Teen Computer Whiz Cleared In Houston Hacking
A jury at Southwark Crown Court in London accepted 19-year-old Aaron Caffrey's contention that unidentified vandals installed an "attack script" on his computer, which he then unknowingly set into motion.
Prosecutors had said Caffrey intentionally launched an electronic assault on a woman he met in an Internet chat room because he believed she had insulted his girlfriend. They alleged that in carrying out that attack, Caffrey inadvertently paralyzed the Houston system by bombarding it with thousands of electronic messages.
The port's Internet site was forced out of service temporarily, making it difficult for those who needed information about ships' whereabouts to obtain it.
Caffrey, who belongs to a group called Allied Haxor Elite, acknowledged hacking into computers in the past, but said he had only done so with the permission of the machines' owners, who he said wanted to test their security systems.
He insisted he had nothing to do with the September 2001, Houston attack, testifying during a two-week trial that he knew nothing about it until police came to arrest him at his home in the southern English county of Dorset in January 2002.
The officers confiscated his computer on suspicion of unauthorized modification of computer material. Computer experts were unable to find evidence of a so-called "Trojan horse" program that would have indicated someone had hijacked Caffrey's computer, so he was charged and brought to trial.
He testified that the program might have been designed to self-destruct, leaving no trace of its presence.
"This ordeal has been a dark cloud hanging over him for the last two years," Caffrey's lawyer, Iain Ross, said after the verdict was delivered. "He had always insisted he was not guilty and that he was a victim of a criminal act rather than being a criminal himself."
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