Christopher Soghoian

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Christopher Soghoian (born c. 1981) is a cybersecurity PhD student at Indiana University's School of Informatics in Bloomington, Indiana and the creator of a website that generated fake airline boarding passes. On October 28, 2006 his home was raided by agents of the FBI to seize computers and other materials related to Federal charges for conspiracy to commit fraud and forgery.

Information on how to modify boarding passes and exploit the same security breach had been widely publicized by others before, including Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)[1] [2] and security expert Bruce Schneier [3], but Soghoian received media attention for posting a program on his website to produce modified boarding passes automatically.

According to The Washington Post, the FBI seized Soghoian's computers. [4]

Criminal charges against Christopher have since been dropped [5]. Soghoian also commented on this on his blog, and said his materials have been returned [6]. However, in a later post [7] Soghoian referenced a certified letter from TSA dated November 28, 2006 to announce the organization opened their own investigation as a civil matter and giving him until mid-December to provide a statement in his defense [8][9].

A replacement Boarding-Pass Generator was posted on the Boing Boing web site by someone else on November 1, 2006 [10].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Schumer, Charles E. (2005-02-13). Schumer reveals new gaping hole in air security. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
  2. ^ Schumer, Charles E. (2006-04-09). Schumer Reveals: In Simple Steps Terrorists Can Forge Boarding Pass And Board Any Plane Without Breaking The Law!. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
  3. ^ Schneier, Bruce (2003-08-15). Flying on Someone Else's Airplane Ticket. Crypto-Gram. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
  4. ^ Krebs, Brian. "Student Unleashes Uproar With Bogus Airline Boarding Passes", Washington Post, 2006-11-01. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
  5. ^ "IU Student, Focus Of FBI Probe, Speaks Out", TheIndyChannel.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
  6. ^ Soghoian, Christopher (2006-11-28). Good news and bad news. Slight paranoia. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
  7. ^ Soghoian, Christopher (2006-12-06). An Early Christmas Gift from TSA. Slight paranoia. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
  8. ^ Soghoian, Christopher (2006-12-06). Letter of Investigation, page 1. Slight paranoia. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
  9. ^ Soghoian, Christopher (2006-12-06). Letter of Investigation, page 2. Slight paranoia. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
  10. ^ Adams, John (2006-11-01). Replacement Boarding-Pass Generator, written in HTML and Javascript. Boing Boing. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.

[edit] External links


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