“You’ve been hacked” is a message none of us ever want to see. These people made a living out of sending out that message.
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Kevin Mitnick (Several Convictions in the 1990’s)
For several years he made a career out of hacking into computers, stealing corporate secrets, scrambling phone networks, and breaking into the national defense warning system which caused millions of dollars in losses. He has spent almost six years in prison in solitary confinement for his notorious crimes.
It seems his hacking days are over, however. He is now a computer consultant, author, and public speaker. His story has inspired two Hollywood movies: Takedown and Freedom Downtime.
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Adrian Lamo (Convicted in 2004)
Adrian Lamo admitted to various computer crimes directed at companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft, Ameritech, Cingular, AOL Time Warner, Bank of America, Citigroup, McDonald’s and Sun Microsystems, but he is best known his intrusion into “The New York Times” internal computer system. He repeatedly hacked into the system to add his name to confidential databases of expert sources. He also used the paper’s LexisNexis account to conduct research on high-profile subjects.
In 2004, he surrendered to FBI and pleaded guilty to one count of computer crimes against Microsoft, Lexis-Nexis and “The New York Times”. He was sentenced to six months’ detention at his parents’ home plus two years probation, and was ordered to pay roughly $65,000 in restitution.
Lamo is now an award winning journalist and public speaker. He has interviewed personalities like John Ashcroft and Oliver Stone.
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Jonathan James (Convicted in 2000)
Jonathan James was the first juvenile, at the age of 16, to be jailed for computer crimes in the United States. His crimes were directed toward NASA and the US Department of Defense.
NASA claimed he downloaded $1.7 million worth of proprietary software. He then admitted to installing a “sniffer” on the Department of Defense’s computer system which allowed him to intercept over three thousand messages passing to and from employees, along with numerous usernames and passwords of other DoD employees. At least ten of the computers he hacked into were military computers
Although he could have served up to ten years in jail, the fact that he was a juvenile reduced his initial sentence to six months in jail and probation until he was 18 (he was also required to write apology letters to NASA and DoD). The judge then reduced the sentence to six months of house arrest and probation until the age of 21. After violating probation he was required to serve the full six months in a federal correctional facility.
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Operation Web Snare (2004)
As of 2004, operation Web Snare is the “largest and most successful” law enforcement operation related to online fraud. The operation included more than 150 investigations of Internet-related crimes, including denial-of-service attacks, computer hacking, selling counterfeit software, phishing, and identity theft. More than 870,000 victims lost more than $210 million dollars from such crimes.
Among those convicted were Utah resident Mark Pentrack who offered car parts, aircraft parts, and other items for sale over the Internet, but did not own those items. More than ten people sent Pentrack more than $200,000 for such items. He hired secretaries in five states outside Utah to receive payments from the consumers, used an Australia based e-mail service, and used an “anonymizing” program when conducting online activities. He was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to mail fraud, misuse of a Social Security number, attempted destruction of evidence, and making a false statement in connection with an Internet fraud scheme.
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Max Ray Butler (Convicted in 2001)
Also known as Max Vision, Max Ray Butler was a talented computer specialist who ran a computer security company in Silicon Valley. He was also a highly-skilled hacker who went to prison for creating an Internet worm that hacked into systems at McChord Air Force Base, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the Argonne and Brookhaven National Labs, IDSoftware, and an unspecified Defense Department system.
Interestingly, Max was an FBI informant for five years. He supplied to the FBI information about several major cracks and helped track down other computer hackers.
Police arrested Max in March 2000 after he refused to wear a wiretap to a meeting with a friend who was being suspected of cyber-crimes. He was later charged with 15 counts of hacking-related crimes including computer intrusion, possession of stolen passwords and interception of communications. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
His hacking career didn’t end with his prison sentence, though. Recently he was in court facing with charges of wire fraud and identity theft. He faces a possible sentence of 40 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine if convicted.
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Nahshon Even-Chaim (Convicted in 1993)
Nahshon Even-Chaim , aka Phoenix, belonged to an elite computer hacking group known as The Realm. He was the first major computer hacker to be convicted in Australia. His targets centered on defense and nuclear weapons research networks. He was so skilled that many of his victims weren’t aware they were victimized until the evidence was presented after the arrests.
