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"One of our Notables narrowly escapes jail...."

From The Daily Telegraph: 7/7/2001.
(See if you can guess who it is...)

Anti-Gates hacker spared jail

A teenage computer hacker who stole the credit card details of Bill Gates and used them to send him Viagra, escaped a jail sentence yesterday.

, who called himself the "Saint of E-commerce", sent the pills to Mr Gates - the head of computer giant Microsoft - at the company's headquarters in Washington state, as part of a "criminal crusade" highlighting the dangers of internet shopping.

At a previous hearing he admitted to 10 charges of hacking into corporate websites under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act.

He was tracked by the FBI, the Mounties, and a team of computer experts to his bedroom in Clynderwen, PEMBROKESHIRE, where he used a £700 home computer to plunder thousands of names, addresses, and credit card details.

Yesterday, at Swansea Crown Court, Judge Gareth Davies ordered to carry out a three-year community probation order linked to treatment for a mental disorder.

Judge Davies said he accepted that had not been motivated by personal gain, even though he admitted two separate counts of theft using stolen credit card details. But had shown no sympathy for the owners of thousands of credit cards whose details he had published on the internet, and it was only through luck that the information was not used to commit fraud.

actions had disrupted businesses and caused worry, inconvenience and expense.

Leighton Davies, QC, prosecuting, told the earlier hearing: " was on a criminal crusade. He targeted e-commerce sites whose computer systems were run by a Microsoft program which suffered a security weakness.

" romantically styled himself as the Saint of E-comerce, that was the name of one of his websites. He wanted to broadcast the message that internet shoppers were not to trust retailers with their credit card details."

Earlier the judge had heard that had suffered from chronic low self-esteem since childhood, which had contributed to his criminal actions.

Medical evidence showed that four years before the offences had banged his head. His condition had deteriorated and eventually gave rise to the fraud.

, who has been offered several jobs, said he regretted not what he had done, but the way he did it. "I would do it all again but another time I would choose to ensure that I acted legally."

"(Yeah, right)"

"Shut up."

_________

So, fellow posters, court is now in session. The trial of the notables begins here and now. Your task, should you wish to accept it, is to find out which of the seven it could be, given the damning evidence from the story above.

Shouldn't take too long...

I live in Swansea! Maybe I'll meet the geezer in person, and ask him if he's one of the notables.

Who wears short shorts?

Really?

That's odd. I'm Welsh.

Ignore the wiseman rubbish it shoul have read 18.04 pm

In a perfect world with to fences or walls there would be no need for gates or windows

A wise man 416BC

My words of wisdom for the day on Microsoft.

It couldn't be grix he was welsh. Oh
No I would go and check you bank account apparently he hacked into supposedly secure shop websites if it was are mr Grix you cant be to safe.

In a recent development of the story about a young lad in Wales, who hacked into businesses and stole hundreds of credit card numbers, the boy has issued a statement to the press.

"I did it to flush out Grix..." he said in a rather puzzled statement. "I will have my revenge on him and all the other people on FOG who made me go mad with their stories and their posts...."

As they carted him away, he was heard to say "...bah..GAD is fixed.... all these winners. ..never me!.. ...I'll have my revenge..."

Yep. I know my sister, she knows Lewis Collins.

I know my ex-wife, she knows a guy who knows a guy who buried the Lord Mayor of Bath's jewellry in his mate's mother's back garden (who he knows).

I know a guy who went to school with the son of a Ugandan King.

I know a girl who has a cousin who's friend is the Director of Music at Salisbury Cathedral.

I know a girl who is a BBC researcher for Ready Steady Cook (which my sister appeared on).

And best of all, you know me, and I know Alison Holloway (TV presenter in the HTV region), because I used to drink with her in the Park House in Bristol when she got off work.

So now you know.

FM. Where does all your information come from? Do you know people that know people?