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Blind Teenage Hacker Gets 11 Years in Prison
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Jason Mick/DailyTech
June 30, 2009
Blind phone hacker’s reign comes to a close
On June 12, 2006, SWAT police stormed a house in Alvarado, Texas. They had received a call from what appeared to be the phone number, from an individual who reported that he was holding hostages and had killed family members with an AK47 while high on hallucinogenic drugs. The operation, which likely cost the state tens of thousands of dollars, came up empty handed — there were no hostages and no gunman — merely scared and confused victims. Miles away, Guadalupe Martinez, a “swatter” — a phone hacker that spoofs the 911 system with malicious calls — was laughing.
Many regard phone hacking as a dead pastime, believing it vanished in the 1980s. However, it is alive and well in some parts of the country, with a younger generation of phone hacker’s (known as “phreakers”) wreaking havoc. The latest case is that of a 19-year-old blind phone hacker in the Boston area who went on a similar spree of phone crimes and harassment, which earned him 11 years in prison.
Matthew Weigman, also known as “Li’l Hacker”, is legally blind, but that didn’t stop him from joining up with a crew of phone hackers and placing hundreds of harassing calls via the 911 system and other phone systems. The crimes began when Mr. Weigman was only 14, and continued until this year.
Targeting “employers, landlords, families and friends of multiple party line participants” with zeal, Mr. Weigman showed his victims little mercy. He and his friends would cut phone lines, snoop on conversations, and send police to his enemies’ houses in a concerted attempt to get them fired or evicted.
He and his friends used a variety of classic phone-hacking schemes. Among them was “pretexting” calls — calls to phone company workers where the group would pose as employees or customers in an effort to gain useful information. Mr. Weigman’s phreaker friends would also use war-dialing — auto-dialing thousands of numbers to try to gain access to the phone system. They would then meet up and trade passwords and intelligence.
Police first caught wind of Mr. Weigman in 2005 when he called officers to the home of Richard Gasper, a TSA screener, whose daughter Mr. Weigman knew personally. Mr. Gasper’s daughter had refused to participate in phone sex with Mr. Weigman, so he responded with the malicious hoax.
In May 2008 Weigman, his brother and another swatter named Sean Benton, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, drove 70 miles to the house of a Verizon Wireless employee who was investigating the incidents. They tried to “intimidate and frighten him”. Believing he was above the law, Mr. Weigman saw his unsavory dreams come crashing down; in this case the police showed up and he was arrested.
After a lengthy review and trial, three of his friends — Stuart Rosoff, Jason Trowbridge and Chad Ward — earned sentences of five years each. Guadalupe Martinez, the aforementioned friend of the group, received 30 months. Another phreaker, Carlton Nalley pled guilty, but failed to show up for sentencing. And Mr. Weigman, the audacious 19-year-old blind phone hacker, earned the longest sentence of them all — 11 years (135 months). The sentence is one of the longest to date and brings to an end this crime saga, serving as a warning to other would-be phone hackers of the risk they are taking.
© 2009, DailyTech
yoddel
4 days ago
232 comments
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Jalexander123
4 months ago
4 comments
I think that the punishment was severe enough because phone hacking is a very serious crime. It can cost the government a ton of money for someone committing these type of crimes. The punishment could also be a little stricter in my opinion that way it could send a message to anyone who is thinking about doing a crime such as this.
cheako
4 months ago
46 comments
@wdr525: There is an early response VS accurate response trade off that the 911 system should be appropriately prepared to deal with. This system would likely need adjusting a few times a day. For example a call placed about heat stroke at 3AM is less likely to be more important then a gas station robbery, however at 5PM the matter is reversed. A gas station robbery is less likely with every one filling up after work and thus more likely a prank.
As stated it's easier to continually update the 911 system to handle new situations then it would be to repeatedly correct the behavior of every generation. Responding to actual emergencies would seam more expensive. Perhaps we should look elsewhere for our protection like arming and training neighborhood watch programs to deal with these situations, much like the minuet men of the revolutionary war.
Something is OK if it is allowed, every kid leans this by the time they are 2. If I can spray poison into my eyes and there is no sign telling me not to then I could get a big settlement. We need a system where the kids can play and do whatever they want in this allegedly free country, however kids need boarders and we need to make sure these boarders are in place and well defined. A smarter 911 system that kids are not able to play with is the solution here, giving these kids time outs for our lack of foresight is just plain wrong. We should accept that we didn't tell them not to and that there was no system in place to prevent them from doing so.
wdr525
4 months ago
44 comments
@cheako: Suppose you were involved in an emergency situation--a car accident, for instance--and, with people around you in critical medical condition, you call 911. Suppose then, that you were forced to wait for some period of time on the phone while it was verified (via questions, call-tracing, etc.) that you were not merely a prank-caller. People could be dying, and they have to make sure it's not some kid who gets his kicks by summoning the dedicated police officers and/or firefighters to emergencies that are entirely fictitious.
Fortunately, our system works in such a way that we would rather respond to prank calls than risk letting people die. Jokes are one thing, but crying wolf is entirely another. On top of this, many local governments are overburdened financially due to the economy, and responding to fake emergencies is expensive.
If we take the approach that 'kids are just kids' then who's going to set them straight? Sure, there will be similar cases in the future, but to turn a blind eye and say that this is OK will only increase the behavior. With the world the way it is, it's a behavior we can't afford.
cheako
4 months ago
46 comments
So easy a blind person can do it, but I was unable to find a howto easily.
If you plan to shop-lift, let us know. Most retail outlets have at the vary least the perception of having some sort of theft detection mechanism.
It just sounds like these 911 systems are insufficient and are the operators just plain gullible? To me all I see is that the blame is just being placed in all the wrong places, it's so easy to say them darn kids... They tried to play a joke on us adults and were able to pull it off, we should be looking to correct the real problems here. It shouldn't be the kids we continually try to correct, they will keep coming in new respwan waves year after year. A never ending battle you just can't hope to win, why fire off the first nuke? Sounds like we should put the WOPER back in charge.
techorbiz
4 months ago
4 comments
lawrencesanchez, did you even read the article beyond the first paragraph? Since apparently you didn't (or maybe you're one of those who just like screaming 'racism' when there isn't any), let's review the facts:
Matthew Weigman - 11 years
Stuart Rosoff - 5 years
Jason Trowbridge - 5 years
Chad Ward - 5 years
Guadalupe Martinez - less than 3 years
Anybody who reads the story objectively does not suspect that the Hispanic person is being made to look like the one who instigated it all. If anything, Weigman is the one made out to look like the worst of them (and it sounds like he probably was).
Oh, and here's another thing you missed - the author of the article is not anonymous, his name is right above the sub-title of the story (which is above the first sentence).
Come on dude, if you're going to criticize, at least base it on fact.
lawrencesanchez
4 months ago
2 comments
Isnt it funny that they made the hispanic person look like the whole culprit in this prank. That still goes to show how race cards are distributed. Through messages like this. It just goes to show the ignorance of the featured author of Daily Tech who looks to be anonomous, conveniently.
kashtock
4 months ago
2 comments
"An experienced person would of spoofed his MAC, war drived, then pulled the prank."
Ummm..... war drived? he's LEGALLY BLIND! or perhaps you are too and just missed that part. :)
TimC
4 months ago
586 comments
Wow, this goes to show that anyone is capable of threatening others if they want to. Glad to know the authorities were able to stop this for now, just hope he doesn't continue to do this when he gets out.
GraceGrady
4 months ago
12 comments
The punishment is a bit excessive. The kid probably would have learned his lesson with far less time and money expended for his incarceration. In 11 years we will get a full fledged and educated (by his new prisoner friends) criminal back on the streets. This kid should have gotten a sort stay in the county clink and lots of community service time.
rcszigeti
4 months ago
6 comments
crime does'nt pay
warhead57
4 months ago
6 comments
hkhir is right that the lad really has no skills but to say that IT policing is beyond the need of recruiting new hackers in grossly naive!
first of all this kid is a cracker.., downloads a program and whatdya know it works, so he uses it!
a hacker on the other hand is someone who is constantly penetrating new firewalls with massive algorithms and exploiting weak point in programs big business pay millions for when a so called L33t team sat and created that program over a course of years and some hacker destroys it in days!
IT Crime Division will always be recruiting "low-life" hackers for this reason. Are these people really low lives or just fucked off they funneled a small fortune during their youth into securing a future the generation before told them was secure. The governments worldwide wanted computing and asked of a generation to provide this skill which they did and now so many of these people are under appreciated in society for their skills and referred to sites like this as "low lives" when the odds are they are far more educated than you are and have put a lot more thought into their future than you think. Recognition comes to those who seek it which is exactly what they are doing! granted they are not choosing a constructive means to show it but it is one which history has proven to make a name infamous and if they are prepared to risk it all for a chance at real recognition in IT then all the best to them from my viewpoint.
Next time you walk into a casino and sit your at a black jack table ask yourself if your prepared to go all or bust with EVERYTHING! Takes some Kahuna's to do that mate!
Oh and blind people can't get by on computers? lmao..!!
smashinpapas
4 months ago
4 comments
You could hardly call what he got in trouble for hacking. The title of this article is misleading. Phreaking is nothing more than prank phone calls on VoIP. Anyone with a headset, a high speed connection to the internet, and google can do this. From what the article writes about his friends, they were the ones that may have been more skillful than him. By the looks of it he tried doing a prank on his own and got caught for his lack of experience. It is an insult to refer to him as a hacker if this is the extent of his talent. An experienced person would of spoofed his MAC, war drived, then pulled the prank.
drussel2
4 months ago
2 comments
That's quite a punishment.. I guess he didn't see it coming. Don't get me wrong, I think the little twerp deserves it... real phreaking is one thing, what he did was just plain evil.
iPerk
4 months ago
74 comments
woah!