New Zealander fined in hack of U. of Penn. computer system

A computer hacker known online as AKILL was fined more than $11,000 in New Zealand today for breaking into the University of Pennsylvania computer network in 2006, causing the system to crash.

New Zealander Owen Thor Walker, 18, was spared a criminal conviction by agreeing to work with that country's police to solve computer crimes.

He also has been linked to a network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers and skimming millions of dollars from victims' bank accounts.

Walker conspired with a Penn undergraduate, Ryan Goldstein of Ambler, who pleaded guilty in the case Feb. 26. Goldstein, 21, faces up to six months in prison when sentenced Aug. 5 in federal court in Philadelphia.

The two planned to use Penn's computer system as a staging ground for a 50,000-computer attack against several online chat networks, authorities said.

Walker had faced a maximum penalty of several prison terms of up to five years for his guilty pleas, New Zealand officials said.

In discharging his case without a conviction, Hamilton High Court Justice Judith Potter said Walker was a young man with a potentially outstanding future.

Police said Walker, who also was ordered to surrender his computer assets, had not taken money from people's bank accounts himself. They said cyber criminals around the world, however, had used software he designed and sold for about $30,000.

The FBI has estimated that more than one million computers have been infected, and it put the combined economic loss at more than $20 million.

Goldstein, 21, the Penn bioengineering student, could get six months in prison under federal guidelines. He had been indicted on a charge of conspiracy to commit computer fraud but pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of aiding and abetting another person to gain unauthorized access to a protected computer.

Goldstein was among eight arrested nationwide in an FBI probe.