Posted by Kuji on June 26th, 2008
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.
Posted by Kuji on June 26th, 2008
‘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.
