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2 Ohio men avoid jail time in computer hacking in El PasoEL PASO, Jan 12, 2009 (El Paso Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Two Ohio men will not have to serve prison time after pleading guilty in September to stealing military secrets from a defense contractor in El Paso. Dana Arvidson and Gabriel Schaffer thought it was a defense contractor, but it turned out to be an FBI sting. Last Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Gaughan in Cleveland sentenced the two men to six months of house arrest and three years' probation. In 2002, an undercover FBI agent pretending to be a Chicago businessman contacted Arvidson and developed a relationship with him, according to an article in The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. The agent discussed having Arvidson swipe information on laser missile technology from an El Paso company. The article states that in February 2003, Arvidson and Schaffer flew to El Paso to set up a laptop computer and three antennas to get the information from the El Paso company. Arvidson and Schaffer downloaded 6,000 electronic files from two computer systems, including one batch of data from a directory called "000 Sensitive," according to the article. The two men then met with the agent at a Cleveland Holiday Inn where the agreed-upon $100,000 payment was placed on a bed after the stolen files were handed over with the means to decrypt the files. The FBI then entered the room and arrested the men. To see more of the El Paso Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.elpasotimes.com. Copyright (c) 2009, El Paso Times, Texas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |