From Prisoner to Entrepreneur.THEY SAY INCARCERATION Confinement in a jail or prison; imprisonment. Police officers and other law enforcement officers are authorized by federal, state, and local lawmakers to arrest and confine persons suspected of crimes. The judicial system is authorized to confine persons convicted of crimes. gives a man time to think. In the case of Gregory Evans, 32, now CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of the Cyber Group Network (CGN CGN Compagnie Générale de Navigation (sur le Lac Léman; French, cruise companie on Lake Geneva, Switzerland) CGN Cancer Genetics Network CGN Guided Missile Cruiser (Nuclear Propulsion) CGN Cyber Gaming Network ), jail gave him time to hatch a business plan. In November 1998, Evans was arrested for hacking into the computers of AT&T, MCI (1) (Media Control Interface) A high-level programming interface from Microsoft and IBM for controlling multimedia devices. It provides commands and functions to open, play and close the device. (2) (Microwave Communications Inc. , Sprint, WorldCom and ATX. A whistleblower notified the FBI he was billing millions of dollars worth of Internet access fees to fake toll-free accounts he set up while employed by Franklin Telecom, a telecom equipment and services provider. Evans, whose adventures in hacking began when the father of a fellow high school student caught him altering report cards and hired him to break into the computers of a rival law firm, was confined to the Metropolitan Detention Center "Metropolitan Dentention Center" refers to a series of federal detention facilities (prisons) located throughout the United States. They are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. in downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or for 16 months while he awaited trial on two charges. (Evans was also charged, in a separate case, with high-tech grand theft for digitally diverting $300,000 worth of pagers from their manufacturer.) "In high school I wrote a paper on how I wanted to be the president of AT&T after I graduated," Evans recalls. "Little did I know that years later, I'd be indicted INDICTED, practice. When a man is accused by a bill of indictment preferred by a grand jury, he is said to be indicted. for ripping off the company." While in jail, Evans encountered a trove of tarnished business talent in the form of fallen lawyers, CPAs, and executives. Their counsel helped him launch CGN, a provider of computer security software and anti-surveillance products in San Bernardino, CA, with revenues of $10 million. Evans took CGN public in May 2000 on an over-the-counter market. The company now has 65 employees and over 2,000 shareholders. Its clients include Senedyne and Strategic Security Guard Service. Evans hopes to clear $100 million in sales next year. Still on probation, Evans is required to repay $9.8 million in restitution and to disclose his criminal record to business associates. Far from harming his credibility as a CEO, Evans finds his history as a hacker helps him get business. "If you want to see if your computer is vulnerable to hackers, who are you going to hire?" he asks. "Someone who learned everything from textbooks, or someone who's broken into some of the biggest corporations in the world?" Sandy Kemper, founder and CEO of online banking services firm eScout and former chairman and CEO of UMB Bank. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion