Phisher Convicted, Faces 101 Years In Prison

By Sharon Gaudin
InformationWeek

Jan 17, 2007 10:52 AM

Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 45, was found guilty of sending thousands of e-mails that appeared to be from AOL's billing department, prompting users to reply with personal and credit card information.

In the first jury conviction under the Can-Spam Act of 2003, a California man has been found guilty of operating a sophisticated phishing scheme that attempted to dupe thousands of AOL users.

Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 45, of Azusa, Calif., was found guilty of sending thousands of e-mails set up to appear to be from AOL's billing department to the company's users, prompting them to reply with personal and credit card information. He then used the information to make unauthorized purchases, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

Goodin is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Christina A. Snyder on June 11. He faces a maximum sentence of 101 years in federal prison.

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2 Charged in High School Grade Hacking Case
Associated Press

CHERRY HILL, N.J. (AP) - January 9, 2007 - A student and a former student have been charged with tapping into a high school computer system to change students' grades, police announced Tuesday.

Jonathan To, 20, who had attended Cherry Hill High School East, and a 17-year-old boy whose name police did not release because of his age both face charges of computer theft.

Under state law, the maximum penalty for this, if he's convicted, is 10 years in state prison; the boy could be held in a juvenile detention center until he turns 21. Neither was in custody Tuesday.

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Carolyn's note: They never learn! Even college students break into school computers to change grades, and somehow imagine nobody will notice. They DO NOTICE, and they do send these losers to jail! Consider, for example, the fate of University of Utah computer science student You Li, who is just beginning a four-month, all expenses paid vacation with cellmate Bubba.

Student hacker put away for 4 months
22-year-old made changes to his college math class grades
By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 01/05/2007 01:30:34 AM MST

A University of Utah student who admitted hacking into a professor's computer account and changing his grades was sentenced Thursday to four months of incarceration.
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell declined a prosecution request to sentence You Li to a year in prison, saying the crime was an aberration for the 22-year-old and that he was obviously remorseful. Li, a Chinese national, likely will do his time in a jail or halfway house.

Li told the judge that there was no excuse for his actions.

“I've made up my mind to have an honest life from now on,” he said.

At the time of his offense in December 2004, Li was living in Sandy and pursuing an undergraduate degree in computer science. He pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain to one count each of accessing a protected computer in attempted furtherance of fraud and obtaining information from a protected computer.

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Carolyn notes: Not only was Mr. Li breaking the law, he couldn't even alter the right file to change his grade. According to a news story with the Chronicle for Higher Education:

Jail Time for a Student Hacker

By Brock Read

Jan. 5, 2007

...Unfortunately for Mr. Li, the hacking that will send him to jail never even stood a chance of improving his grades: The spreadsheet he broke into was merely the backup version of a file the professor kept on his own laptop.

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Carolyn notes: Oh, yes, and then there are the students awaiting trial for altering grades of some 300 students, snooping on the email of a professor, and on and on. They seem to think nobody would notice their crime spree. That's typical of computer criminals, they tend to beg for Darwin

Gregg Keizer, TechWeb Technology News

A pair of California college students each face up to a year in prison for hacking into a professor's computer to give out bogus grades to themselves and other students, Los Angeles prosecutors said Thursday.

Jennifer Ngan, 19, of Alhambra and Lena Chen, 20, of Torrance -- roommates who attend California State University Northridge -- face misdemeanor charges of illegally accessing computers, among other counts.

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