Fergie's Tech Blog

Off Beat: Man Charged with Hacking into 911 System

Salvador Hernandez writes in The Orange County Register:

SWAT officers expecting to find a murder victim and an armed suspect surrounded the home of an unsuspecting couple but found they were part of what authorities are calling a prank caused by a teenager who hacked into the county's emergency response system.

Randall Ellis, a 19-year-old from Mulkiteo, Wash., is expected to appear in an Orange County courtroom Monday to face charges of computer access and fraud, false imprisonment by violence, falsely reporting a crime and assault with an assault weapon by proxy.

"It's not a prank," said Farrah Emami, spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney's Office. "People's lives were in danger."

Authorities believe Ellis hacked into the county's 911 system on March 29 from his home in Mulkiteo at 11:30 p.m.

Ellis allegedly randomly selected the name and address of a Lake Forest couple and electronically transferred false information into the 911 system, Emami said.

posted by Fergie @ 10/16/2007 10:22:00 PM