Teen Hacker Facing Jail Time and Fine

W A SH I N G T O N, Nov. 22 -- At age 19, hacker Eric Burns has already wandered the underpinnings of the Web where few had gone before, including an illicit visit inside computers at the White House in May.

“I didn’t really think it was too much of a big deal,” said Burns—hacker name Zyklon—who admitted responsibility for some of the most sensational attacks on corporate and government Internet sites.

He pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., to a single felony count of intentionally hacking into one computer, but admitted involvement in the spate of electronic assaults.

Now Burns is facing 15 months in federal prison and $36,240 in restitution. And under a judge’s orders last week, he won’t be allowed to touch a computer for three years after his release.

Burns was initially indicted May 13 on charges of breaking into computers for the U.S. Information Agency and two businesses. That was four days after the White House Internet site—at www.whitehouse.gov—was electronically assaulted.

Initially, Burns said he wasn’t directly involved in that White House attack in which the altered site included the phrase, “following peeps get some shouts”—hacker slang for “hello”—and listed a dozen names, including Zyklon.

Zyklon is the name of a poison gas used by Nazis against Jews.

Spread the Word About His Attack

But federal prosecutors said Burns boasted of the White House attack online even before it happened, and Burns admitted at his sentencing Friday he was among three people who altered the site briefly to show a black Web page with the names of hacker organizations, along with messages, “Your box was own3d,” and, “Stop all the war.”

He said Monday in a telephone interview from his home in Shorewood, Wash., that he will refuse to identify his two partners to the Secret Service, partly because he believes the criminal penalties for hackers are too steep. His punishment didn’t fit his crime, he insisted.