broke into his house and confiscated thousands of dollars of equipment. "I
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feel violated and I'm angry" said 34-year-old engineer Ron Hopson. All of
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Hopson's computer equipment was seized last week by police who believed he may
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have illegally tried to "hack" his way into an office computer belonging to two
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San Luis Obispo dermatologists. Police also confiscated equipment belonging
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to three others.
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"If police had known more about what they were doing, I don't think it would
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have gone this far," Hopson said. "They've treated me like a criminal, and I
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was never aware I was doing anything wrong. It's like a nightmare." Hopson,
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who has not been arrested in the case, was at work last week when a neighbor
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called to tell him there were three patrol cars and two detective cars at his
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house. Police broke into the locked front door of his residence, said Officer
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Gary Nemeth, and broke down a locked door to his study where he keeps his
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computer. "They took my stuff, they rummaged through my house, and all the
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time I was trying to figure out what I did, what this was about. I didn't have
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any idea."
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A police phone tap showed three calls were made from Hopson's residence this
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month to a computer at an office shared by doctors James Longabaugh and Jeffery
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Herten. The doctors told police they suspected somebody was trying to access
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the computer in their office at 15 Santa Rosa St. Their system, which contains
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patient records and billing information, kept shutting down. The doctors were
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unable to access their patients' records, said Nemeth. They had to pay a
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computer technician at least $1,500 to re-program their modem, a device that
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allows computers to communicate through telephone lines.
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Hopson said there is an easy explanation for the foul-up. He said he was
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trying to log-on to a public bulletin board that incorrectly gave the doctors
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number as the key to a system called "Cygnus XI". Cygnus XI enabled people to
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send electronic messages to one another, but the Cygnus XI system was
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apparently outdated. The person who started it up moved from the San Luis
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Obispo area last year, and the phone company gave the dermatologists his former
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number, according to Officer Nemeth.
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Hopson said he learned about Cygnus XI through a local computer club, the SLO-
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BYTES User Group. "Any of the group's 250 members could have been trying to tap
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into the same system", said Robert Ward, SLO-BYTES club secretary and computer
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technician at Cal Poly. In addition, he suspects members gave the phone number
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to fellow computer buffs and could have been passed around the world through
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the computer Bulletin-Board system. "I myself might have tried to access it
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three or four times if I was a new user," he said. "I'd say if somebody tried
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50 times, fine, they should be checked out, but not just for trying a couple of
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times."
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Police said some 200 calls were made to the doctors modem during the 10 days
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the phone was tapped. "They say, therefore, its obvious somebody is trying to
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make a game of trying to crack the computer code", said Hopson. "The only
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thing obvious to me is a lot of people have that published number. Nobody's
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trying to crack a code to gain illegal access to a system. I only tried it
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three times and gave up, figuring the phone was no longer in service."
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Hopson said he tried to explain the situation to the police. "But they took me
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to an interrogation room and said I was lying. They treated me like a big-time
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criminal, and now they won't give me back my stuff." Hopson admitted he owned
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several illegally obtained copies of software confiscated by police. "But so
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does everybody," he said, "and the police have ever right to keep them, but I
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want the rest of my stuff."
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Nemeth, whose training is in police work and not computer crimes, said this is
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the first such case for the department and he learning as he goes along. He
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said the matter has been turned over to the District Attorney's Office, which
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will decide whether to bring charges against Hopson and one other suspect.
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The seized belongings could be sold to pay restitution to the doctors who paid
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to re-program their system. Nemeth said the police are waiting for a printout
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to show how many times the suspects tried to gain access to the doctors' modem.
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"You can try to gain access as many times as you want on one phone call. The
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fact a suspect only called three times doesn't mean he only tried to gain
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access three times."
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Nemeth said he is aware of the bulletin board theory. "The problem is we
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believe somebody out there intentionally got into the doctors' system and shut
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it down so nobody could gain access, based on evidence from the doctors'
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computer technician," said Nemeth. "I don't think we have that person, because
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the guy would need a very sophisticated system to shut somebody else's system
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down." At the same time, he said, Hopson and the other suspects should have
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known to give up after the first failed attempt. "The laws are funny. You
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don't have to prove malicious intent when you're talking about computer
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tampering. The first attempt you might say was an honest mistake. More than
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once, you have to wonder."
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Police this week filled reports with the District Attorney's Office regarding
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their investigation of Hopson and another San Luis Obispo man suspected of
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computer tampering. Police are waiting for Stephen Brown, a deputy district
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attorney, to decide whether there is enough evidence against the two to take
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court action. If so, Nemeth said he will file reports involving two other
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suspects, both computer science majors from Cal Poly. All computers,
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telephones, computer instruction manuals, and program disks were seized from
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three houses in police searches last week. Hundreds of disks containing about
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$5,000 worth of illegally obtained software were also taken from the suspects'
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residences.
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Police and the District Attorney's Office are not naming the suspects because
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the case is still under investigation. However, police confirmed Hopson was
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one of the suspects in the case after he called the Telegram-Tribune to give
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his side of the story.
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###
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