Fake Boarding Passes Land Student in Heap of Trouble
Nov. 2, 2006 — -- Christopher Soghoian is knee-deep in trouble.
The 24-year-old Indiana University Bloomington doctoral student created a Web site that enabled anyone with a computer to make fake boarding passes good enough to get past security but not onto an airplane.
Over the weekend, the FBI raided his home and confiscated his computer and other belongings just a day after Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., called for his arrest.
The raid marked his second visit from federal agents in two days.
"I came back today, to find the glass on the front door smashed," he wrote in his blog, slightparanoia.blogspot.com.
"Inside, is a rather ransacked home, a search warrant taped to my kitchen table, a total absence of computers -- and various other important things. I have no idea what time they actually performed the search, but the warrant was approved at 2AM. I'm sincerely glad I wasn't in bed when they raided the house. That would have been even more scary."
According to Soghoian's blog, the boarding pass generator Web site had been shut down by Friday evening.
Although no charges have been filed yet, a spokeswoman for the FBI, special agent Wendy Osborn, confirmed that the bureau was working a joint investigation on Soghoian with the Transportation Security Administration.
Advised not to comment further by his attorney, the clearly shaken computer-security student -- who last week called his actions a "public service" in an interview with ABCNEWS.com -- is now hearing a swelling chorus of both support and condemnation for what he's done.
Soghoian gets praise from supporters on the Facebook Web site he has created to help raise money for his legal defense fund.
His school has informed him that it will not cover his legal fees or provide him with an attorney.
Even Markey has done an about-face after learning the young man was studying computer security and created the fake boarding pass generator to expose a frightening loophole in our national security.
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