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23 Mar 97 SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: HACKER OF THE WEEK
:The teenage security threat: Asia Intelligence Wire

RICHARD PRYCE

If you had to imagine the number one threat to America’s security, you might go for a terrorist group or a coalition of Iraq, Libya and North Korea. You would be unlikely to select a teenage double bass player at a British music college.

But RICHARD PRYCE, from a north London suburb, can count himself among those who have been elevated to the ranks of major threats to United States national security up there alongside Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Pryce’s claim to fame, or infamy, lies in the way he hacked into America’s deepest defence secrets. At one point, he was even accused of having caused more harm to the US defence and missile systems than Russian intelligence. One might, equally, imagine that such a number one threat would operate from a secret base filled with the latest computers and advanced software. But PRYCE did it all from his bedroom in the suburb of Colindale, with equipment worth a grand total of GBP7SO (HK$9,315).

He was just 16 at the time. PRYCE, who only got a D grade in computer science, obtained the passwords to download super-secret computer records in New York and California, including an Air Force base which deals with sensitive subjects such as artificial intelligence.

When he was brought to trial last week, his solicitor said that officials believed he was being manipulated by an East European outfit.
A US congressional report on computer attacks said he had been seizing control of defence department computers on the direction of an unknown third In the Senate in Washington, PRYCE was accused of “causing more harm than the KGB” and described as the number one threat to US security.
The magistrates took a more lenient view. Fining PRYCE GBP1,200 on Friday, they accepted his innocent motives after he admitted 12 charges of gaining access to the computers.

But they did order his computer equipment to be confiscated.
PRYCE, now 19, was arrested after the US Air Force Office of Special Intelligence investigated the hacking.
They codenamed the unknown culprit “Datastream Cowboy”, and finally got his name from other computer users.

The Pentagon said yesterday it was taking measures to stop its systems coming under computer attack.

22 Mar 97 British teenager fined after hacking into US defence system:
His lawyer says RICHARD PRYCE used information he learned on the Internet to gain access.

By JASON BENNETTO LONDON

LONDON – A British teenager who barely passed computer science was fined Friday for hacking into United States defence and missile systems and removing files on artificial intelligence and battle management.

RICHARD PRYCE was only 16 when he used a basic dollars 1,650 computer from his bedroom in north London to infiltrate some of America’s top security establishments.

Codenamed Datastream Cowboy, PRYCE, now 18, was the subject of allegations in the US Senate, where the unknown ‘spy’ was accused of ‘causing more harm than the KGB.’

He has also been described as ‘the number one threat to US security.’ But his lawyer insisted Friday it was a ‘schoolboy prank’ and that the teenager with just six months experience had used information taken off the Internet to break into the US networks.

Lawyers believe the case shows the extraordinary lax security deployed within US military systems.

PRYCE was fined dollars 3,200 after pleading guilty to 12 charges of gaining unauthorized access to computer systems in March and April 1994.
He has now dropped his interest in computers in favor of a double bass that he studies at the Royal College of Music in London.

The first that Pryce’s parents, Nick and Alison, knew of their son’s activities was when members of Scotland Yard’s Computer Crime Unit arrived at the home in Colindale to arrest him.
Bow Street Magistrates’ Court heard that PRYCE managed to hack into the Griffiss Air Force Base in New York.

It is alleged he downloaded material from the air force base about artificial intelligence and battlefield management systems.
He also broke into the Lockheed Space and Missile Company in California. The systems he was said to have obtained access to included those for ballistic weapons research and aircraft design, payroll, procurement, personnel records and electronic mail.

Pryce’s forays led to allegations that a spy had managed to infiltrate secret intelligence data.
His hacking was described as an example of a growing and serious threat to US national security in reports and testimony to a Senate committee by the US General Accounting Office.

Some of the more outlandish allegations about the effects of Pryce’s hacking exploits were later seen as an attempt to obtain extra funding. Indeed, US officials later insisted PRYCE had been unable to access any secret information.

Despite these claims it is understood that the British authorities were considering using a Public Immunity Certificate, a gagging order, to cover part of the hearing, but decided not to bother after the more serious charges were dropped.

Defence lawyer Geoffrey Robertson said that what the Pentagon had at first suspected was a European spy-ring was later
discovered to be the teenaged Londoner.

‘He was riding, rather than surfing, the Internet.
‘He made no profit and there was no subversion of defence systems,’ he said.
His lawyer says RICHARD PRYCE used information he learned on the Internet to gain access.

