The Singapore Courts appear to be clamping down hard on teen hackers in the latest case involving an Indonesian teenager.

Last month, a teenager pleaded guilty to five charges of illegal access and modifications to two computer servers under the Computer Misuse Act. It was found that he had employed a hacking program to get into the DSI server, then created two new user accounts for his own future use. He also installed a program enabling him to engage in Internet Relay Chats (IRCs) while remaining anonymous. Another program he used prevented others from entering the same server to delete the other program.

However, the boy’s activities remained undetected until he came to Singapore and obtained Internet access. Having trouble accessing the institute’s server, he suspected that his accounts created earlier had been deleted. He then hacked into the system again through another server. He again installed the program that allowed him to remain anonymous, and further wreaked havoc with a program that enabled him to monitor the institute’s traffic, which held confidential information such as user IDs and passwords of authorised users.

Fortunately, the unusual slowness of the system caused by the hacking activities eventually gave the game away and led the network’s specialist to track down the culprit.

The 15-year-old private student was fined a hefty S$15,500 by the Juvenile Court for his troubles. In addition to the fine, the parents of the boy also paid the "victims" of the Internet hacking, Data Storage Institute (DSI), the same amount of S$15,500, which was the cost of restoring their computer system.

This appears to be the first local case whereby a person has been taken to task for hacking into a local server or website from abroad.

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