The Daily Pennsylvanian :: Junior pleads guilty in hacking scheme

In federal court Friday Engineering junior Ryan Goldstein pleaded guilty to helping a hacker crash the School of Engineering and Applied Science's server in February 2006.

Goldstein pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting another person to gain unauthorized access to a protected computer, a federal misdemeanor.

Goldstein was arrested last November, after a grand jury indicted him for conspiracy to commit computer fraud, a more severe offense than the charge to which Goldstein pleaded.

Goldstein remains enrolled at the University, according to University spokeswoman Lori Doyle. His sentencing is set for June 3.

Goldstein was one of eight people arrested last fall as part of an international FBI investigation.

He collaborated with Owen Walker, a New Zealand-based hacker known online as AKILL, to carry out attacks by using a fellow Penn student's username and password to access the Penn server.

The 2006 SEAS server crash was caused by an inundation of traffic on the server, and denied access to 4,000 students, faculty and staff.

His plea came just before his trial date, March 10. Goldstein requested a change-of-plea hearing last week.

Sentencing guidelines for the misdemeanor charge Goldstein are based on the estimated $6,000 in proprietary damages prosecutors say he caused.

Goldstein faces "zero to six months" of incarceration, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said. Levy did not say which punishment he would ask for at sentencing.

However, Goldstein's lawyer, Ronald Levine, said that Goldstein "is eligible for probation."

If Goldstein had gone to trial on the charge of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, he could have faced up to five years in prison.

The plea also allows Goldstein to avoid a trial in which the potentially embarrassing details of his involvement in an online chat forum leading to his collaboration with Walker would be brought to light.

The indictment states that Goldstein was involved in "online disputes" with other Internet users, and wanted to retaliate against a forum that had banned him.

Goldstein "apologized for his actions" in court, Levine said.

Goldstein did not return phone calls for comment.

Comments (21)

what was the nature of the online disputes?

Ryan's a great guy. I believe in you, man! :)

Yeah, I was in a couple classes with Ryan last year, really nice and extremely intelligent. He'll get through this and do great things.

Ryan = 1337 <3

That interactive representation really provided a helpful visual of the scope and breadth of this crime. I must have missed what Texas had to do with all of this though. I vote for the continued use of interactive maps wherever possible.

The nature of the disputes is the fact that Mr Goldstein AKA Digerati is a child predator when he is online (whether he is the same offline is unknown) As for him being a nice person, well at least one of his many faces probably is quite charming but the others arn't so pleasant as can be seen from the logs on the below website. I think penn should think long and hard about whether they want to help elevate this sort of person into a position of power. [URL redacted due to offensive content] <-- Meet the real Ryan Goldstein.

what a herb. who does this?

If that was true, he would be charged with that, not for one count of a simple misdemeanor. It's a strict law that prosecutors MUST charge and pursue the most serious offense. Period. And what's more serious: aiding and abetting someone to gain access to a server, or being a child predator? Exactly. It's sad that anonymous idiots can post libelous, clearly forged content that can harm the reputation of someone innocent of those horrendous accusations.

Agreed with above. Excessive free speech can be just as dangerous as no free speech. And from what I've heard of Ryan and his already significant accomplishments, he's going to get to a position of power with or without the help of Penn.

heh, funny...you sound a lot like him in both your style of language and in your erroneous reasoning. When somebody has several pictures of a person masterbating to a 13 year old boy then has 20 others of him coercing a 16 year old to show his penis and then has additional logs and images it is obvious to the normal observer what the subject of those images is. There are many reasons why a solid case might be hard to put together but anyone who even bothered to look at the evidence would probably tell you it's not for lack of knowing that he did it. [URL redacted due to offensive content]

at least he has a cool looking website as expected :-P http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~rgolds/index.html

Ed, you sound just like digerati. lmfao I wouldn't doubt if you were him.

Ryan is a nice guy, he showed his penis to me many times on MSN videochat. Hi to everyone at #bottalk

O I wish the feds actually paid attention to what people were trying to show about Digerati aka pedo aka Ryan. Nw0rd you just miss showing yourself to him on cam(Check out the pictures in Digerati exposed archive. He may be a nice guy in person, but believe me online hes pretty f*cked up. Since Digerati has been gone ddos has be at its lowest on the internet at 95%!

Very Funny :)

Very funny :)

That would be someone with editing rights who "redacted" it, the reason they did so was because it contained graphic images of ryan pleasuring himself to a 13 year old boy on webcam. It doesn't take the internet's brightest to make a statement and then back it up with evidence. (however it may be censored). [URL redacted due to offensive content]

I'm absolutely loving all the redacted URLs. We really have the internet's brightest minds visiting the DP for this story, don't we?

[QUOTE id="710841c4-0483-4670-a458-2f6afd9b0388"]Ryan is a nice guy, he showed his penis to me many times on MSN videochat. Hi to everyone at #bottalk[/QUOTE] how bad do you want to be nw0rd? Digerati showed his cock to the 13 year old named AnalDisco who posed as nw0rd. the real nw0rd isnt 13

[QUOTE id="710841c4-0483-4670-a458-2f6afd9b0388"]Ryan is a nice guy, he showed his botnet to me many times on MSN videochat. Hi to everyone at #bottalk[/QUOTE] NW0RD nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd NW0RD nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd NW0RD nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd nw0rd NW0RD nw0rd is friends with that nig competence

[quote]LOL posted 3/03/08 @ 4:12 PM EST If that was true, he would be charged with that, not for one count of a simple misdemeanor. It's a strict law that prosecutors MUST charge and pursue the most serious offense. Period. And what's more serious: aiding and abetting someone to gain access to a server, or being a child predator? Exactly. It's sad that anonymous idiots can post libelous, clearly forged content that can harm the reputation of someone innocent of those horrendous accusations. [/quote] Student Hacker Sentenced, Avoids Child Porn Charge http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12100B2CIRW5 I bet you feel like an idiot right now........

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