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Airport News, "Former FAA engineer indicted in O'Hare code theft"
Thursday, October 21, 1999
Former FAA engineer indicted in O'Hare code theft
Associated Press
CHICAGO (October 21, 1999) - A former Federal Aviation Administration
engineer has been charged with stealing the only copy of a computer code for
software used to direct jetliners at O'Hare International Airport.
A federal grand jury on Wednesday charged Thomas Varlotta, 42, of suburban
Tinley Park with damaging and stealing government property. He faces up to
25 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Varlotta erased the code in 1988 from a computer hard
drive, then quit the next day. The code was later recovered in a search of
his home, although it had been encrypted and required six months to
unscramble, they said.
The code was necessary to fix any glitches in the Automated Flight Data
Processing System, which electronically transfers flight information about
arriving and departing aircraft from O'Hare to the Terminal Radar Approach
and Control facility in Elgin. The Elgin facility directs air traffic within
30 miles of the airport.
Varlotta's actions didn't endanger the safety of airline passengers,
authorities said. But without the code, any breakdown in the data system
could have forced controllers at O'Hare and Elgin to trade flight
information by telephone.
"It's an efficiency issue, not a safety issue," said FAA spokesman Tony
Molinaro.
Varlotta did not return a telephone message left Thursday at his home. But
last week, he denied stealing the software.
"The FAA has the code and they always had the code," he said.
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