2003 - Madison, WI

Beginning in January Rajib Mitra began jamming Madison Police radio frequencies. Mobile units experienced occasional “no signal” conditions. On Halloween, the condition went citywide as a powerful signal prevented all of the communication towers from working and the City was unable to coordinate public safety efforts that day.

On November 11, the attacker changed tactics, and instead of blocking use of the system, it sent signals directing the base station to keep channels open, and at the end of each communication appended a sound, such as a woman’s sexual moan.

The City identified the source of the intruding signals and arrested Mitra, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin who held a BS degree in computer science. A jury convicted Mitra of two counts of intentional interference with computer-related systems and he spent eight years in federal prison

Apr 28-29, 2011 - Madison, WI

Mitra was again sentenced to prison, this time 6-1/2 years, for possessing child pornography. The pornography was found on a computer seized during the jamming investigation. The 24 year old had nude pictures of his then-16-year-old girlfriend. The pictures were so strongly encrypted that police were unable to decipher them until years later.

The day after Mitra was sentenced he hung himself in the Dane County Jail, tying a ligature to an overhead mechanical pipe in the closet.



Rajib K. Mitra (33) -

Dane County 09CF2025

United States v. Mitra ~ Computer Crime