HACKER CHARGED IN $1 MILLION CLONING SCHEME
According to Dan Goodin, a 26 year old San Diego, CA resident was charged with selling products over a 6-year period that allowed others to get high speed free internet for free.
The internet fraud scheme worked by cloning the media access control address that acts as an electronic serial number for each modem. The scheme replaced the unique IP address with one known to belong to a paying subscriber. The purchasers of the hacker’s product received internet service without paying the internet service provider (ISP) the required free. The hacker’s compnay offered additional services and allowed users to increase their bandwidth while another made it possible to detect the MAC addresses of legitimate paying ISP subscribers. Over the relevant time period, the hacker earned over $1 million.