What is the name of your state? California.
I'm an often naive 19 year old with Bipolar disorder. I was caught hacking into a classmate's server exactly one week ago.
Technical details:
I was sitting through a computer lab at school one Friday while I was eavesdropping on the LAN with a switched packet sniffer called Ettercap. Two classmates, one being the owner of the machine being logged into, logged into the server via FTP, which required them to enter their passwords in plaintext. Ettercap immediately parsed the passwords and I took them home and had fun.
Over the weekend, as manic as I was (before I began Lithium treatment), I began to login to his machine. I wanted to have some fun so I executed a local DoS attack called a fork bomb. It downed the server for about a day. When it came back up, I filled his message of the day with data from /dev/urandom, which is just randomness. This evoked concern on the owner's side. I believe I executed a local DoS attack once more after that until I was caught. I'd kept the server down for almost three days. I soon realized he'd caught me when I perused our Computer Science forum. At that point, I had no other choice but to come clean and beg for forgiveness. I fessed up. He sent logs to various concerned parties, claiming he himself wouldn't press charges, but others would be glad to.
I'd also like to add that no data was harmed on this system. I had no intention of sabotaging this guy's website, despite the capability to do so.
This server was supposedly his "business" and "only source of income." It is a MUD game server of some sort with some ties to sdf.lonestar.org, which is a Public Access UNIX system.
My apologies have been basically criticized and perhaps even ignored. I think this guy may start pressing charges. I just want to know where I stand legally and what kind of penalty I may be facing.
A friend and I looked at the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Wiretap Act, and nothing in those seem to match what I did. I'm not sure where to look now.
Any advice will be appreciated.
Regards,
Daniel
I'm an often naive 19 year old with Bipolar disorder. I was caught hacking into a classmate's server exactly one week ago.
Technical details:
I was sitting through a computer lab at school one Friday while I was eavesdropping on the LAN with a switched packet sniffer called Ettercap. Two classmates, one being the owner of the machine being logged into, logged into the server via FTP, which required them to enter their passwords in plaintext. Ettercap immediately parsed the passwords and I took them home and had fun.
Over the weekend, as manic as I was (before I began Lithium treatment), I began to login to his machine. I wanted to have some fun so I executed a local DoS attack called a fork bomb. It downed the server for about a day. When it came back up, I filled his message of the day with data from /dev/urandom, which is just randomness. This evoked concern on the owner's side. I believe I executed a local DoS attack once more after that until I was caught. I'd kept the server down for almost three days. I soon realized he'd caught me when I perused our Computer Science forum. At that point, I had no other choice but to come clean and beg for forgiveness. I fessed up. He sent logs to various concerned parties, claiming he himself wouldn't press charges, but others would be glad to.
I'd also like to add that no data was harmed on this system. I had no intention of sabotaging this guy's website, despite the capability to do so.
This server was supposedly his "business" and "only source of income." It is a MUD game server of some sort with some ties to sdf.lonestar.org, which is a Public Access UNIX system.
My apologies have been basically criticized and perhaps even ignored. I think this guy may start pressing charges. I just want to know where I stand legally and what kind of penalty I may be facing.
A friend and I looked at the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Wiretap Act, and nothing in those seem to match what I did. I'm not sure where to look now.
Any advice will be appreciated.
Regards,
Daniel
Last edited: