Jesse Tuttle

Last updated
Jesse Tuttle
Born
Cincinnati Ohio USA
Other namesHackah Jak, Jak-Away
CitizenshipAmerican
Occupation hacker
Organization
  • Chief Hacking Officer at Compliology

Jesse Tuttlea.k.a.Hackah Jak', is an American tech consultant, software developer, and hacker from the hacker group Hackweiser, Project China, and the Dispatchers. [1] [2]

Contents

"I can in minutes code a scanner to scan the Internet for 2-year-old known vulnerabilities, I've hit a lot of workstations this way and then worked my way through the network to the server." – Hackah Jak [3]

Hackweiser

Hackah Jak was an active website defacer for the hacking group known as Hackweiser from 2000 to 2003. [4] [5]

Project China

Hackah Jak interviewed with the South China Morning Post as a representative of the American side. [1] [2]

The Dispatchers

Hackah Jak founded the Dispatchers, a vigilante hacktivist movement forged by the events of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. By September 12, the collective of hackers was between 60 and 300 strong with participants from around the world. [6] [7] [8]

Hackah Jak's stated mission was the disruption of Osama bin Laden’s network and the collection of intelligence from the attacked infrastructure to benefit official counter-terrorism operations. [9]

The Dispatchers seemed to have been a decentralized group of hacktivists and was described as "having groups working on different projects", [9] a similar organizational framework later used by the hacker collective known as Anonymous.

In June 2003, Tuttle was indicted on six counts of unauthorized use of government property and ten counts of possessing sexually oriented material involving a minor. These allegations arose from accusations that Tuttle hacked into the Hamilton County government and Sheriff's computer systems. Tuttle faced a total of 86 years in prison. [10]

During the proceedings, the evidence against Tuttle was scrutinized. Judge Thomas Crush went on the record and said "he had no proof that Tuttle had done anything wrong...". [11]

Investigators found hotel reservations for a Las Vegas hacker conference on Tuttle's seized computer. To ensure that Tuttle did not attend, Judge Thomas Crush agreed to temporarily place Tuttle on electronic ankle monitoring (house arrest) [12] Later in 2007, it was reported that Tuttle had spent more than 4 years on pre-trial house arrest. [13] [14]

FBI Collaboration and Defense

FBI Agents and Federal Prosecutors met behind closed doors with Judge Thomas Crush, the judge presiding over Tuttle's case. Court records and other sources also revealed he had been working with the FBI since 2001. [15] This cooperation, initiated in the wake of the September 11 attacks, [16] [17] aimed to safeguard sensitive computer systems against cyber threats.

Through court filings and the recording of Tuttle's interrogation, it was disclosed that Tuttle was also working with the FBI and Assistant U.S. Attorney's Office to bring down a human trafficking network. [18]

During this time the Hamilton County Prosecutors accuse Tuttle of being delusional and deny any claim that Tuttle had any connections with the FBI. [11]

Years later, in 2007, Hamilton County Prosecutors confirmed for the first time that Tuttle not only had connections with the FBI but they believed that Tuttle worked for the FBI however insisted that doesn't give permission to break the law. [13] [14]

In 2016, Michael German, a former undercover FBI agent reviewed details about Tuttle's case and said in an interview "The program (Confidential Human Source Program) is a matter of making sure that the illegal activity an informant is involved in is actually authorized". He went on to say "It’s not that we’re ignoring these crimes; it’s that we’re letting the informant engage in the criminal activity for the purpose of furthering our investigation". "If I’m committing this activity that would otherwise be criminal, but I’m not doing it for a criminal purpose, I’m doing it for a law enforcement purpose, it really isn’t criminal activity after all". [19]

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References

  1. 1 2 "The Cincinnati Post 31 May 2003, page 1". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  2. 1 2 "The Cincinnati Post 31 May 2003, page 6". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  3. ↑ Verton, Dan (2002-07-22). "Corporate America Is Lazy, Say Hackers". Computerworld. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  4. ↑ "ATTRITION Defacement Mirror". attrition.org. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  5. ↑ "Zone-H". zone-h.org. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  6. ↑ "Hackers strike Middle Eastern sites". 2002-03-20. Archived from the original on 2002-03-20. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  7. ↑ Admin, Items. "Is Cyber Terror Next?". Items. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  8. ↑ Denning, Dorothy (2003-01-01). "Information technology and security". Academia.
  9. 1 2 "EXCLUSIVE: Crackers Prepare Retaliation for Tuesday's Terrorist Attack". Archived from the original on 2001-09-22. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  10. ↑ "The Cincinnati Post 13 Jun 2003, page 20". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  11. 1 2 "The Cincinnati Post 02 Aug 2003, page 8". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  12. ↑ "The Cincinnati Post 01 Aug 2003, page 12". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  13. 1 2 "The Cincinnati Enquirer 17 Jun 2007, page Page 22". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  14. 1 2 "The Cincinnati Enquirer 17 Jun 2007, page Page 25". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  15. ↑ "The Cincinnati Enquirer 06 Aug 2003, page Page 22". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  16. ↑ "The Cincinnati Enquirer 28 Jul 2003, page Page 1". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  17. ↑ "The Cincinnati Enquirer 28 Jul 2003, page Page 6". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
  18. ↑ Blade, Gregory Flannery, Leslie. "Cover Story: The Wild, Wild Web". Cincinnati CityBeat. Retrieved 2024-02-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ O'Neill, Dell Cameron, Patrick Howell (2016-08-23). "Exclusive: FBI authorized informants to break the law 22,800 times in 4 years". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2024-02-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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