Hacker charged in $1m cable ISP customer cloning scheme
MAC spoofing biz flourished for six years
Federal prosecutors have charged a California man with earning $1m over a six-year period by illegally selling products that allowed customers to get high-speed internet service for free.
Ryan Harris, 26, of San Diego sold software and hardware that were designed to fool Charter Communications and other internet service providers into believing the gear belonged to paying customers, the prosecutors allege. Harris and his employees also offered technical support in publicly available chat forums at tcniso.net, the website belonging to their modem-hacking business.
The hack worked by spoofing the media access control address that acts as an electronic serial number for each modem. By replacing the unique address with one known to belong to a paying subscriber, Harris's customers were able to obtain internet service for free.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/03/cable_modem_hacking_indictment/