Some of his crimes include stealing a password cracking program from NASA, gaining unauthorized access to universities involved in nuclear energy research, tampering with files and crashing the system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which controlled the world’s most powerful laser, and many more.
Wire and data taps gave police all the evidence they needed to charge Even-Chaim with 48 offenses, most of which carried a maximum ten year sentence. After negotiations, however, his sentence was reduced to 500 hours of community service and a 12 month suspended jail term.
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Vasiliy Gorshikov and Alexey Ivanov (Convicted in 2001)
After a very complex undercover FBI operations, Vasiliy Gorshikov and Alexey Ivanov of Chelyabinsk, Russia were arrested for 20 counts of computer crimes, fraud and conspiracy. They were convicted for stealing approximately 50,000 credit card numbers from U.S. online banks, e-commerce companies and Internet service providers.
Gorshikov was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $690,000 in restitution charges, while Ivanov received a 3 years and 8 month sentence and restitution charges of $800,000.
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Jeanson James Ancheta (Convicted in 2006)
Jeanson James Ancheta of California was charged with 17 counts of conspiracy, fraud and other crimes connected to a 14-month hacking spree that started in June 2004. He pleaded guilty to seizing control of hundreds of thousands of computers and renting the zombie network to people who used it to send out spam. He silently downloaded Spy ware/Ad ware to more than 400,000 infected computers that he controlled. He admitted to gaining for himself and a co-conspirator more than $100,000 in advertising affiliate proceeds.
Among the computers he attacked were some at the Weapons Division of the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California, and at the U.S. Department of Defense.
Ancheta was sentenced to almost five years in federal prison and ordered to pay approximately $15,000 to the United States federal government for inflicting damage on military computers. He was also forced to return to the government more than $60,000 in cash, a BMW automobile and computer equipment.
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Markus Hess (convicted in 1990)
After being recruited by the KGB as an international spy to secure U.S. military information for the Soviets, Markus Hess, a German citizen, was able to attack 400 U.S. military computers.
Hess was sentenced to one to three years in prison after being found guilty of espionage he was released on probation before the end of his sentence.
He now writes networking software for a computer company in Germany.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Jonathan James also had softwares that could control oxygen filters in the ISS… I heard he wasn’t able to compile them so he couldn’t use them…
January 4th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
had to read this one. its fun knowing this stuff. some great minds put to bad use.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
It sounds like some have been rehabilitated, but that Ivory character should never get out.
Good research. Thank you.
January 5th, 2008 at 3:05 am
Nice research and excellent written article. I too enjoy keeping up on this kind of information.
I once had a friend that got offered a job with the government after he hacked some type of government computer in the 80’s. I think that he still works for them, but I’m not sure. It was either taking that deal or going to prison for several years.
January 6th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Nice article, these guys seem to get it easy though.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:05 am
No women!
January 7th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Number seven is another picture of kevin mitnick
January 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Glad to see you know your stuff.
I’ve seen far too many people claim Mitnick was the FBI’s most wanted.
That was actually a rumor started by John Markoff.
Anyone else interested, look up the movie Freedom Downtime.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Yeah very “dangerous” minds…well the guy who threatened little girls got what he deserved. But i just wish Hackers would publish their findings on the internet, and let the information free. Really now if there were a co ordinated effort among hackers to bring certain secrets to light via the internet that would be…..good candy.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Nice article. Though it disappoints me that women didnt made it to the top 10.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:07 am
This is a cool article. There is something strange in the Jonathon James picture, there is a woman reflected in the glass behind him is in perfect stride with him, all in black as well, and also appears to be wearing glasses too it makes for a very strange optical illusion.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:44 am
Great job with the article, it provided a really good read.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
As far as I know ‘Evil Angelica’ never got caught.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:15 am
but Gary McKinnon, also known as Solo, (born in Glasgow in 1966) is a British hacker accused by the United States of perpetrating the biggest military computer hack of all time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon
January 10th, 2008 at 6:47 am
hey they forgot me ! oh yeah i was’nt convicted hehe
January 11th, 2008 at 10:56 am
wHAT ABOUT THE GUY FROM THE 80′S MOVIE hAckers
January 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
yep the only black guy gets 110 years! WOW
January 11th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
January 11th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
All very interesting, but \”Quo vadis?\” – who watches the watchers?
