Most of
all, the defence presented Phoenix as a young man who had strayed off
the correct path in life but was now back on track--holding down a job
and having a life.
The DPP had gone in hard against Phoenix. They seemed to want a jail
term badly and they doggedly presented Phoenix as an arrogant
braggart. The court heard a tape-recording of Phoenix ringing up
security guru Edward DeHart of the Computer Emergency Response Team at
Carnegie Mellon University to brag about a security exploit. Phoenix
told DeHart to get onto his computer and then proceeded to walk him
step by step through the `passwd -f' security bug. Ironically, it was
Electron who had discovered that security hole and taught it to
Phoenix--a fact Phoenix didn't seem to want to mention to DeHart.
The head of the AFP's Southern Region Computer Crimes Unit, Detective
Sergeant Ken Day was in court that day. There was no way he was going
to miss this. The same witness noting the tension between Phoenix's
parents might also have perceived an undercurrent of hostility between
Day and Phoenix--an undercurrent which did not seem to exist between
Day and either of the other Realm hackers.
Pages:
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494