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Game Over for Hackers
Betty Conkling loves to win, especially when her competitors are Internet hackers.
A former student-athlete who competed in three sports (volleyball, basketball, softball), Conkling (B.S. '79) spent more than a decade working for the U.S. Secret Service. Her Manhattan office investigated some of the nation's most notorious Internet hackers.
In 1992, her team broke up a hacker ring known as MOD (short for either "Masters of Destruction" or "Masters of Deception"). The case made international headlines and remains one of the most well-known victories against the mysterious hacker underworld. According to court documents, MOD members infiltrated computer networks operated by Southwestern Bell, the University of Washington, U.S. West and a missile research firm. Southwestern Bell, for one, suffered $370,000 in damages and repair costs, according to
court documents.
Conkling managed press relations for key investigators who cracked the case, which was the first to involve court-authorized wiretaps that tracked conversations and data transmissions of computer hackers.
Though she recently retired from the Secret Service, Conkling has launched a business and stays in touch with NYIT's Department of Athletics. Just don't ask us for her phone number: It's unlisted.
Hackers, after all, often hold grudges.
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