Chad Davis

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Chad Davis (b. 1981) is an American hacker (or cracker) from Green Bay, Wisconsin, who operated under the alias of Mindphasr, and was the subject of one of the most high-profile prosecutions of cybercriminals of the late 20th century. He is a founding member of the globalHell syndicate of hackers, and is suspected to have authored or participated in the hacking of the websites of numerous businesses and government agencies.^[1]

1 Arrest and prosecution
2 Fallout
3 Modus operandi
4 Trivia
5 References

[edit] Arrest and prosecution

On June 2, 1999, Davis's apartment was searched in an FBI attempt to crack down on members of globalHell, who had just weeks before vandalized the homepage of the White House. Davis was not charged with any crime relating to his computer activities on this occasion. However, underage at the time, he was fined $165 for a can of beer investigators discovered in his refrigerator.^[2]

On June 28, in retaliation for the search, Davis allegedly hacked the home page of the U.S. Army, vandalizing it with the message "globalHell will not die", and shutting it down for four hours.^[3] The case was immediately assigned to the Computer Crime Resident Agency of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, as well as the FBI. Davis was taken into custody shortly afterwards.^[4]

U.S. Attorney Thomas Schneider told reporters, "Even though the intrusion involved an unclassified Army computer network, the intruder prevented use of the system by Army personnel. Interference with government computer systems are not just electronic vandalism, they run the risk of compromising critical information infrastructure systems."^[5]

On January 4, 2000, Davis pled guilty to intentionally hacking a protected computer and causing damage. And on March 1, 2000, Judge Joseph P. Stadtmueller sentenced him to six months in prison and three years probation, and forbade Davis from using or aiding anyone else in the use of a computer.^[6]

[edit] Fallout

Some computer security experts predicted a massive wave of retaliation from the hacker community for the aggressive pursuit of globalHell members. However, as of 2006, only one group of hackers--known as Team Spl0it--has explicitly taken up the call for retaliation, by committing low-grade vandalism of several commercial web sites unaffiliated with the federal government.^[7]

Davis's successful prosecution for cybercrime--and the concurrent successful prosecution of fellow globalHell members Patrick W. Gregory, Eric Burns and Russell Sanford--was actually seen by commentators to be the turning point in the attitude of globalHell, which has since declared itself legitimate.^[8]

[edit] Modus operandi

Officials said that typically Davis used the ColdFusion software development framework, and attacked vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows programs to gain backdoor entry into a system.^[6]

[edit] Trivia

Perhaps coincidentally, "Chad Davis" is the name of the main character of Spyros Nomikos and Herbert H. Thompson's 2004 techno-thriller, The Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency. The character is a computer intrusion expert and "ethical hacker" who testifies before Congress about the vulnerability of certain computer networks.