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Actor Played Hacker Role Too Well - DA
From: InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:55:24 -0600
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/00/159369.html By Michael Bartlett, Newsbytes LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 13 Dec 2000, 8:59 PM CST An aspiring actor faces a preliminary hearing Dec. 21 in Los Angeles County Superior Court on charges of computer fraud and theft. Chad Horton, 21, of Macon, Ga., is accused of hacking into the system at Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Breakdown Services and stealing lists of acting jobs. The lists, known as "breakdowns," consist of synopses of characters in scripts and are sold to casting directors and talent representatives, the company said. The weekly breakdowns are not available to actors. Horton, along with Valerie R. Fee, 58, of Manhattan Beach, Calif., are charged with one count each of grand theft and receiving stolen property. Horton faces an additional charge of computer fraud. According to Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Fairtlough, Horton sold lists he stole from Breakdown Services to other actors he met in chat rooms on the Internet. The complaint alleged that this activity took place from Jan. 1, 1999 to March 14 of this year. Fee is accused of purchasing breakdowns from Horton and reselling them. The district attorney's office said the crimes were discovered when Fee allegedly sold one of the lists to the head of Breakdown Services' New York office. However, according to Gary Marsh, the president of the company's Los Angeles office, Horton's hack was detected early on. "Our security is pretty good here, and we knew right away what had happened," Marsh said. "We notified the police in January of 1999 and cooperated with their investigation. They asked us not to do anything overt." Fairtlough said that the case is being prosecuted by Los Angeles County's newly created High-Technology Analysis and Litigation Team, also known as "HALT." He said HALT is part of the Southern California High-Tech Task Force that was formed to battle the burgeoning threat of computer crimes. Breakdown Services is on the Web at http://www.breakdownservices.com ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
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