45 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
45 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
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Armed with search warrants, the agents came early Wednesday morning to
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15 middle-class homes throughout the U.S., peering under beds, pulling out
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drawers, seizing print-outs and floppy discs. In California, they simulta-
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neously struck four homes within a 40-mile radius of Los Angeles. Wayne
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Correia, 17, of Irvine, Calif., looked up at 6:15 a.m. to find a man breaking
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in through his bedroom window. "FBI," the figure announced. "And that comp-
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uter's mine."
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The raids on the homes of young compuer enthusiasts in 13 cities were
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part of a federal investigation into reports of widespread abuse of computer
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networks. For months authorities have been waging a quiet war of nerves with
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the thousands of teen-agers who use their home terminals and telephone hookups
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to dial into larger systems across the country. Most are careful to do no
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harm, but for those bent on doing damage, the opportunities are boundless. One
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14-year-old brags that he penetrated a computer belonging to a brokerage firm
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and erased a group of commodity trading accounts. Particularly vulnerable are
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the 1,200 computer systems that can be reached through a single telephone call
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to GTE Telenet, a network based in Vienna, Va. Last summer the FBI singled out
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for investigation a gang of Milwaukee-area youths who had used Telenet to enter
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a number of different systems, including unclassified Defense Department comp-
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uters and a machine monitoring the treatment of cancer patients in a New York
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City hospital.
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Last week's crackdown was the most dramatic to date. Phone taps and
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electronic "sting" operations were used to trap the suspects. To prevent them
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from warning their friends, the raids were carefully coordinated. Indeed, news
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of the FBI strike was quickly flashed across the country through messages post-
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ed on computer bulletin boards, and some youngsters reportedly rushed to erase
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discs and burn files. Though no charges have been filed yet, the Government,
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by going after the microkids in a style more commonly used for archcriminals,
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risked turning the youngsters into instant heroes. Nervertheless, while such
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tamperings may be born of curiosity and high spirits, they have serious con-
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sequences and are increasingly dangerous. Four of the California youths who
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were raided held a press conference at their high school to explain how the
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passwords they used for unauthorized break-ins had been provided by an anony-
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mous computer-network buddy. "I was kind of naive," said David Hill, 17, of
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Irvine. "I thought, oh boy, how neat." After the FBI action last week, no one
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smart enough to get into this sort of trouble should be able to claim such
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ingenuousness again.
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Typed by Uncle Fester
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Presented to you by The Dragon's Lair 10 megs..................516-374-5071
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