Ex-FBI Informant Pleads Guilty to Hacking

By
ABC News
January 7, 2006, 7:36 AM ET
2 min read

S A N   F R A N C I S C O, Sept. 26, 2001 -- A man who officials said

once was a confidential FBI source on computer criminals has

pleaded guilty to breaking into government computers, the U.S.

Attorney’s office said Monday.

In a plea agreement, Max Ray Butler, 27, also known as MaxVision, admitted to one felony charge of unauthorized access toprotected computers, recklessly causing damage. Butler, who isfree on bail, will be sentenced Jan. 22 and faces a maximumpenalty of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Butler was indicted by a federal grand jury in March andcharged with 15 counts of breaking into and damaging hundredsof computers as well as possessing with intent to defraud thepasswords of 477 customers of California Internet serviceprovider Aimnet.

His arrest came amid growing concern over a number ofhigh-profile computer hacker attacks.

No Connection to DoS Attacks

Authorities said there was no connection between Butler andthe “denial-of-service” attacks in early February thattemporarily cut off customers to some of the Web’s biggestsites, including Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon.com and E-Trade.

An FBI affidavit filed to support a search of his homeshowed Butler, of Berkeley, Calif., had been a confidentialsource for FBI agents tracking computer crimes beforeauthorities began their 22-month investigation of him in May1998.

The FBI, the U.S. Air Force, NASA and the U.S. Navy openedthe investigation after U.S. Air Force computer systems aroundthe country were attacked in May 1998. It was unclear whenButler became their focus.

Butler was subsequently accused of hacking into computersbelonging to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne NationalLaboratories in Illinois and the Brookhaven National Laboratoryin New York; NASA’s Marshall Flight Center in Alabama; theoffice of the Secretary of Transportation in Washington; theoffice of the Secretary of the Department of Defense inWashington; unspecified facilities of the Department ofDefense; and IDSoftware of Mesquite, Texas.