Allegations of Hacking Outrage Youths’ Parents

Nearly two dozen North County teen-agers suddenly have become teachers, trying to explain the facts of computer life to their parents.

“I don’t know a thing about computers,” confessed an Escondido parent, “and I don’t want to know. I bought the thing for my son, to help him with his homework. He’s had it for a couple of years now, and it has helped his grades.

“But I do know my son, and I know he’s no criminal. What he has been doing with the computer doesn’t sound any more criminal to me than cracking a code or doing a crossword puzzle.”

The distressed father and other parents of 23 North County teen-agers expressed anger and frustration in the wake of FBI raids this week in which agents confiscated computers and software belonging to the youths. The young computer experts are suspected of breaking into a Chase Manhattan Bank subsidiary’s data bank, which holds the bank’s financial records, and browsing through mail, bank statements and other financial data of the system’s 25,000 legitimate users.

What neither parents nor teen-agers can understand is what right FBI agents had to enter their homes and confiscate the home computers of the North County youths who, one mother explained, “are being treated like criminals simply for calling a toll-free telephone number.”

FBI spokesman Gary Laterno and Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Rose point out that a year-old federal law is aimed at exactly what the teen-agers are alleged to have done--break into a bank.

“The fact that they did not steal anything, that they simply entered and looked around, does not mean that they are innocent of a crime,” Laterno said. Under the new law, anyone who “knowingly” or “intentionally” gains access to financial data via a computer is considered to have violated the federal statute designed to protect sensitive government data as well as private firms’ financial and credit information.

The law imposes penalties of up to a year in federal prison and a fine of up to $100,000 for a misdemeanor first offense, a maximum of $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison for repeated offenses.

“Those parents should realize the potential damages their children can do,” Rose said. “Destruction of property and theft are not alleged in this case, but the crime of unauthorized break-in, of ‘electronic trespass,’ remains.”

Rose likened a computer hacker to a youth who walks down the street, trying the door handles of each car he passes. When he finds one unlocked car, he gets in.

“Where does the intent to steal start?” Rose asked. “When he tries the doors? Normal people don’t walk down the street trying door handles. When he gets into the car?”

An FBI spokesman in Washington said that the San Diego County youths, if they are charged, probably will be among the first under the new law. He said that before passage of the federal law dealing specifically with computer crimes, cases were prosecuted under wire fraud or theft statutes or, in the case of government involvement, “even espionage.”

An Escondido mother of one of the youths under investigation disagrees that there has been a crime committed. She feels that her son is “being tromped on by the FBI.

“These are very bright boys who are into computers,” she said. “They are not a gang of criminals. All they did was dial that number.”

She admitted that the youths did pass along the 800-number to the Interactive Data Bank and “a name” to others, “but they did not know that this was a bank. The first time anyone heard the name ‘Chase Manhattan’ was when the FBI men arrived and said this was a branch of Chase Manhattan.

“This is a new law and, as far as we can learn, it has never been tested. I think that the FBI is trying to make examples out of these boys. They want publicity to advertise their new law.”

She is calling the parents of other youths and plans a meeting to pool information and to “face the issue.” “If I thought he was guilty, I’d hire a lawyer. This is just a game to him and to the others. And that bank, with its toll-free telephone number and a woman who answers and offers to play computer games, has created an attractive nuisance.”

“I love my computer. It’s the most important thing in my life, and I’ll be lost without it,” a 14-year-old Poway youth said. He denied having cracked the bank’s security system and said he could not remember where he had obtained the 800 number that connected with the Waltham, Mass., data bank.

FBI agents told most of the juvenile suspects that they might be without their computers for two weeks to two years while investigation of the bank’s security lapse is conducted and charges against the young suspects are pondered.

Rose said that prosecution of minors in federal court is “relatively rare,” but added that California has “hacker laws” similar to the new federal statute, and prosecution in state courts is an option.

The youths were traced from AT&T; records of telephone calls made to Chase Manhattan’s toll-free data bank phone number.

“I never even wanted to know what all that electronic bosh was about,” a Vista parent said. “Now, suddenly, federal agents are coming in here and acting like my son was a felon. He’s not. He’s a good Christian and a fine young man. I know that he didn’t do anything dishonest or illegal.”

An Escondido parent, who has faith that her son is “not some sort of a criminal,” said she knows little about the computer he spends much of his free time with. “But I am planning to learn a lot about computers in a very short time,” she added in a determined voice.

A 15-year-old, who said he has “never learned about hacking and don’t even know how to do it,” said that he had no idea why FBI agents had confiscated his $3,000 system. “If I did it, called that (data bank telephone) number and crashed their board, it was a mistake. I know guys that do that, though, and they do it because it is a challenge. It’s like a game.”

The teen-ager explained that “anyone like you or me can set up a bulletin board” with messages, software offers, dating services “or anything that you have in real life.” Anyone with a computer, a floppy disk and a modem connecting the computer with a telephone can start a bulletin board and fill it with whatever they want, including access numbers to other bulletin boards.

To a computer junkie, the electronic bulletin boards are better than newspapers or television for entertainment, he explained, and “if you are a hacker, that’s sometimes where you find the access numbers to big systems.”

He said the Chase Manhattan Bank subsidiary to which the youths are suspected of gaining access was “a toll-free number, which usually means trouble,” because it is designed for access by customers or paying members of a group and supposed to be secure against intrusion.

One Poway youth admitted that he had gained access to the Chase Manhattan subsidiary, Interactive Data Corp., several times and had left his mark so that the system’s security guards would know the system had been breeched.

“I didn’t do it to take anything,” he said. “I guess I did it for the fun of it.”

An FBI spokeswoman said that there is no evidence that anything was taken from the bank’s financial files or that any money had been withdrawn.

But, she said, there were indications that legitimate users’ passwords had been changed, that some data may have been erased and that other irregularities had occurred during the “unauthorized access.”

Bill Crawford, supervisor of the Poway Unified School District’s “Poway School Net,” an electronic bulletin board, said that probably the data bank’s 800-number was spread from one computer buff to another after one of the youths “managed to access the system.”

Crawford said that not many teen-agers use their computers for hacking, but those who do “know what they are doing and know that what they are doing is illegal.”

“There is another side to this situation that I don’t believe has been given any thought,” he said. “What kind of a bank is this that has a security system that a 14-year-old kid can bust?”