The Vancouver Sun Page A10
FINAL Copyright (C) The Vancouver Sun 1994-1997

23 Jun 96 BRITON CHARGED WITH HACKING INTO PENTAGON DATA: REUTER NEWS

LONDON

British police said on Sunday they had charged a second man with hacking into US military computers months after the arrest of a teenage whizzkid accused of gaining access to messages from US agents in North Korea. MATHEW BEVAN, a 21-year-old information technology technician, has been charged with conspiracy to gain unauthorised access to computers and conspiracy to cause unauthorised modification to computers.

A spokeswoman for Scotland Yard said both charges related to computer systems operated by the US military and the Lockheed missile and space company.
Bevan’s co-defendant, RICHARD PRYCE, was charged last year with using a computer in his bedroom in north London to tap into several US Defence Department systems over a period of seven months.

PRYCE, who was just 16 at the time, got access to files on ballistic weapons research and messages from US agents in North Korea during a crisis over nuclear inspection in 1994, according to reports last year in The Independent newspaper.

Police sources said the two were arrested after a long search instigated by the US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations based in Washington. BEVAN, from Cardiff in Wales, is to appear before magistrates in central London on July 11.
A recent study by the General Accounting Office of Congress said attempts to hack into Pentagon computers were running at a rate of 250,000 a year.
The GAO said the attacks were, at least, a multi-million dollar nuisance and, at worst, could pose a serious threat to national security.

(c) Reuters Limited 1996
Reuter News Service – United Kingdom. Reuter Economic News.
Companies: LCKHED LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION HLDG (USA)
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Copyright (C) Reuters Limited 1980-1997

Hackers pillaged US files to sell secrets to Saddam
By Tim Reid

HUNDREDS of military secrets, including troop movements and missile capability, were stolen from American government computers and offered to Saddam Hussein during the Gulf war, a former US security expert has admitted.

Computer hackers in the Netherlands used the Internet to steal enough top-secret information potentially to change the course of the war. Luckily for the Allies, the Iraqis ignored the data, probably fearing a hoax, according to intelligence experts.

Dr Eugene Schultz, former head of computer security at the US Department of Energy, has disclosed for the first time how he and colleagues sat helpless as the Dutch hackers pillaged the files across 34 US military sites in the months leading up to the 1991 conflict.

His revelations, to be screened on BBC 2’s Sci Files programme tomorrow, come after the conviction on Friday of a London Teenager for gaining unauthorised access to American defence and missile secrets. Using equipment that cost £750 from local shops, Richard Pryce, 19, broke into computer files of the US Air Force and the Lockheed aerospace company. US military intelligence officials claimed he had caused “more harm than the KGB”. Pryce, of Colindale, north London, who was 16 at the time, was fined £1,200.

Dr Schultz, who was also responsible for protecting the computers of US nuclear weapons sites, told the BBC that the Americans learnt for certain in October 1990 that the information was being offered to Baghdad. Working with the FBI, he pinpointed the source of the attacks to Eindhoven.

The leakage of data was certainly alarming. The Dutch hackers learnt about the exact locations of US troops and the types of weapons they had. They gained information about the Patriot missile’s capability and the movement of American warships in the region.

“We realised that these files should not have been stored on Internet-capable machines,” Dr Schultz said. “They related to our military systems, they related to Operation Desert Shield at the time, and later Operation Desert Storm. This was a huge mistake.”

Once the Dutch hackers had gained access to a military computer site, they simply kept guessing different passwords until the system let them in. Once inside, they could pick and choose the exact information they wanted. The attacks lasted for months.

“We couldn’t do anything about it,” Dr Schultz said. “If we had shut down one machine that they had been getting into, they would have found others to launch the attacks from.”

The full story of Iraqi involvement in this episode is still classified. The CIA will neither confirm nor deny that the hackers tried to sell military secrets to Iraq.

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.

‘Datastream Cowboy’, 19, fined £1,200 for hacking secret US computer systems
By David Graves

A TEENAGE computer hacker known on the Internet as the “Datastream Cowboy,” who US military intelligence officials claimed had caused more harm than the KGB, was fined £1,200 yesterday for gaining unauthorised access to secret US Air Force computer systems.

The US Senate armed services committee was told later that the Royal College of Music student was “the number one threat to US security”.

Geoffrey Robertson, QC, defending, told Bow Street magistrates that the Pentagon had expected to find an East European spy ring responsible for the 200 security breaches, not an A-level student with a £750 personal computer in his bedroom.

Mr Roberston said Pryce had been guilty of “a schoolboy prank” and could not be blamed for the fact that security systems in the US military files “left something to be desired”. He downloaded scores of secret files, including details of the research and development of ballistic missiles.

Pryce, of Colindale, north London, admitted 12 specimen offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and was ordered to pay £250 costs.