January 11th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
The ones i thik are cool are Max Ray Butler lol he moved to the dark side, thats fun, and Jonathan James sure knows who to dress The Matrix fashion, and only 16? wow, realy impresive.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Miknick’s picture looks really old.
January 12th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
‘ All very interesting, but \”Quo vadis?\” – who watches the watchers? ‘
normally we, the people, should. so please all you hackers out there publish what you find out everywhere in the net, and give the power back to the people!
January 12th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
omg that stuff is amazing, and i totally agree with the 110 years in prison for the perve!
January 12th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
if the perv was white he wouldnt have gotten 110 years..f.u c k the system
January 13th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Brilliance without restraint.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:44 am
nice. some of them sound like the guy off of live free die hard.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:33 am
No one remembers how Escehlon was built? In modules where none of us knew what the other one was doing. Kinda like terror cells. Dot mil ftp sites used to be so easy to get into…ah the good old days.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:29 am
i met Kevin Mitnick. (no 1) at a security conference last year.
he is still nuts!.. also a tad O.C.D i guess prison didnt do him any good.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:00 am
WOW,I was floored when i saw this about IVORY. I actually knew this guy and when i did, you would have never thought he would have ever done some craziness like that. He worked a 9-5, had nice things, made great money, active member of church and so on….. You NEVER know what kind of person someone truly is underneath. I am disgusted and truly feel he got what was deserved.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
You missed Gary McKinnon – hacked NASA and found UFOs.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Great article. Keep it up!
January 17th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
yeah jez im sure he did
January 27th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Good information, keep it up !!
January 28th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Isnt Johnathon James behind the Scientolgy attacks last week?
February 4th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
LOL…. The spook gets jobbed for life and the white guys don’t!! Who says the system ain’t working!!!
February 5th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
After reading about these guys, I feel so intellectually inferior. lol
February 6th, 2008 at 8:13 am
oohh let them away with it they are gimps
February 8th, 2008 at 4:04 am
hackers horrible
February 8th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
looks like if you try hacking..you’ll end up having a good job..lol..
February 10th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Now if this is how good the ones who are stupid enough to get caught are imagine what the really good ones that the government has no chance of catching can do…
February 12th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
just an FYI, this article was stolen by
http://funhigh.com/?p=279
February 16th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Women didn’t “made” it to the top 10 because women like you don’t spell good…LOL
February 25th, 2008 at 5:52 am
If they did try to publish it to the internet, dont you think the gov would try and take it out. They dont want us to know anything. Just scare us into thinking hackers are horrible, when in reality some just want to know the truth. Then they go and manipulate it. Bastards!
February 26th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Wow, I was interested on how Ivory was doing I heard this a while ago and was caught in amazement. I knew Ivory and never thought he was a person like this. I cannot believe this he was a great person and would help a stranger if they needed it. I was hoping it wasnt true but aparently it is I hate it but he needs to be punished for what he has done. Its scary to know what all went on when I knew him.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 am
adrian cuervo amieva is a hacker that goes in the webcams of the tennagers and then in th night he cracks straws
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I love the way Jonathan James dressed in that pic. It looks like he stepped right out of the matrix!!! You can tell he was interested in tech/futuristic sci-fi. Typical of hackers!!! We all share the same interests (tech/futuristic/sci-fi/CONTROLLING THE WORLD THROUGH COMPUTERS!!!)
sudo THE WORLD
November 26th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I wish I could say the things I’ve done but I can;t
I admires some of these guys for the good work they are doing now
I always think that a lots of companies put so much money into security stuff that they always forget who’s the person installing them”
haha you know what i MEAN NOW..
May 1st, 2009 at 10:23 am
hey im kinda new to this stuff but just a question for someone begining the art should i start off with a comptia a+ basics dummy book or does anyone have a better tip for me
May 18th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
jonathan james is a G he looks like THE ONE Neo’s back finally lol
June 10th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Kevin Poulson’s not on the list?? Hmm..
August 24th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Can someone help me raise my credit score?