Teen Hacker Hits NASA Pentagon

In 1999, a 15-year-old hacker using the alias "c0mrade" broke into NASA computers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and downloaded 1.7 million dollars' worth of proprietary software that controlled the International Space Station’s temperature and humidity. NASA responded by shutting down the affected systems for 21 days to check the damage, a move that cost about 41,000 dollars in contractor labor and required equipment replacements. During the same period, he also hacked into a Pentagon computer network run by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, whose mission is to reduce threats from nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional, and special weapons, intercepting about 3,300 emails and collecting multiple user names and passwords. He later pleaded guilty in federal court to juvenile delinquency for the NASA and Pentagon intrusions.

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