(((An employee of Sandia National Laboratories, swooning for a pop star, uses federal computers to steal the guy's phone pix. Looks like female hacking has finally come into its own.)))
–Woman uses Sandia Computer to Hack Linkin Park Singer
(24 November 2006)
According to court records. Devon Townsend, 27, is accused of using a computer belonging to Sandia National Laboratory (her previous employer) at an Air Force base to hack into a cell phone company's Web site to get a number for Chester Bennington, lead singer of the Grammy-winning rock group Linkin Park. The DoD Inspector General filed an affidavit saying she obtained Bennington's cell phone bill, the phone numbers he called and digital pictures taken with the phone.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061124/ap_en_mu/people_linkin_park
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15910440/
Fan hacks into Linkin Park singer's data
Investigators say woman even threatened musician's wife
Updated: 5:18 p.m. AKT Nov 26, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A woman is accused of using a computer at a national laboratory to hack into a cell phone company's Web site to get a number for Chester Bennington, lead singer of the Grammy-winning rock group Linkin Park.
(...)
Investigators said she also hacked into the e-mail of Bennington's wife, Talinda Bennington, and at one point called her and threatened her.
Talinda Bennington told federal authorities last month that someone had accessed their Verizon Wireless account online, according to the affidavit, and expressed concern that a "stalker" had access to personal information.
Townsend waived her right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court and was released to her mother's custody. (((Good luck with that, Mom.)))
She is accused of using a computer at her former workplace, Sandia National Laboratories, to access Bennington's cell phone information. Lab spokesman Michael Padilla said Wednesday that she no longer worked there.
Townsend"s attorney, Ray Twohig, said that investigators were still analyzing his client's computer and that it remains to be seen what exact violations will be alleged.
"This is the Internet version of a groupie hiding in Mick Jagger's dressing room," Twohig said. "We're in a different age, and fans have more skills than they used to." (((What a great computer-crime defense attorney thing to say.)))
Townsend's computer wasn't connected to classified data, Padilla said. (((The journalist in me wants her to be a Linkin-Park obsessed neutron-bomb designer, but, well, we can't have everything.)))
The affidavit says that during a search of Townsend's home in Albuquerque, investigators found Linkin Park posters, autographed band memorabilia, pictures of Townsend with Chester Bennington, bootlegged Linkin Park music and copies of messages and photographs intercepted from the Bennington family's e-mail accounts. (((Oh dear. Fangirl stalker here is cracking email, she's in the phones... have they checked the band's MySpace account?)))
