The lawyer of alleged Filipino hacker JJ Maria Giner has recently filed a motion to quash at a Manila Regional Trial Court, INQ7.net learned on Wednesday. Giner was involved in the attack of the government portal "gov.ph" and other government websites.

"The court has suspended the arraignment of Giner after his lawyer said he was filing a motion to quash," Ronaldo Alvaira, Senior Police Officer 4 of the Anti-Transnational Crime Division (ATCD) of the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG).

Judge Antonio Eugenio of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 24 has given Giner's lawyer 30 days to file his motion with the court, Alvaira said.

Judge Eugenio had ordered the arrest of Giner on January 24, 2005 for violating section 33a of the Electronic Commerce Law.

Giner was however able to post bail before he was arrested by the police. In a separate interview, Police Superintendent Gilbert Sosa of the Government Computer Security Incident Response Team (G-SIRT) said that there is now a hold-departure order issued for Giner, barring him from leaving the country.

Giner had paid 25,000 pesos (440 dollars) as bail for his temporary freedom. The Department of Justice had decided early this year that there was enough evidence to file charges against Giner.

A copy of the DoJ's resolution, obtained by INQ7.net, revealed that Giner admitted to hacking the government websites but indicated that he had no intention to "corrupt, alter, steal or destroy" files contained in the computer systems that were compromised.

The DoJ resolution indicated that Giner penetrated government websites of the National Economic and Development Authority, the National Book Development Board, the Philippine Navy, Dagupan City, as well as the web servers or computer systems hosting websites of the local Internet service provider Bitstop and UP Visayas Miagao in Iloilo.

Giner also launched attacks on the websites of the Office of the Presidential Management Staff in Malaca�ang, the Task Force on Security of Critical Infrastructure, the Professional Regulatory Board, the Department of Labor and Employment, and the Technical Educational and Skills and Development Authority, according to the DoJ resolution.

"It was discovered that the respondent attempted to penetrate the digital infrastructure of government agencies as well as private businesses. Several network infrastructure setups were first scanned by [Giner] for vulnerability exploits. Critical government infrastructure facilities were also probed. Allegedly, [Giner] listed all the possible attack scenarios and backdoor programs to penetrate the target systems," the resolution added.

In his counter-affidavit, Giner admitted to sending an e-mail to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), informing the agency about the vulnerability of its website to hackers. With this admission, he argued that if he had the intention of destroying or corrupting the system, he would not have informed the agency.

The suspected hacker denied launching a so-called "denial-of-service" attack on the Journal Group of Publications website that resulted in system overload of the computer system hosting it, his counter-affidavit said.

The DoJ resolution however said that Giner had clearly violated section 33a of the E-commerce Law (RA8792) because he was not authorized to access government websites. "Intention is not essential in this mode as mere unauthorized access is a violation of the law," the resolution said.

The DoJ resolution further revealed that Giner launched attacks in April 27, 2004 until May 7, 2004, three days before the country's national elections.

SOURCE