Jonathan James
Jonathan Joseph James (December 12, 1983 - May 18, 2008), a.k.a. c0mrade, was an American hacker who was the first juvenile incarcerated for cybercrime in the United States.[1] The South Florida native was 15 years old at the time of the first offense and 16 years old on the date of his sentencing. He died on May 18, 2008. Although details regarding his death were never released, it is notably speculated, including by fellow hacker Adrian Lamo, that James committed suicide by gunshot.

James gained notoriety when he became the first juvenile to be sent to prison for hacking. He was sentenced at 16 years old. In an anonymous PBS interview, he professes, "I was just looking around, playing around. What was fun for me was a challenge to see what I could pull off."

James's major intrusions targeted high-profile organizations. He installed a backdoor into a Defense Threat Reduction Agency server. The DTRA is an agency of the Department of Defense charged with reducing the threat to the U.S. and its allies from nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional and special weapons. The backdoor he created enabled him to view sensitive emails and capture employee usernames and passwords.

James also cracked into NASA computers, stealing software worth approximately $1.7 million. According to the Department of Justice, "The software supported the International Space Station's physical environment, including control of the temperature and humidity within the living space." NASA was forced to shut down its computer systems, ultimately racking up a $41,000 cost. James explained that he downloaded the code to supplement his studies on C programming, but contended, "The code itself was crappy . . . certainly not worth $1.7 million like they claimed."

Given the extent of his intrusions, if James, also known as "c0mrade," had been an adult he likely would have served at least 10 years. Instead, he was banned from recreational computer use and was slated to serve a six-month sentence under house arrest with probation. However, he served six months in prison for violation of parole. Today, James asserts that he's learned his lesson and might start a computer security company.

Although the specific details aren't clear, it has been said that on his Gateway Pentium 266[6] he used the popular nmap port scan to scan hosts for, among other things, then-largely unknown flaws in several of Sun Microsystems' remote procedure call services in order to gain unauthorized access to the computer systems. Once on a system, he would search for information on it, and try to branch out. He would usually set up a sniffer to get further access to the network.


website:http://www.itsecurity.com/features/top-10-famous-hackers-042407/