Accused UT hacker apologizes for taking personal information
Local news for us here in Austin...
Steven Kreytak writes today in the Austin American Statesman (registration required):
Christopher Phillips testified in federal court this morning that he is not an identity thief and that he was only practicing computer programming when he harvested thousands of Social Security numbers from University of Texas computers in 2002 and 2003.
Federal prosecutors say Phillips, a former UT student, is a criminal who violated both university policy and federal law by harvesting the numbers and corresponding names. They charge that he intended to use them to defraud, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The names and Social Security numbers belonged to UT students, faculty, donors and others included in school database.
In more than an hour of testimony under direct questioning, Phillips, 22, admitted in a quiet, cracking voice that he knew it was wrong to gather the personal information but he didn't plan to profit from the information. He said he wanted only to practice writing programs to extract data and merge databases, he said.
Then Phillips, whose lawyer describes him as a harmless computer geek, told the 12-person jury that he was sorry.
posted by Fergie @ 6/10/2005 01:55:00 PM
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