36 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
36 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
BOSTON (AP) -- A federal grand jury indicted an MIT student
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Thursday on charges he ran a computer bulletin board that allowed
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people to copy more than $1 million worth of copyrighted software
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for free.
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David LaMacchia, 20, a junior at the Massachusetts Institute of
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Technology, was indicted on one felony count of conspiring to
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commit wire fraud, said U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern. An
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arraignment date wasn't immediately scheduled.
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LaMacchia, of Rockville, Md., used the computer aliases ``John
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Gaunt'' and ``Grimjack,'' to operate the bulletin board at MIT from
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Nov. 21 to Dec. 21, 1993, and from Jan. 3 to Jan. 5, the indictment
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said.
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The bulletin board, named Cynosure, allowed people on MIT's
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computer network to copy business and entertainment software, the
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indictment said.
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Since MIT's system is part of the Internet, a super-network
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using telephone lines to link educational, military and commercial
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computer networks around the world, Internet users also were able
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to illegally copy the software, Stern said.
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``The pirating of business and entertainment software through
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clandestine computer bulletin boards is tremendously costly to
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software companies, and by extension to their employees and to the
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economy,'' Stern said.
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LaMacchia allegedly used MIT workstation computers to operate
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the bulletin board and to store the software library, the
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indictment said.
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Many of the Cynosure users hid their identities by using an
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Internet address in Finland that provided an anonymous forwarding
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service for the pirated programs, according to the indictment.
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As many as 180 people used the illegal software library over one
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16-hour period, downloading hundreds of copyrighted commercial
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programs, the indictment said.
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MIT computer specialists discovered in December that a computer
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in a student center was being used to distribute the software, MIT
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spokesman Robert C. DiIorio said.
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