Teen cracker ‘Coolio’ enters guilty pleas

A teenage cracker earlier linked last year's denial of service attacks has pleaded guilty to three lesser crimes, according to a report by Associated Press.

Dennis Moran, who is better known by his hacker handle Coolio, has admitted to hijacking the website of RSA Security, rsa.com and twice cracking the anti-drugs website affiliated to the Los Angeles Police Department, dare.com. He defaced Dare (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) with pro-drugs messages and a picture showing Donald Duck shooting up drugs with a hypodermic syringe. He also posted an obscene picture onto a site describing how the US government was complying with the Chemical Weapons Convention. Coolio's work can be see on Attrition.

Under a plea bargain arrangement, which is yet to be approved by the trial judge James O'Neill, the 18 year-old will be imprisoned for nine months and pay $5 000 in compensation to each of his three victims.

Moran pleaded guilty to offences of unauthorised access to computer systems during a 30 minute hearing before Carroll County Superior Court in New Hampshire. He will be formally sentenced after an investigation into the damage he caused is completed.

Prosecutor Michael Delaney said that Moran, whilst he did not access classified information, also broke into the Web sites of four military bases, three Army and one Air Force.

The attack on the Dare site happened at the same time as prestige Internet sites such as Yahoo! and eBay were brought down by a distributed denial of service attack. Moran allegedly boasted of these attacks, which he has since denied being any part of. A Canadian cracker known as Mafiaboy has been charged with disruption eBay and Yahoo! ®

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