Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Suspect in police radio jamming released UW student banned from electronics use at parents' home

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 12:20:05 -0500

Suspect in police radio jamming released UW student banned from electronics use
at parents' home
By REID J. EPSTEIN

[email-masked]
Last Updated: Nov. 20, 2003

Madison - In a high-tech cat-and-mouse game that authorities say could have had
serious consequences, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student disrupted
Madison police radio signals and "piggy-backed" the sounds of sex acts onto
police frequencies, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.

In a two-hour arraignment, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea said that at 7:30
p.m. Halloween night Rajib K. Mitra, a 25-year-old University of
Wisconsin-Madison graduate student, replaced police radio frequencies with a
"steady tone that jammed the transmission over a large part of the City of
Madison."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen L. Crocker released Mitra to his Brookfield
parents Thursday with a list of unusual conditions. His parents, who removed all
but one of their home's computers in anticipation of his release, must get rid
of all unused electronic equipment before he can arrive home.

Crocker also ordered Mitra's father, Samir, an anesthesiologist, to install a
combination-lock padlock on the door of his office, which holds the family's
last remaining computer.

Crocker also ordered Mitra to not use wireless or cellular phones, to not take
apart any household appliances and to not use any device that could otherwise
send or receive electronic messages. Mitra also will not be allowed to use a
wristwatch he wears that receives text messages.

Mitra is expected to be released from the Dane County Jail today into his
parents' custody.
'An unusually talented person'

O'Shea called Mitra, a Brookfield native who has twice been convicted of
misdemeanor computer hacking crimes, "an unusually talented person . . . who
does unusually dangerous things with his talents." The prosecutor said Mitra
could have caused more serious damage had an emergency happened during the
disruptions.

Mitra's Madison-based attorney, Chris Van Wagner, knocked the government's case,
saying the signals that blocked police frequencies could have come from any
number of apartments in the densely populated student neighborhood where Mitra
lived.

"They have not been able to identify where the signals came from, who
transmitted the signals or how the signals were transmitted," Van Wagner said.

Mitra, who earned an undergraduate computer science degree from UW-Madison, was
in the computer science graduate program at the school. Since his recent legal
troubles began last week, he has withdrawn from the program, Van Wagner said.

Mitra is charged with two counts of transmitting communications to a protected
police computer. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000
fine.

Though Madison police reported frequency trouble near Mitra's apartments dating
back to January, the federal charges are for incidents Oct. 31, Nov. 1 and Nov.
11.

At 7:30 Halloween night, police reported an incessant tone overriding their
radio frequencies, rendering hand-held radios useless and leaving police unable
to communicate with each other. One officer, O'Shea said, could not call for
first aid to help an injured person.

At 10:30 p.m., three hours after the tone appeared, police radio technicians
switched the department's frequency to a different channel. After 20 minutes,
the tone followed, O'Shea said. The channel switched again, but the tone did not
follow until hours later. At 3:15 a.m., technicians switched the channel again,
but the tone did not follow.

O'Shea said people visiting Mitra's roommate, a UW-Madison undergraduate
student, said Mitra left the apartment between 11 p.m. and about 2 a.m.

The tone did not disrupt frequencies on State St., according to a police report.
The night after Mitra's alleged crimes, a crowd of 5,000 erupted on State St. in
a melee that resulted in shattered storefront windows and no injuries.

Police radio technicians traced the source of the tone to N. Orchard St., where
Mitra lives, the report states.

Ten days later, on Nov. 11, police experienced another disruption to radio
frequencies. Audio clips of a woman moaning appeared on the frequencies 13 times
during a nearly three-hour span, according to police records. After the signals
were again traced to N. Orchard St., police obtained a search warrant for
Mitra's apartment.

On Mitra's computer, officials found a Motorola wiring harness that, O'Shea
said, is capable of transmitting radio frequencies. They also found papers
listing all Madison police radio frequencies and several computers.

After examining Mitra's computer, police found that a search for "sex sounds" on
an Internet search engine had been done on it at 4:50 p.m. Nov. 11., according
to the police report. An audio file entitled "2orgasm.wav" was downloaded and
first played at 5:05 p.m., according to the police report. The Madison emergency
radio system recorded the first interruption that day at 5:04 p.m.

In his attempt to have Mitra detained, O'Shea said the computer whiz was
mentally unstable and is a danger to other police radios. When Crocker asked the
prosecutor to provide evidence of mental illness, O'Shea read from a 1998
Journal Sentinel report in which Mitra said he "just wasn't thinking" when he
broke into the University of Iowa's computer system.

Van Wagner, in response, said, "I don't know that I ever relied on a media
report as evidence."
Crocker ordered Mitra to see a court-appointed psychologist upon his release.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/nov03/186750.asp

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