Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} A British Hacker in America The Story of Pmf & 'Operation Cybersnare' - The U.S. Secret Service's Fi Operation Cybersnare. Operation Cybersnare was a United States Secret Service operation in 1995 targeted at computer hackers. In January 1995, the Secret Service set up an undercover bulletin board system in Bergen County, New Jersey. This was the first undercover Internet sting of its kind. With the help of an undercover informant, they advertised the bulletin board across the Internet. The topics for discussion were cellular telephone cloning and computer hacking. In September, twelve raids across the country resulted in the arrest of six hackers. From the press release, those arrested were: Richard Lacap, of Katy, Texas, who used the computer alias of "Chillin" and Kevin Watkins, of Houston, Texas, who used the computer alias of "Led". Lacap and Watkins were charged by criminal complaint with conspiring to break into the computer system of an Oregon Cellular Telephone company. Jeremy Cushing, of Huntington Beach, California, who used the computer alias of "Alpha Bits", was charged with trafficking in cloned cellular telephone equipment and stolen access devices used to program cellular telephones. Frank Natoli, of Brooklyn, New York, used the computer alias of "Mmind". He was charged with trafficking in stolen access devices used to program cellular telephones. Al Bradford, of Detroit, Michigan, who used the computer alias of "Cellfone", was charged with trafficking in unauthorized access devices used to program cellular telephones. Michael Clarkson, of Brooklyn, New York, who used the computer alias of "Barcode", was charged with possessing and trafficking in hardware used to obtain unauthorized access to telecommunications services. Sources. PMF, A British Hacker in America Jeffrey Gold, "Internet Sting Operation Nets Six Attempting to Sell Stolen Data", Associated Press , 11 September 1995 Geoff Boucher, "Computer Hacker Snared in Cyber-Sting : Technology: Huntington Beach man is one of six arrested in alleged plot to steal credit card and cellular phone codes.", Los Angeles Times , 12 September 1995 Geoff Boucher, "On-Line Sting Just the Beginning, Says Cyber-Sleuth Squad", Los Angeles Times , 13 September 1995 Clifford J. Levy, "Secret Service Goes On Line and After Hackers", New York Times , 12 September 1995 Reily Gregson, "SECRET SERVICE ATTACKS CELLULAR FRAUD AT SOURCE, STOPS COMPUTER HACKERS", RCR Wireless , 18 September 1995 CTIA press release: "Wireless Industry Salutes U.S. Secret Service", 11 September 1995. (Archived) v t e. CyberThrill globalHell Global kOS L0pht Level Seven Milw0rm MOD. Acid Phreak The Analyzer Condor Corrupt Cucumber Eric Bloodaxe Dark Avenger Phiber Optik Steven Games YTCracker. CIH Happy99 KAK Melissa Michelangelo. Related Research Articles. Computer security , cybersecurity or information technology security is the protection of computer systems and networks from information disclosure, theft of or damage to their hardware, software, or electronic data, as well as from the disruption or misdirection of the services they provide. In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decipher a ciphertext back to plaintext and access the original information. Encryption does not itself prevent interference but denies the intelligible content to a would-be interceptor. Kevin David Mitnick is an American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker. He is best known for his high-profile 1995 arrest and five years in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ( CFAA ) is a United States cybersecurity bill that was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to existing computer fraud law, which had been included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The law prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization. Prior to computer-specific criminal laws, computer crimes were prosecuted as mail and wire fraud, but the applying law was often insufficient. Cybercrime , or computer-oriented crime , is a crime that involves a computer and a network. The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target. Cybercrime may threaten a person, company or a nation's security and financial health. Phone cloning is the copying of identity from one cellular device to another. Bernie S. is a computer hacker living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a regular panelist on the WBAI radio show Off the Hook . In 2001 he appeared in Freedom Downtime , a documentary produced by 2600 Films. Laws regarding "unauthorized access of a computer network" exist in many legal codes, though the wording and meaning differ from one to the next. However, the interpretation of terms like "access" and "authorization" is not clear, and there is no general agreement on whether piggybacking falls under this classification. Some jurisdictions prohibit it, some permit it, and others are not well-defined. Information technology law concerns the law of information technology, including computing and the internet. It is related to legal informatics, and governs the digital dissemination of both (digitized) information and software, information security and electronic commerce aspects and it has been described as "paper laws" for a "paperless environment". It raises specific issues of intellectual property in computing and online, contract law, privacy, freedom of expression, and jurisdiction. DarkMarket was an English-speaking internet cybercrime forum created by Renukanth Subramaniam in London that was shut down in 2008 after FBI agent J. Keith Mularski infiltrated it using the alias Master Splyntr, leading to more than 60 arrests worldwide. Subramaniam, who used the alias JiLsi, admitted conspiracy to defraud and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison in February 2010. Albert Gonzalez is an American computer hacker and computer criminal who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATM numbers from 2005 to 2007: the biggest such fraud in history. Gonzalez and his accomplices used SQL injection to deploy backdoors on several corporate systems in order to launch packet sniffing attacks which allowed him to steal computer data from internal corporate networks. During his spree, he was said to have thrown himself a $75,000 birthday party and complained about having to count $340,000 by hand after his currency-counting machine broke. Gonzalez stayed at lavish hotels but his formal homes were modest. Cyber crime , or computer crime , refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network. The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target. Netcrime refers, more precisely, to criminal exploitation of the Internet. Issues surrounding this type of crime have become high-profile, particularly those surrounding hacking, copyright infringement, identity theft, child pornography, and child grooming. There are also problems of privacy when confidential information is lost or intercepted, lawfully or otherwise. The StingRay is an IMSI-catcher, a cellular phone surveillance device, manufactured by Harris Corporation. Initially developed for the military and intelligence community, the StingRay and similar Harris devices are in widespread use by local and state law enforcement agencies across Canada, the United States, and in the United Kingdom. Stingray has also become a generic name to describe these kinds of devices. In computers and computer networks an attack is any attempt to expose, alter, disable, destroy, steal or gain information through unauthorized access to or make unauthorized use of an asset. A cyberattack is any type of offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, infrastructures, computer networks, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions or other restricted areas of the system without authorization, potentially with malicious intent. Depending on context, cyberattacks can be part of cyberwarfare or cyberterrorism. A cyberattack can be employed by sovereign states, individuals, groups, society or organizations, and it may originate from an anonymous source. A product that facilitates a cyberattack is sometimes called a cyberweapon. The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computer security: Lizard Squad was a black hat hacking group, mainly known for their claims of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks primarily to disrupt gaming-related services. Xbox Underground was an international hacker group responsible for gaining unauthorized access to the computer network of Microsoft and its development partners, including Activision, Epic Games, and Valve, in order to obtain sensitive information relating to Xbox One and Xbox Live. Carding is a term describing the trafficking and unauthorized use of credit cards. The stolen credit cards or credit card numbers are then used to buy prepaid gift cards to cover up the tracks. Activities also encompass procurement of details, and money laundering techniques. Modern carding sites have been described as full-service commercial entities. Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin ,, alias BadB , is a former hacker and international credit