NEWS A London man is to appear in court next week after being charged with attempting to hack into a charity website set up to raise relief funds for victims of the Asian tsunami disaster.
Daniel James Cuthbert, 28, of Whitechapel in East London has been charged with one offence under section one of the Computer Misuse Act following an unauthorised attempt to access the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) website on New Year's Eve.
The alleged hack was detected immediately and the Metropolitan Police notified, which led to the arrest of Cuthbert on 20 January where he was bailed while police examined computer equipment seized during a search of his home.
Cuthbert has now been charged and will appear at Horseferry Magistrates court in London next Thursday.
Tsunami charities have been the target of several other unrelated internet scams. Some Chinese fraudsters have been manipulating Google rankings to try to ensure their fake donations site ranks higher than genuine ones.
Another UK man was jailed for six months after his email hoax informed families searching for relatives missing in the midst of the tsunami crisis that their loved ones were dead.
Comments
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1. anonymous
According to BoingBoing, the "hack" was simply that the guy was using the text-based Lynx browser. This was stated in posts to the earlier story.
Maybe you should do a little more research, Andy.
[Ed note: And maybe you should do a little more research into the law about reporting on police investigations and court cases. Certain restrictions come into play about what can be reported once someone has been charged in order to prevent any coverage that might prejudice a trial - and to breach that runs the risk of being guilty of contempt of court. If anything comes out in the defence argument in court about the possible innocent reason for this arrest then we'll be able to report it.]
2. anonymous
I can't believe they're charging this guy for using Lynx? Are they out of their minds??
3. anonymous
Yeah, we wouldn't want facts to predjudice a jury, now would we? You have one mixed up justice system.
4. Jarett Weintraub
Sounds like a distorted story, regardless.
Okay, I'm not English, so my knowledge of UK reporting restrictions is nil. Regardless, it seems sloppy to me to say, for instance, that he was arrested after attempting an unauthorized access to the charity's webserver. It was an *unusual* access, but not objectively or definitively an unauthorized one. Shouldn't there be restrictions on making the prosecution's case too? How about "allegedly unauthorized" eh?
[Ed note: As you say - you've no knowledge of UK reporting restrictions so leave that to us. He has been charged with (and this is all in the official publicly released charge from London's Metropolitan Police) unauthorised (not 'unusual') access to the DEC Tsunami website in breach of section one of the computer misuse act. Those are the facts and that's what we've reported. Both sides of the argument will come out in court and we'll be there to report them but until then we'll leave the speculation to bloggers and chatrooms out there.]
5. Ayn Marx
IS there any proof that this guy is merely "guilty" of usnig Lynx, other than the dubious assertions of some Disney blogger?
6. anonymous
to quote the editor in a previous comment: "prevent any coverage that might prejudice a trial"
what? from what I understand you explicitly accuse Mr. Cuthbert in your headline that a "hack" actually took place by using the sentence "Tsunami charity website hack".
I might be wrong on this one, since english is not my native language, but to me it sounds like a stating of facts that were not verified to have happened in the first place.
Like headlining an article "Mother Murders Son", wherein you write about some teen who ran away from home and his whereabouts are unknown.
"Alledged Tsunami Website Misuse" sounds a lot more able to "prevent any coverage that might prejudice a trial".
Apart from that, you are using the term "to hack" in a confusing manner. If anything Mr. Cuthbert is accused of "cracking".
While I think the text itself reads relatively fair (apart from the whole hack/crack confusion), the headline does not.
Anyway, many thanks for the followup.
[Ed note: We're just dealing with facts - you're the one putting the spin on. We've reported the police charge against him, which is that he hacked into the Tsunami website in breach of section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act (their words not ours). He'll get his day in court when both sides of the argument will be presented - and we'll be there to report on that. We're a news website so until then we'll leave the speculating to the bloggers and chatrooms]
7. anonymous
Just after this hit the news, I naturally visited the site using Lynx running under Cygwin. I was blocked.
I hope I don't get arrested.
8. john b
"Ed note: We're just dealing with facts - you're the one putting the spin on. We've reported the police charge against him..."
This is true re the article. But the headline implies a hack has taken place, whereas the known facts are merely that the police & CPS *claim* a hack has taken place. "Tsunami charity website 'hack' - UK man charged" would have been more appropriate and less prejudicial, no?
9. Rob
Blimey there's more muppets out there than I thought, that can't read or think properly when catching up on current affairs. I think from now on people who wants to stay up to date with the news should have to have a qualification.
10. anonymous
For every major disater there is a many who take joy or greed in others pain.
If found gulity I hope they set an example to others who pray on other good nature / charity.
There is to many people out there going in for this type of work.
I understand that we can not control the world, if we set an example in this country that this is not acceptable it may lead others to clamp down the same.
11. Silly Con Dotcom.
Nice factual reporting.
How the Yanks dare to have a go at us about an unfair judicial system I simply don't know.
Go sort your own backyard before peering over the fence and having a pop at ours.
Nice one Silicon - keep the facts flowing.
12. Dan
Hmmm. I applaud Silicon's stance of only reporting the known facts at this moment in time and leaving speculation and rumour to the 'bloggers' (who, incidentally, love that kind of thing it would seem) but...
...has anyone else noticed that news providers have started making their headlines much more sensationalist since the news feed/aggregator explosion? Since this is all the potential visitor sees, if the headline is attractive then they are more likely to 'come on in' (which also means more £££ for the news provider in advertising money)
I'm too young to be an old cynic too.
13. anonymous
They are not reporting the "known facts". The premise of the headline is that there was a crime committed, i.e. that someone "hacked" into the site in the first place. In FACT that there was any crime at all is something for the prosecution to prove, but you'd never guess that from the headline nor indeed from the "ed notes" - you'd think it was just a question of whodunnit.
14. anonymous
I would just like to point out that the comment on boing boing saying that he was simply using Lynx was posted before charges were made. Now that charges have been made further comments would be inappropriate.
I would also say that it isn't unusual for charges to be brought and a case be dropped before reaching court.
As for the title of the article, the word "alleged" is implicit if you read the content of the article.