Who is Who ? The Next Election Hack ! Matthew Weaver, the arrogant and unteachable wannabe "Hacker", Sentenced to one Year Federal Prison for Rigging Campus Elections

Matthew Weaver, 22, resident of Huntington Beach, California, and a former candidate for student council president at California State University San Marcos, hoped to guarantee himself victory by rigging the 2012 Associated Students, Inc. election through cyber fraud, but, he ended up winning a year in prison instead. (ROFL)

Weaver was using a Keylogger to steal passwords and identities of nearly 750 fellow students. Then he cast votes for himself (as well of some supporters of him on the ballot) using those stolen names. He was caught during the final hour of the election in March 2012 when network administrators noticed unusual voting activity associated with one single CPU on the campus. A California State Police officer sent to investigate the suspicions, found Weaver working on that particular machine. He had casted more than 600 votes for himself using the stolen identities.

Matthew Weaver

“Some people wanted to paint this as a college prank gone bad, but he took the identities of almost 750 people, and that’s a serious thing,” said Special Agent Charles Chabalko, who worked the investigation out of the FBI San Diego Field Division after being contacted by California State Police authorities. “He had access to these students’ e-mails, financial information, and their social networks. He had access to everything.”
Weaver installed keyloggers (inexpensive devices easily purchased on the Internet) on 19 different campus computers. Those who used the machines were unaware that Weaver later retrieved every keystroke they made, enabling him to obtain their usernames and passwords and then gain access to all their information.

California State University San Marcos

When cyber investigator Chabalko and his partner, Special Agent Nick Arico, analyzed Weaver’s laptop after his arrest, they found a spreadsheet that included the names of all the people whose identities he had stolen. “He kept a detailed indept accounting,” Chabalko said. And that’s not all investigators found.

Weaver had made online searches that included topics such as “jail time for keylogger” and “how to rig an election.”

“He knew what he did was wrong,” Chabalko said. “And even after he was caught, he didn’t want to stand in to what he did. He tried to cover up his actions and blame his crime on other fellow students.”

The evidence against Weaver was simply overwhelming, however, he finally pled guilty in March 2013. At his sentencing, the federal judge who sent Weaver to prison noted that Weaver trying to frame others for his crime is “the phenomenal misjudgment I just can’t get around. That’s what bothers me more than the original rigging of the election.”

The investigators agreed, noting that while it was wrong for Weaver to try and steal the election, “what we were really concerned about was the privacy of those students whose identities he stole” Chabalko said. Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office felt the same way, writing in their sentencing memorandum, “Weaver determinedly and repeatedly spied on his classmates, stole their passwords, read their secrets, and usurped their votes—and he did it with his eyes wide open.” (like a child that does not want to acknowledge his wrongdoing ! If someone like that would come to power, then: GOD (PLEASE) BLESS AMERICA !)

Source: FBI, dailymail.co.uk, 10news.com