, Newsbytes 2002-02-05
Jason 'Shadow Knight' Diekman cracked JPL, Stanford University and others.
A California man who admitted hacking into computers at NASA, Oregon State University and an Internet service provider has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $88,000 in restitution.Jason Allen Diekman, 20, was handed the sentence Monday by U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson in Los Angeles. The judge also slapped severe restrictions on Diekman's use of computers while he is under three years' supervised release.
Investigators said Diekman, who used the nicknames "Shadow Knight" and "Dark Lord," told them that he had hacked into "hundreds, maybe thousands" of computer systems, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office news release.
Diekman, of Mission Viejo, pleaded guilty in November 2000 to breaking into NASA computers at the Jet Propulsion Lab and Stanford University, causing $17,000 damage to computer gear.
During the initial probe, the FBI said it found that Diekman used fraudulently obtained credit card data with passwords and user names intercepted from several university computer systems he broke into. He admitted charging $6,000 in electronic equipment to the cardholders.
While free on bond and awaiting sentencing on the first guilty plea, Diekman hacked into Oregon State University computers 33 times in early 2001, gaining control of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels. He would later admit that associates tried three times to wire him money via Western Union using stolen credit card data, and that he stole 8,000 long-distance minutes from AT&T.
Last September Diekman pleaded guilty to breaking into a San Jose ISP, Bay Area Internet Solutions, where he gained control of databases to carry out the unauthorized access of passwords and user names. Damage from that exploit was placed at $50,000.
Diekman had been in federal lockup since the second guilty plea in April 2001.
The U.S. Attorney's Office is on the Web at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac .
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .