Electron was the computer handle of Richard Jones, a member of an underground hacker

Hacker (computer security)

In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

 community called The Realm. Jones, born in June 1969, was one of three members of the group arrested in simultaneous raids by the Australian Federal Police

Australian Federal Police

The Australian Federal Police is the federal police agency of the Commonwealth of Australia. Although the AFP was created by the amalgamation in 1979 of three Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, it traces its history from Commonwealth law enforcement agencies dating back to the federation of...

 in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, on 2 April 1990. All three — Nahshon Even-Chaim

Nahshon Even-Chaim

Nahshon Even-Chaim , aka Phoenix, was the first major computer hacker to be convicted in Australia. He was one of the most highly-skilled members of a computer hacking group called The Realm, based in Melbourne, Australia, from the late 1980s until his arrest by the Australian Federal Police in...

 (also known as Phoenix), Electron and Nom (real name David John Woodcock) — were convicted of a range of computer crimes involving the intrusion into US defense and government computer systems and the theft of an online computer security newsletter in the late 1980s and early 1990.

Significance of case

The case was notable for being the first prosecution of hackers under Australian federal computer crime legislation that had come into law in June 1989. It was also the first time in the world police had gained a conviction using evidence obtained by the remote tapping of a computer. For six weeks before the raid, members of the AFP computer crime section had been capturing the online activity of the ringleader, Phoenix, in suburban Melbourne, from the police Telephone Intercept Branch in Canberra, 650 km away. His conversations with Electron and Nom, which were intercepted continuously for eight weeks before the raid, formed the basis of the evidence against both of Phoenix's co-offenders, as they freely discussed the targets of their hacking and bragged of their exploits.

Electron pleaded guilty to 14 offences and in June 1993 was given a suspended six-month jail sentence and 300 hours' community service

Community service

Community service is donated service or activity that is performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions....

.

Media

A 1997 book by Suelette Dreyfus, Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, described the hackers' exploits; in 2005 former AFP computer crime investigator Bill Apro co-wrote a book, Hackers: The Hunt for Australia’s Most Infamous Computer Cracker in which he told of the police investigation he led that resulted in their arrest. All three offenders are named in the book. Electron's story was also told in a dramatised documentary, In the Realm of the Hackers

In the Realm of the Hackers

In The Realm of the Hackers is a 2003 Australian documentary directed by Kevin Anderson about the prominent hacker community, centered in Melbourne, Australia in the late 80's to early 1990...

, aired on Australia’s ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

Television in 2003.

External links

• Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 1989 dealing with offences relating to computers