Trial
He was arrested in 1985 for hacking into a British Telecom computer and accessing the Telecom Gold emails of Prince Philip. As there was no specific law against hacking at this time, in June 1985 he became (together with a codefendant) the first person to be charged under section 1 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 with forgery which deceived a non-human target. When the case came to trial in April 1986, Schifreen was said to have used an unprotected top level account identified as "2222222222" with a password of "1234"; Schifreen was said to have admitted obtaining user passwords but denied doing so for personal gain and said that his activities prompted Prestel to increase security. On 24 April 1986 Schifreen was convicted on six counts of forgery and fined £750.
Read more about this topic: Robert Schifreen
Famous quotes containing the word trial:
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)
“In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.”
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“For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 9:32-33.
Job, about God.