Alleged e-mail hacker arrested

Police arrested former Penn student Yale Zhang for alleged e-mail fraud. University Police arrested a Penn student yesterday for allegedly hacking into another student's e-mail account and sending threatening and harassing letters last spring. Yale Zhang, 20, who was a College sophomore last year, had confessed to the crime in April and was suspended from school for at least one semester, police said. Yesterday, after University Police told him his arrest was imminent, he turned himself in and was taken to the Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detectives bureau at 55th and Pine streets. He will be charged with 16 counts of unlawful use of a computer, harassment and ethnic intimidation, according to University Police Det. Frank DeMeo, who is investigating the case. Only the ethnic intimidation charge is a felony. Computer crimes are "serious," said University Police Det. Commander Tom King. "If you get caught, you're going to be arrested." Neither Zhang, who last year's Penn student directory lists as being from White Plains, N.Y., nor his family could be reached for comment. Zhang allegedly sent 19 vulgar and "extremely vitriolic" e-mails to three students, two male and one female, last April, King said. Police refused to cite specific examples from the threats. All the e-mails had the same return address, that of another Penn student who was friends with all three of the victims. With the help of Information Security Officer Dave Millar -- who is in charge of campus computer security -- detectives were able to pinpoint the on-campus computer from which the hacker sent the e-mails. From there, detectives interviewed witnesses and came up with a list of suspects. After being interviewed by detectives investigating the incidents, Zhang confessed in late April, leading to his suspension. But because the victims would be returning home for summer vacation, authorities decided not to charge Zhang until this week. Philadelphia Police officials refused to comment about Zhang specifically yesterday, but said that if he were arrested yesterday afternoon he would likely have remained in custody through the night. Computer crimes such as this one are "growing like weeds," DeMeo said. They are also getting increasingly complex, according to King. Law enforcement has always been "a step or two behind" electronic and computer crimes, King added. To combat the growing trend, though, University Police officials are working more with Penn computer experts and also getting their own training. DeMeo recently attended a Federal Bureau of Investigation electronic-crime training session and is currently investigating several alleged computer-related crimes.