Adrian Lamo Free Essay Example, 1750 words

Throughout the sixties to date there have been a number of computer crimes which have been extensively covered and with the increasing level of sophistication in both hardware and software industries, there will continue to be even more spectacular cases of computer crimes. However, one case of computer crime worth discussing is that involving Adrian Lamo. Adrian Lamo Adrian Lamo was born in Boston, Massachusetts in February of 1981 to Mary Lamo-Atwood and Mario Lamo both of Columbian descent. He had formerly dropped out of Lowell High School (San Francisco) in 1999. In his time as a hacker he went by the name the homeless hacker due to his tendencies of roaming cyber cafes, abandoned buildings and lounge surfing. He is reputed to have gained access to a dozen of high-security networks sometimes to explore the weakness of the system while sometimes for research. He pled guilty to federal charges of unauthorized access to a computer network on 8th January 2004 and was sentenced to home detention and sixty five thousand dollars in restitution. After his conviction, he enrolled in American River College where he pursues a degree in writing, photography, and editorial work. We will write a custom essay sample on Adrian Lamo or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now He also married on September 6th, 2007 to Lauren Lamo. Major attacks Lamo is attributed to a dozen attacks on private and public networks which included schools but he is most famous for his access to the New York Times, Microsoft, Fortune 500 networks. He has also confessed to have gained access into Yahoo and SBC (a telephone company), Cingular, Ameritech among other networks. Hacking, the term used to refer to un authorized access to a secure computer network has its roots in the invention of the telephone. Hacking can only work in networked environments hence the first ever recorded ‘hacking’ was done by John Draper (captain Crunch) when he discovered that a toy whistle from a cereal box could produce the precise tone of 2600Hz which could consequently allow him to make free long distance calls (Kizza, 2002, p. 243). This came to be known as â€Å"phreaking†. Over time there were other attacks but the first notable system penetration started in mid-80 with a group of hackers who were based in San Francisco called 414-club. Th eir attacks were via Stanford University computers. But with time, there have arisen two types of hackers; those whose main aim is to detect weaknesses in system so that they can help the owners to correct the loop holes and those who scan for such loopholes so as to initiate attacks.