Accused eBay hacker pleads innocent

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/0,1643,500303657-500486159-503357166-0,00.html

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif. (January 25, 2001 10:29 p.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - A 21-year-old former Los Alamos National
Laboratory employee charged with hacking into eBay and other prominent
Web companies also is under investigation for computer crimes dating
back to his college days in Wisconsin, a federal prosecutor said
Thursday.

The existence of that case was revealed after the alleged hacker,
Jerome Heckenkamp, pleaded innocent to 16 federal counts, including
witness tampering. Heckenkamp is due in federal court in San Diego on
Friday on 10 separate hacking-related counts.

U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Edward Infante ordered the lanky computer
whiz to post $50,000 bond within a week and stay off the Internet.

The indictment against Heckenkamp in San Jose accuses him of hacking
or trying to break into computers at eBay Inc., Exodus Communications
Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., ETrade Group Inc., Lycos Inc. and Cygnus
Support Solutions in 1999. Prosecutor Ross Nadel said the companies
suffered more than $900,000 in damage.

In San Diego, Heckenkamp is accused of hacking into Qualcomm Inc.
computers in 1999 and installing codes designed to intercept user
names and passwords. Nadel said the attacks caused more than $100,000
in damage.

Heckenkamp -- who allegedly used the nicknames of "Magic" or "MagicFX"
-- wasn't hired at Los Alamos until last June. While the lab hasn't
publicly commented, one lab official has said Heckenkamp was a
probationary employee in the computing and network division and had no
access to sensitive or privileged information.

Heckenkamp has been fired from Los Alamos because of the case, which
was launched after the FBI did a background check on him for the New
Mexico lab.

Heckenkamp, who began taking college courses when he was 14, told
reporters shortly after his arrest that he was being made a scapegoat.
He said a hacker had infiltrated the companies' sites through his
computer while he attended the University of Wisconsin.

However, Nadel -- chief of the computer crime and intellectual
property unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Jose -- told the
judge that Heckenkamp had agreed to a one-year suspension from
graduate school at Wisconsin after admitting hacking. The FBI is
investigating those incidents, Nadel said.

Even before that, Heckenkamp was fired from a job after he
acknowledged he had hacked an Internet service provider in
Philadelphia in 1997, the prosecutor said.

In asking the judge not to require that Heckenkamp post bond, his
attorney, Jennifer Granick, pointed out that the allegations involve
incidents that took place over a year ago, and that there is no
evidence Heckenkamp has been anything but a good citizen ever since.

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