Hill Staffer Attempts to Hire Hackers
Todd Shriber, the Communications Director for Montana Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg,?tried to hire hackers to break into his college in order to alter his Grade Point Average.? Apparently he had been lying about his GPA and needed it changed, pronto. Rather than coming out with the truth, he solicited people via email to commit felony computer fraud, and in the email corrspondence, he stated he understood the risk of jail time he was facing.
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The whole hilarious email exchange is here.? A writer for Network World did some digging and found out who Todd Shriber was, and the communications director admitted to the writer that he had made the solicitation, but “no action was performed.”?
From Network World here:
The communications director for Montana’s lone congressman solicited the services of two men he falsely believed to be criminally minded hackers-for-hire — with the expressed goal of jacking up his college GPA — during an exchange that spanned 22 e-mails over two weeks this past summer.
Todd Shriber, 28-year-old press aide to U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., e-mailed the security Web site attrition.org on Aug. 9, writing: “I need to urgently make contact with a hacker that would be interested in doing a one-time job for me. The pay would be good. I’m not sure what exactly the job would entail with respect to computer jargon, but I can go into rough detail upon making contact with a candidate.”
After initially denying knowledge of the exchange, Shriber told me this afternoon in the final of our three phone conversations: “I did something that’s greatly out of character for me and it’s a mistake that I regret.”
Two members of attrition.org, “Lyger” and “Jericho” (a.k.a. “security curmudgeon”) corresponded with Shriber and fooled him into believing that they would carry out his wishes, with Jericho warning him at one point: “You are soliciting me to break the law and hack into a computer across state lines. That is a federal offense and multiple felonies.”
Shriber wanted Lyger and Jericho to break into the computer system at Texas Christian University, from which he graduated in 2000.
In the final e-mail on Sunday, Aug. 27, Lyger tells Shriber that his hacking attempts had been detected and “we are SO busted.” He urges him to “duck and run if you can” in an exaggerated, obscenity-filled — and completely fictional — missive that put an end to their working relationship.
Shriber is a liar and an underhanded cheat.? And he is a dork because he uses a Jeff Gordon Nascar reference for his Yahoo email address.? Will he be fired?
