THURSDAY,FEBRUARY 20,2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = !
Hackers seeking thrills, not damages
By Henry C. Jackson
cjackson@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
David Supuran has never taken a computer science class, never worked as a computer consultant and is just shy of his 18th birthday. In many ways he is a typical hacker.
Supuran, who lives in Florida and has yet to graduate high school, said he had access to a variety of networks, including some of the most difficult to crack, such as government and military networks.
"I've hacked into various things," Supuran said. "I've pretty much been on everything."
According to many experts, Supuran is exactly the type of person who hacks: a rank amateur by résumé but a hardened veteran by practice.
"Hackers tend to be younger people with a lot of computer skills," said Jeff Lanza, special agent in the FBI's Kansas City, Mo. office. "Most hackers aren't doing it to get any specific information they're doing
it for the thrill."
As the FBI continues its investigation of last month's hacking at the University of Kansas, which left 1,450 international students victims of identity theft, experts said they would not be surprised if the culprit or culprits were actually thrill-seeking youths.
"Because of the trails they left behind and what they did, I don't think whoever hacked into the system intended to get into the SEVIS data," said Cory Bosley, Topeka sophomore, who has worked as a systems administrator at Harvard University among other places. "They probably just found it while poking around the machine. They were being curious. It just went too far."
Although they said they were unfamiliar with the University's recent hacking, experts said hackers generally had similar backgrounds. Adam Moskowitz, who has worked as a computer consultant for a variety of network based software companies, said hacking was typically a pastime for introverts who could not
"If you're fishing around and you're breaking into computers that your not supposed to it's a crime. It doesn't matter what your motive is."
Jeff Lanza
Special agent in the FBI's Kansas City, Mo. office
find social acceptance elsewhere.
"It's people who say getting into such and such a system means something," he said.
James O'Kane, a systems administrator at the University of Pittsburgh, which has comparable enrollment to KU, said most hackers didn't get into hacking looking to find sensitive information.
Moskowitz said most hackers were "script kiddies," young, untrained people for whom hacking is more of a thrill than a way to make a living; a small percentage of hackers engage in high-stakes
"That's probably about 1 percent of computer security problems," he said.
industrial espionage.
The difference between a script kiddy and a criminal who uses hacking for personal gain is a distinctive one for those in the computer industry, but it's a non sequitur in the eyes of law enforcement, the FBI's Lanza said.
"If you're fishing around and you're breaking into computers that your not supposed to it's a crime," he said. "It doesn't matter what your motive is."
Most hackers end up either getting caught or growing up. For Supuran, the case was both. After tangling with law enforcement and what he said was the wrong type of people. Supuran said he has gone completely legitimate.
He offered a warning.
"People that have malicious intentions don't have much to stop them from keeping up their behavior," he said. "It's just another moral battle in life for people to deal with."
— Edited by Amber Byarlay
Senate to give SRS $2.2 billion budget
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — A Senate committee has endorsed a nearly $2.2 billion budget for the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services in the next fiscal year, making no changes in Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' spending proposal.
The agency's funding in the fiscal year that starts July 1 would rise about 8 percent, or $160 million, from this year's level.
But even as they endorsed the governor's proposal yesterday, members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee expressed concern about a potential $1.4 million federal fine facing SRS.
Agency officials also acknowledged the federal government has been questioning more than $16 million in claims.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Steve Morris (R -- Hugoton), later called the SRS budget one of the most difficult to consider.
Sen. Paul Feleciano (D -- Wichita) expressed surprise and asked if there were any other fines the committee wasn't aware of.
Laura Howard, deputy SRS secretary for health care policy, said the federal government is also questioning Kansas' use of about $16 million in federal funds.
This week, SRS appealed when federal officials questioned $5.1 million the agency is spending on a program that determines whether Kansans should receive disability benefits.
Employees and those who receive the services share blame for the error, said Candy Shively, deputy SRS secretary for service delivery.
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