The Canadian Press
LONDON, Ont.—A judge has agreed to lift a travel ban imposed on a London, Ont. university student who pleaded guilty to mischief in connection to a major data breach at the Canada Revenue Agency in 2014.
The London Free Press reported yesterday that Stephen Solis-Reyes, 21, who has been called the Heartbleed hacker, will be allowed to leave the country in September to compete in a computer programming competition in San Francisco.
The London judge told the computer whiz in court yesterday the move is “exceedingly exceptional.”
“It means a lot, for sure,” Solis-Reyes told the newspaper outside the courthouse.
“I think he [the judge] is expecting big things from me,” he added.
“He’s expecting what I do in this competition is going to help society and help me in the future.”
The Western University student was invited to the competition in San Francisco after he was named as one of the 10 finalists in an international, IBM-sponsored computer programming competition, called Mastering the Mainframe, that drew 15,000 entries worldwide.
If he finishes in the top two places in San Francisco, he will go to Las Vegas for two more days, the Free Press reported.
Solis-Reyes was convicted in May of four charges after he was able to steal 900 social insurance numbers from Canada Revenue Agency files.
He said at the time he wanted to illustrate online vulnerability to the Heartbleed computer bug.
The agency’s website was shutdown for four days after the security breach and prompted the CRA to extend Canada’s tax-filing deadline.
