Hacker seizes top secret US for missiles
Agence France Presse

Stockholm, Mar 3: An unidentified computer hacker has seized top secret US computer codes used for guiding missiles, satellites and spacecraft, according to press reports here.

Computer experts raided the offices of the Stockholm internet company Carbonide on February 6 and found a copy of the so-called "source codes" for the software programme os/comet stored on the company's internet server, the daily Expressen reported.

A person with access to the source codes can copy the os/comet programme to see how it is designed. The codes are the key to the programme, which is used by the US Navy and space administration NASA to guide numerous satellites, missiles and spacecraft.

Johan Starell, legal counsel in Sweden for the US company that developed the software, exigent software technology, told Expressen the hacker managed to infiltrate the computer system of the US naval research laboratory in Washington on Christmas eve from Kaiserslauten University in Germany.

The hacker then placed the codes on the Swedish company's server.

Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.