[Nettime-bold] Italian police nab hacker group (media hype included)

[Alessandro Ludovico <a.ludovico {AT} neural.it>]

Italian Police Nab Hacker Group
Topic Law and Government
Italian police have identified six members of a hacker group charged 
with attacking thousands of Web sites in 62 countries, replacing 
official home pages with anti-globalization slogans, finance police 
officials said Tuesday. The group is one of the most important to be 
discovered in terms of the number and significance of its targets, 
officials said.
The hackers, all students between the ages of 15 and 23, began their 
attacks last July during the G8 summit in Genoa, which led to 
anti-globalization demonstrations. Hackers placed the slogan "Hi-Tech 
Hate" on Web sites, police said. However, the attacks did not cause 
much monetary damage, so the hackers are not expected to be severely 
punished.
Italian Police Nab Hacker Group

Students vandalized sites around world, including Pentagon and NASA, 
but caused little damage.
Philip Willan, IDG News Service
Tuesday, January 15, 2002
ROME -- Italian police have identified six members of a hacker group 
charged with attacking thousands of Web sites in 62 countries, 
replacing official home pages with anti-globalization slogans, 
finance police officials said Tuesday. The group is one of the most 
important to be discovered in terms of the number and significance of 
its targets, officials said.
The hackers, all students between the ages of 15 and 23, began their 
attacks last July during the G8 summit in Genoa, which led to 
anti-globalization demonstrations. Hackers placed the slogan "Hi-Tech 
Hate" on Web sites, police said. However, the attacks did not cause 
much monetary damage, so the hackers are not expected to be severely 
punished.
In the United States, hacked sites included those of the Pentagon, 
the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, courts, and 
numerous universities including Harvard University, Columbia 
University, and Cornell University, police said.
The group also attacked government Web sites in Europe and South 
America, the finance police said in a statement. The 
Anti-Technological Crime Unit of the finance police handled the 
investigation.
Prolific Vandalism
In Italy the group hacked sites of the health and defense ministries, 
the Senate, media organizations, the Internet provider Italia On 
Line, the Left Democrats Party, and pop singer Claudio Baglioni.
The investigation began in August, when the crime unit became aware 
of an attempt to penetrate the Web site of MB Service Srl, an Italian 
software company, police said. Investigators followed the trail to a 
Hi-Tech Hate hacker and subsequently tracked down the other five. The 
students lived in different parts of Italy and kept in contact via 
the Internet, investigators said.
"This was one of the most prolific hacker groups ever seen in terms 
of the number of its attacks. They were very expert," Giancarlo 
Samele, a member of the Anti-Technological Crime Unit, said in an 
interview. "We don't have an estimate of the financial damage caused, 
but it should not be very high. These were not really malicious 
attacks."
The hackers are likely to escape with suspended prison sentences 
because they have no previous convictions and their attacks did not 
cause serious damage, Gianluigi Chiapponi, the Ravenna prosecutor 
coordinating the case, said at a press conference.
Source: PCWORLD
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,79686,00.asp

-- 


Alessandro Ludovico
Neural Online - http://www.neural.it/ daily updated news + reviews
Suoni Futuri Digitali - http://www.apogeonline.com/catalogo/614.html 
ISBN 88-7303-614-7 

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