Internet Law News

Pleasant Hill, California Computer Hacker from Deceptive Duo Guilty of Intrusions into Government Computers and Defacing Websites

The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that Robert Lyttle, 21, of Pleasant Hill, California, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Oakland to hacking into government computers and then defacing government websites with material illegally obtained from those intrusions.

Mr. Lyttle pleaded guilty to each count of a five-count indictment charging computer crimes in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030. In pleading guilty, Mr. Lyttle, who is known as one of the members of the self-titled hacking group called "The Deceptive Duo," admitted that he unlawfully accessed computer systems of various federal agencies in April 2002, including the Department of Defense's Defense Logistic Information Service (DLIS), the Office of Health Affairs (OHA), and NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC). In particular, Mr. Lyttle admitted that he: Gained unauthorized accessed to DLIS computers in Battle Creek, Michigan, for the purpose of obtaining files that he later used to deface an OHA website hosted on computers in San Antonio, Texas.

Gained unauthorized access to a computer at NASA's Ames Research Center located at Moffett Field, California, and obtained information from that computer for the purpose of defacing a website hosted on the computer.

Caused damage to, or otherwise affected the government's use of, the computer systems, thereby requiring the government to incur costs in excess of $70,000.
The maximum statutory penalty for the count related to the defacement of the OHA website is 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution if appropriate. The maximum statutory penalty for each of the counts related to the DLIS and NASA ARC intrusions is five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution if appropriate. Finally, the maximum statutory penalty for the count related to the defacement of the NASA ARC computer is one year imprisonment and a fine of $100,000, plus restitution if appropriate. However, Mr. Lyttle's sentence will be imposed by the Court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. 3553.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled before United States District Court Judge D. Lowell Jensen in Oakland on June 24, 2005, at 10:00 a.m.
The prosecution is being overseen by the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the United States Attorney's Office and is the result of an investigation by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and NASA's Office of Inspector General. Kyle F. Waldinger is the Assistant U.S. Attorney in the CHIP Unit who is prosecuting the case.

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	Did You Know?
	DNS translates the name into the corresponding IP address The Domain Name System is a system of mapping names to IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they're easier for humans to remember. The Internet, however, is really based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, DNS translates the name into the corresponding IP address. It is similar to a phonebook for the Internet. See: Domain Name System