Statement of Facts

1. Beginning January 31, 1995, and continuing until the present time, University of Washington employees: Oren W. Etzioni, Ronald A. Johnson, Edward D. Lazowska, Sandra S. Moy, James D. Nason, and Carol S. Niccolls, aided and abetted by others both known and unknown, carried out several schemes to defraud Paul Trummel (the Complainant), and to obtain his intellectual property by means of false pretenses, representation, and promises, by:

(a) obtaining unauthorized access to databases on the University of Washington computers containing intellectual property belonging to the Complainant;

(b) obtaining unauthorized access to other computers belonging to the Complainant;

(c) stealing, copying, and misappropriating the Complainant's proprietary intellectual property defined as computer programs, also academic and journalistic databases.

(d) obtaining unauthorized access to computers belonging to an Internet service provider and a telephone company.

2. The Internet Service Providers and Educational Institutions involved:

(a) Northwest Link (NWL), an Internet Service Provider (ISP) headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. For a fee, NWL provides customers with computer user accounts that customers may use to access other computer systems on the Internet.

(b) US West (USW), a telephone company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. For a fee, USW provides customers with telephone services suitable for transmitting data using a computer, a telephone line, and a computer "modem" (a device that allows computers to communicate over telephone lines). This allows their customers to access other computer systems on the Internet.

(c) The University of Washington (UW), an educational institution located in Seattle, Washington. For a fee, UW provides students with computer user accounts that they may use to access other computer systems on the Internet using their own computers and commercial ISP accounts. UW also owns, maintains, and operates a number of computers for the authorized use of UW faculty, students, contractors, administrators and other authorized personnel and provides Internet access to authorized users.

3. During the time relevant to this complaint, the Complainant developed computer software, academic research, and investigative journalism data, that he maintained as highly confidential proprietary information. This proprietary information, communications, and computer software he lawfully stored in computers belonging to the University of Washington, Northwest Link, and on computers owned by him.

4. In order to circumvent computer security measures employed by the Complainant to safeguard his proprietary computer software and databases, the individuals named above needed to obtain user account information and corresponding passwords for the UW computers, the ISP computers, and the computers belonging to the Complainant. Then they could access these computers as part of the scheme to obtain his proprietary software and databases also to damage or destroy them.

5. The individuals named in this complaint, aided and abetted by others both known and unknown:

(a) used their state and federally funded positions with UW to access confidential records and obtained confidential computer user accounts and corresponding secret passwords on the University computers;

(b) aided and abetted by others known and unknown, used a variety of electronic mail techniques to obtain other user account information and corresponding passwords;

(c) intercepted and read private electronic mail (email) communications containing confidential, private, and personal information.

(d) used fraudulently obtained user account numbers and corresponding passwords to gain unauthorized access to the Complainant's computers and to computers belonging to Internet service providers, telephone companies, and educational institutions.

(e) concealed their identity, and to further avoid detection, some of them used "clone" telephones, computer modems, and Internet connections to access the Complainant's computers, databases, and Internet service provider;

(f) obtained initial unauthorized access to the Complainant's university accounts and computers then fraudulently obtained user accounts and passwords to circumvent security measures installed on the Complainant's computers. By this they prevented him from regularly using the equipment and accessing information stored in protected parts of the computer systems or in other authorized user accounts. Specifically, they ran unauthorized computer "hacking" programs on the computers of the Internet service provider and the University of Washington and altered or replaced the existing legitimate programs installed on the Complainant's computers. They circumvented computer security to obtain unrestricted access to the Complainant's user accounts, confidential information, and email stored on the Complainant's computers and in his authorized university accounts.

(g) disabled computer logs that ordinarily provide a record of the dates and times when a computer is accessed; and

(h) made unauthorized entries into computer systems invisible to computer department personnel responsible for maintaining and securing those computers.

(i) used University of Washington computers to store misappropriated and stolen proprietary databases and intellectual property belonging to the Complainant.

6. In the State of Washington and elsewhere, the named individuals aided and abetted by others known and unknown, for the purpose of executing the scheme described above to commit fraud and to obtain property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises, caused the following transmissions by wire communication in interstate and foreign commerce:

(a) used computers located outside Washington, knowingly, and without authorization, altered, damaged and destroyed information contained in, and prevented authorized use of, the Complainants's computers.

(b) In altering, damaging, and destroying information contained in, and preventing authorized use of, the Complainant's computers and databases caused losses to the Complainant aggregating at least $5,000 in value during any 1-year period.

Respondents

Oren W Etzioni
Associate Professor, Computer Science & Engineering
209 Sieg Hall
University of Washington
Box 352350
Seattle, WA 98195-2350

Telephone: 206 685 3035
Fax: 206 543 2969
Email: etzioni@cs.washington.edu

Ronald A Johnson
Vice President, Computing and Communications
240 Gerberding Hall
University of Washington
Box 351208
Seattle, WA 98195-1208

Telephone: 206 543 8252
Fax: 206 543 4641
Email: ronj@cac.washington.edu

Edward D Lazowska
Professor and Chair, Computer Science and Engineering
114 Sieg Hall
University of Washington
Box 352350
Seattle, WA 98195-2350

Telephone: 206 543 4755, 206 543 1695
Fax: 206 543 2969
Email: lazowska@cs.washington.edu

Sandra S Moy
Director, University Computing Services
Computing and Communications
4545 15th Ave NE, Room 112
University of Washington
Box 354842
Seattle, WA 98195-4842

Telephone: 206 543 4563
Fax: 206 685 4054
Email: sandy@cac.washington.edu

James D Nason
Professor, Anthropology
University of Washington
Box 353010
Seattle, WA 98195-3010

Telephone: 206 543 9680
Fax: 206 685 3039
Email: jnason@u.washington.edu

Carol S Niccolls
Executive Assistant to the President
Office of the President
302 Gerberding Hall
University of Washington
Box 351230
Seattle, WA 98195-1230

Telephone: 206 543 3083, 206 543 5010
Fax: 206 616 1784
Email: csn@u.washington.edu

Complainant

Paul Trummel
PO Box 1854
Renton, WA 98057-1854

Telephone; 206 568 3137
Fax: 206 568 3137
Email: trummel+contracabal.org