A 17-year-old Colorado Springs boy was charged in juvenile court Tuesday with one count each of computer crime and criminal mischief after he broke into the city’s Web site in October and replaced it with the message, “i love this city ytcracker 9d9 palmer high.”
The two felony charges carry a maximum penalty of two years of juvenile detention.
The boy, known online as “ytcracker,” said he is a benevolent hacker who was trying to alert officials of potential security glitches.
After discovering he had tapped into the city’s Web site in October, Colorado Springs police began an investigation and said he had tampered with at least 40 other Web sites, including Airspace USA, Altamira International Bank, Nissan, Honda, the U.S. Geological Survey Monitoring Station and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
In December, not knowing of the investigation, “ytcracker” contacted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and told them he had meddled with their Web site.
The agency teamed with Springs police, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the NASA computer crime division and the Texas Department of Public Safety to gather information that led to the felony charges.
“I never had any intentions of doing damage,” he said. “At first it was funny, and then I wanted to alert people to the security vulnerabilities in everyday software – and the fact that no one is immune.”
The boy said what began as a joke last summer turned into a precarious game between administrators of online Web sites and his own expertise. He said he started hacking into local business sites, then graduated into more complicated systems, like the Bureau of Land Management National Training Center.
The Web sites he affected were typically dismantled for only a matter of hours, he said. Police said he caused $25,000 damage, a figure based on the costs of installing secure sites and the time lost to users while the software was repaired.
The teen, who dropped out of school because he was “too bored,” is a self-taught computer whiz who said he started using a computer when he was 2 years old.
“I understand what I did was wrong,” he said. “I’m hoping something good will come out of it.”
