Men Charged with Making Comcast's Website Even More Useless Than Normal
Three men were charged with conspiracy after successfully hacking Comcast’s website. James Robert Black, Jr. aka "Defiant" appeared in federal court in Tacoma last week to answer charges that he and the two other men working remotely shut down Comcast’s website for almost five hours in May of 2008.
The indictment [pdf] is full of gems such as this:
On or about May 28, 2008, CHRISTOPHER ALLEN LEWIS, JAMES ROBERT BLACK, JR., and MICHAEL PAUL NEBEL changed the publicly-available contact information for www.comcast.net, to "69 dick tard lane, dildo room, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
The indictment also states that the hack cost Comcast $128,000.
We can’t help but feel a little tinge of satisfaction every time something bad happens to Comcast. The internet is just teeming with customer service horror stories that are all too relatable to anyone who has ever done business with Comcast. These men (who were in their early twenties when the alleged hack took place) were probably thinking along those lines when they hatched the initial plot. Unfortunately, once the FBI is involved things have a way of being less fun, quite quickly. Said Black to Wired.com: "The situation has kind of blown up here, a lot bigger than I thought it would, I wish I was a minor right now because this is going to be really bad."
