MagicFX

From Hack Story

This article pertains to a defacer known as "MagicFX", who was part of a group known as "irc.psychic.com", named after a small IRC server the defacers were active on. MagicFX's most notable defacement was that of Ebay (www.ebay.com), in which he demonstrated to Adam Penenberg/Forbes that he had full control over their main web server and more. A mirror of the two defacements and links to the article can be found at:

http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/1999/03/13/ebay.com/

Since the defacement was posted, the three articles including Penenberg's which contained an interview with MagicFX have since been moved or removed from the various sites. Searching Forbes, I can find no reference to that specific article.

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http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4438378.html?tag=st.ne.1002.thed.ni

By Reuters Special to CNET News.com January 10, 2001, 6:15 p.m. PT

SAN FRANCISCO--A current employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation's top nuclear weapons research facility, has been arrested on charges of computer hacking and tampering with a witness while a student, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

A senior lab official stressed that all of the charges related to activity before the suspect joined the staff at Los Alamos--which has been hit with a string of security problems--and that there was no evidence that any of the nation's sensitive nuclear secrets had been compromised.

The employee, 21-year-old Jerome Heckenkamp, was arrested Tuesday at Los Alamos on an indictment returned by a San Jose, Calif., grand jury last December, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

According to the indictment, Heckenkamp used the names "MagicFX" and "Magic" to commit computer intrusions and intercept electronic communications between Feb. 26, 1999, and Nov. 29, 1999, apparently while he was a student at the University of Wisconsin.

The indictment also alleges that Heckenkamp attempted to tamper with a witness in the case with a view to persuading that person to withhold testimony.

A senior Los Alamos official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said all of the charges related to activity that occurred well before Heckenkamp was hired to work on the lab's network and information systems in June 2000. "We were notified by the bureau after he was hired and we took every possible step necessary to protect our info security and our nation's secrets," the official said.

"He had no access, either physically or electronically, to anything of a sensitive nature at the lab."

Los Alamos' security measures have been under increased scrutiny following the December 1999 arrest of former lab physicist Wen Ho Lee on charges of mishandling sensitive nuclear data, and the temporary disappearance of two computer hard drives containing nuclear secrets.

Initially portrayed as a spy for China, the Taiwanese-born Lee eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading nuclear weapons design secrets to a nonsecure computer. The hard drives, which disappeared in May last year, were subsequently found behind a copying machine.

The lab official said security officials had been over Los Alamos' systems "with an exceptionally fine-toothed comb" and found no evidence of any tampering related to the Heckenkamp case. "There is absolutely no evidence of anything improper," he said.

Heckenkamp, who has also been charged in a separate indictment returned by a federal grand jury in San Diego, appeared in court in Los Alamos on Wednesday and was detained in federal custody pending further hearings.

He is scheduled to return to court Thursday for a hearing to determine whether he will be moved to either San Jose or San Diego, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.