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New Hampshire 'Coolio' Arrested In D.A.R.E Web
Pubdate: Wed, 08 Mar 2000
Source: Reuters
Copyright: 2000 Reuters Limited.
NEW HAMPSHIRE 'COOLIO' ARRESTED IN D.A.R.E WEB HACKING CASE
WOLFEBORO, New Hampshire (Reuters) -- A 17-year-old New Hampshire
computer junkie known as "Coolio" was arrested Wednesday and charged
with hacking into a Los Angeles Police Department anti-drug Web site,
officials said.
Dennis Moran of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire has admitted breaking into
the Los Angeles police department's Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Web site, but has denied reports that he was involved in last month's
headline-grabbing attacks on prominent Internet sites.
Moran is being charged as an adult. If convicted on the felony counts,
he could face up to 15 years in prison.
There is currently no evidence linking Coolio to the
"denial-of-service" attacks in early February that temporarily cut off
customers to some of the Web's biggest sites, including Yahoo!, eBay,
Amazon.com and E-Trade, FBI sources told Reuters on Friday.
Moran, a high school dropout, told authorities and local media outlets
that he hacked into http://www.dare.com because he disagrees with the
site.
"I disagree with D.A.R.E.'s propaganda," Moran has told the Concord
Monitor newspaper. "Their program is misleading and they lie."
According to the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office, Moran
defaced the D.A.R.E. site with pro-drug slogans and pasted a graphic
of Donald Duck with a hypodermic syringe in his arm into the site's
site's home page.
Moran also admitted hacking into the U.S. Government's Chemical
Weapons Convention site, http://www.cwa.gov, and Internet security
company RSA Security Inc. http://www.rsa.com.
His attacks took place in November, well before the denial of service
attacks, which are still under investigation.
The FBI interrogated Moran twice before Wednesday's arrest and
confiscated the youth's computer.
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