Hacker charged with $1M cable modem scam

A California man ran a thriving business over a six-year period, earning $1 million since 2003. The only problem was that he did that by selling unauthorized modifications to fool cable modems into providing better service than what their users had signed on for, or for free. Additional services provided by his company, TCNISO, includes the ability to surf anonymously.

This was used by others to carry out nefarious deeds such as launching denial-of-service attacks or placing prank calls that resulted in raids by heavily armed police teams.

He has authored a book titled "Hacking the Cable Modem," and hosts an online forum dedicated to this topic, Harris took scant measures to keep his illicit activities secret. Noted Bill Pollock, founder of No Starch Press that published his 2006 book, the question of whether uncapping a cable modem is illegal is "not clear."

Based on the grand jury indictment unsealed on Monday however, Harris could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail as well as a $250,000 fine. You can be sure that the various cable Internet providers in the United States and overseas will be watching this one closely.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld
- check out this article at The Register

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