[3] According to an interview, his stage name is a combination of Yours Truly, a Kourier (delivery person) from the Neal Stephenson cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, and the hacker term Cracker, meaning someone who breaks into computer systems.

[5][6][7] In 1999, Case gained notoriety, media coverage, and a restitution bill for defacing the web site of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center with a modified frontend for a commonly used msadc.pl exploit.

[8] Other United States government websites that were hacked include the Bureau of Land Management's national training center and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

[9] At least 40 other websites were tampered with by Case, including Airspace USA, the bank Altamira, Nissan Motors, Honda, the monitoring station for the United States Geological Survey and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

[10] In May 2000 Case was charged with criminal mischief and computer crime for breaking into the Colorado Springs city website, causing an estimated $25,000 in damages, though all $25,000 are costs of "time lost" to users.