Datastream Cowboy returns to bass

THE teenage hacker who was fined for breaking into secret US Air Force systems yesterday claimed he had turned his back on computing and that “it was just a phase”.

Richard Pryce, 19, a student at the Royal College of Music, intends to pursue a career as a professional musician with his double bass.

Pryce, who was known as the “Datastream Cowboy” by fellow hackers, said yesterday: “I’m not going back to my old ways. I have put that behind me. It was just a phase I was going through. Now I would like to be a professional musician.”

He said that even if computer firms offered him high-profile jobs he would not accept them. Instead he is trying to work out how to pay the £1,200 fine and £250 costs after he admitted 12 charges of gaining unauthorised access to US military computers, at Bow Street Magistrates on Thursday.